I LOVE bats, even though because of one I had to get the whole rabies prophylaxis done.
A bat was in the house one evening and flying about. This is a no biggie for me, so I went about opening windows so it could echolocate its way out. Well, after I got a few windows open, the bat must've decided it was tired of flying in circles or something, because it landed...on ME! My instant reaction (and not even a frightened one) was to brush it off, which resulted in tiny teeth chomping on a finger. Hindsight, I should have kept still and walked outside. After it bit me, it launched into the air and went strait out a window!
The awesome nurse gals at the ER were all a twitter (it was a slow ER day, yay for me) when I went in to get the HRIG and the first rabies vaccine I needed. HRIG is the consistency of cold syrup, and not only must be injected into a large muscle group (such as the thigh), but it also has to be injected at the site of the wound. So my hand got injected with it, and boy that wasn't fun! The nurse who did it was shocked at how cool and collected I stayed (even though I was yelling in my head OW OW OW OW OW OW OW!!!!!!) and told me she'd likely have been a horrible patient if in my shoes!
Oh well, at least I'm vaccinated against rabies now! I got a total of five vaccinations (one on day of exposure, one four days later, one a week later, and one two weeks later, one a month later) during the course of the post exposure package. Now if I am ever exposed, all I have to do is get a single rabies vaccination booster, a simple deltoid injection, rather than HRIG and the whole series.
