Kiwi living in the US. Been there (squirrel/rabies) and it sucks. My son managed to catch a squirrel once upon a time, and it bit him (definitely in the 'provoked' basket). One ER visit later, we were told squirrel-human transmission is very low, no shot required. At time of writing, my son is still alive, several years later. This is good because he was here to survive the bat scare. Just a couple if months ago, we found a bat in our bonus room. Tried for days to find someone who could do the injections for a sensible price. Nada. Our risk of being bitten in our sleep? Very low. Chances of dying if we were bitten? 100%.
So $10K later... 4 people with an ER visit each and 3 injection visits, we have maxed out our deductible, and 10K has gone directly into some millionaire's pocket. 10K we could have done a bunch of stuff with in the coming year.
There's a quote from Gladiator, right at the start:
"People should know when they are conquered". That's the US in a nutshell. They have no idea how conquered they are. You could literally tell them "I'm going to reduce your insurance costs by 80% and you will never need to pay more than a few hundred dollars a year for medical care, but you'll need to pay a bit more tax" and they would gnash their teeth and scream 'Communism'.
Ughhhh. Hi, fellow kiwi. $10k is nuts, but also your only option. This story resonates hard!
Early on in Flightless Bird we did a Healthcare episode - and I chatted to Luke from Welcome to Hellworld (he documents the madness of American healthcare, and the police here) and he noted a similar thing: universal healthcare is seen as communism. And so nothing changes!
$10,000 later....
(but hey - you're all alive - and that is the main thing)
So sorry to read this story, David. I wish you well on your journey through the outrageous cost of medical care in the US! Hells, bells, $350/month just for health insurance! WOW!
This is just incredible. I just dropped you an email as would love to discuss this further. This whole US health insurance / rabies rabbit hole has Flightless Bird written all over it! I have to justify these upcoming bills in some way or I'll lose my mind!
You have just made me feel incredibly thankful to be and American-raised Kiwi, living and now a new citizen of NZ. I remember going to the ER at San Fran General for an injury to my leg, and having to wait for hours and hours to be see, due to the fact that I was a student with no medical insurance at the time. The shame of it all was something. I often hear the cries of "Communism" these days as I Skype with my Trumpster younger brother, who believes that Jacinda Ardern is a dictator, and a communist, as well as a cocaine addict! The American attitude to Public Health is something to behold! I'll never return to the US to live, and haven't visited there since 1996.
The crazy thing is that the US taxpayer already pays more for their healthcare system VIA THE TAX SYSTEM than most OECD countries. And that's before you take into account insurance premiums, deductibles, copayments, etc etc. It is completely bonkers.
This graph (5th one down) demonstrates it nicely. https://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/graph-of-the-month.htm The OECD also notes that of all the OECD member states, only in the United States does voluntary health insurance and private funding such as households’ out-of-pocket payments account for more than 50% of the total.
Makes no sense unless you are an insurance company or health provider.
Oh David! What an adventure lol. I’m from Canada and in my experience our healthcare system is amazing. I was born in the 80s with a congenital heart condition called Tetrology of Fallot. Basically I had a hole in my heart. I had surgery at 11 months and then full open heart surgery at 3. Then had a kidney taken out at 4. Ive had regular checkups since then and received a pacemaker at age 26. I’ve had one replacement since then. At almost 40 I’ve never paid for any of it. My only expenses are the gas and travel to Toronto for checkups twice a year. I’ve received world class healthcare for basically nothing but my taxes. I love our healthcare system but there are definitely improvements needed after the pandemic. If I lived in the US I’d be dead or broke, or both!
That is fucking remarkable and can I just say GO CANADA!
We have a similar public health system in Aotearoa, New Zealand - which has its flaws, but it also pretty fucking amazing when compared to this insane, lumbering beast called the US.
Really happy to hear your story. Open heart surgery at 3. That's a lot.
Luckily I was so young I don't remember any of it. My parents had to go through some rough times though. I do have a badass scar down the middle of my chest which is a good reminder.
Getting my pacemaker was pretty real for me though. I was getting ready for work and passed out while shaving. Got rushed to the ER and then rushed in an ambulance to Toronto for emergency surgery. Apparently it's common for congenital heart patients to get pacers later in life. It's normal to me now!
Fellow Canadian with multiple health issues and a cancer survivor. So appreciative of our healthcare system. I do pay for prescriptions, but when I haven’t had insurance for that I was poor enough I didn’t pay much for them. But that’s it. There’s room for improvement, it’s not perfect. But I really appreciate never having to worry if I can afford it before I seek medical care.
Wow, cancer survivor! I'm so glad you're alright. thats tough for anyone to go through.
I hear a lot of people complain about our healthcare system but I would be dead without it so I'm very appreciative of it as well, even with all these idiot Premiers underfunding it lol.
Years ago, my husband was bitten by a bat that had made its way into the cab of the truck he was driving. Yep...ER visit and subsequent return visits to get multiple shots. Not fun!
Here is another hack I would suggest, when you get the bill from the hospital (note: there will be one from the hospital, another from the doctor, and potentially another one...from somewhere. It's confusing, I know) apply for financial aid from the hospital. You never know if they will give you a discount or something. It's worth checking. Also, they can't put you into collections if you are making payments, even if it takes you years to pay it off. If you set up the payment plan with the hospital, it will be interest free, so DON'T put it on a credit card where you have interest that will accrue. If you have other questions, feel free to reach out to me. I am actually pretty good with this stuff.
One more thing, for your return visits, see if you can schedule them without having to wait in the ER. Waiting 4 times sounds ridiculous for a shot! Good luck!
Thanks for the tip. I have always feared having to go to the ER - and with one small bite, I now have to go a total of four times. At least it's not my ambulance: small blessings. Those things are EXPENSIVE in America!
Also, returns may be classified as a "follow-up" on the original visit rather than a completely new visit, so that may be able to save you the individual co-pay. I don't know how they would classify, and I'd bet they'll try to get additional per-visit fees from you anyway.
This is a good point. Many procedure codes have what they call a global time period where subsequent visits are included in the original bill. Surgeries for instance usually have a 90-day window afterward where post-op visits are part of original charge. Rabies treatment could include something similar. 🤞
One of my favorite experiences as an expat occurred a couple of months ago at the wee hospital in Rarotonga. I needed lab tests done for immigration documents, a pretty full work up. The phlebotomist cheerfully took three vials of blood from me, and then advised me that I’d have to go to the clinic in town to pay for the service as they were remodeling the administrative office at the hospital and all the money stuff was being handled at the clinic. She apologized because I would have to pay cash, since the EFTPOS system was offline during construction.
No problem, I said.
She left the room, and I sat waiting patiently for her to return with the paperwork for me to present to billing. She finally peaked her head in about ten minutes later. She was surprised I was still there.
“Are you ok, my darling?”
(I absolutely melt at the pervasive affection of the Cook Islands.)
“Oh yes - I was just waiting for my paperwork. I mean...I don’t know how much it is for all those tests, but I probably need to stop at the ATM.”
She smiled at me kindly.
“So you want a paper to take with you, my darling?”
“Yes please.”
She disappeared again, then returned moments later and handed me a pink post-it note.
As someone who has also attempted to pet a squirrel (despite growing up with them) and was only stopped by a friend who was with me going "what the hell do you think you're doing?" AND as someone who had to go to the ER due to a cat bite, I feel your pain. How dare they be so adorable?
I'm American but I've lived all over the globe and truly the way this country has trained us to not go to the doctor is the worst. I severely sprained my ankle when I was living in London while I was out with friends and told them I'd be fine to go to work the next day. One of them had to go "Molly, you're in England, not America. Go to the fucking gp" to get me to finally go. Nevermind the whole "insurance tied to your job" thing aka the only reason I'm still at my day job. ~~it's the worst~~
I'm glad you're doing alright. I'm sorry the squirrel was not your friend.
Massive schadenfruede over here with fits of giggles. Sorry the wee fella didn’t turn out to be Chip to your Dale. The adventures you could have had! Privileged to live in Canada with free access to healthcare. Visits and shots would be completely free and relatively easy to access. Seeing specialists can take months or years which is where we see some pretty negative balances here , but all that said - nobody should have to choose btwn rent or avoiding horrific death by rabies. Or potential squirrel friendships (high risk high reward !)
Oh dear, you have my utmost sympathy - really, because the same thing happened to me in Stanley Park in Vancouver about 40 years ago. I was, alas, an idiot New Zealander who fed the cute squirrel a piece of coconut strip and it kept right on eating, into my finger, which bled like hell. The concierge at our hotel spoke several languages. none of which was English, and offered me a bottle of cough mixture when I pleaded for disinfectant. At the time I had no idea squirrels could carry rabies, and it was two weeks later (past the time when a rabies shot could be administered) when someone blithely said "Oh, they're often rabid, you know!". The cold terror that crept through me is something I have never forgotten, especially since I already knew that symptoms could take up to a year to appear. In desperation I ended up calling the Canadian wildlife service, or something equivalent to that, and was told by a very kind and patient field officer that squirrels in Stanley Park were very unlikely to be rabid and not to worry. I worried, nonetheless, at intervals over the next two years. I was lucky - my squirrel was just a normal squirrel - a rodent, who had sharp teeth and couldn't distinguish the end of the food from the beginning of the feeder. Moral: never, ever, get near a squirrel!
My initial knowledge of Rabies came from an episode of M.A.S.H. when Radar was bitten by a dog and they spent the episode trying to find the dog to test it for Rabies as apparently Radar’s treatment involved lots of painful injections for ever&ever, amen. Fortunately upon finding the dog, it tested Rabies free. Walking in the Sierra Nevada in ‘18 the Squirrels were touted as carrying Bubonic Plague. Every time I saw a Squirrel I said “ohhh, a disease vector” which was probably every bit as annoying to my hiking buddies as it sounds. Although they did have to ask for my meaning about the 3rd or 4th time I loudly proclaimed it.
You're able to avoid the rabies shots if the animal in question can be observed which is what they were trying to do, but that doesn't work when the animal isn't available for observation. I had a coworker that had to go through the shot series a number of years back, but I don't know anything more about it.
for domestic animals, the protocol is either euthanasia and sending the head to the health dept, OR, ten day rabies hold.
essentially, if you’re attacking folks because you have rabies, it will kill you before the ten days is up. so if the animal is still kicking, and not showing symptoms, you’re good.
i have never heard of this being done with wildlife tho.
(i am a registered veterinary technician in the US, have had to prep many heads for rabies tests 🫠)
Glad you got the shots, despite the horrible cost. I’ve always been very fond of squirrels - despite them really being rats with fancy tails and good PR. I was given a moth-eaten taxidermied red one by an ancient Chelsea Pensioner at the age of three nearly 60 years ago. ‘George’ went everywhere with me - even though he was hard to cuddle due to being nailed to a wooden plinth with one foot poised on a well varnished pine cone. When I emigrated to NZ, aged 46, George came too, even though by then his ears and several patches of fur had fallen off. NZ biosecurity imposed further indignities by ripping his pine cone off (because we don’t already have many invasive pine trees in NZ - chortle), taking that paw with it and charging me $200 for the privilege. Then he finally came to live in our NZ home and the new puppy scaled the couch, got into the shelf and reduced him to many small ginger bits.
I stood on a rusty screw in the garden last week and did the same on Tetanus, Wikipedia, pictures of the disease, did I really need to go to the doctor? I'm in NZ, there's little cost$ but still the time, waiting and explaining your mistake.
My husband made me a call the local doctor and they were so kind, got me in straight away, the nurse gave me my booster. Tbh it was so much easier than getting a 'wellness' appointment.
Welcome to the wonderful thing that is the American healthcare system. /sarcasm.
Right now I have really good healthcare, I’ve got a PPO, so I can choose whichever healthcare professional I want to go to. The organization I work for pays the vast majority of my health insurance, so I pay about $80/month.
But before that, for about a year I was using Covered California (aka Obamacare) for my health insurance. I contracted shingles, though at the time I didn’t know that’s what it was. I thought I had MRSA or something like that. For a couple of days I put off going to the doctor because I was hoping the rash would go away on its own. It didn’t. Instead it the rash started going in the direction of the one place no one wants a rash to go to. That’s when I called the doctor. That’s when I was told there were no openings for several days.
So instead I went to Hollywood Urgent Care on Melrose. Best doctor I have ever been to, bar none, and I still go there if I have to. He took one look at me and said, “Shingles, and we have to treat this very aggressively.”
$130 for the visit, and $20 for the antivirals and antibiotics (the painkillers I had to get elsewhere). Because the doctor was aggressive in treating the shingles, I healed completely with no neuropathy. And the rash stopped dead in its tracks, never going to the place that I didn’t want it to go to.
On a separate note, a friend of mine has this term “septic masculinity”. We know what “toxic masculinity” is, but septic masculinity is when dudes think that what they’re suffering from isn’t that bad and they don’t need to see the doctor, even if they’re bleeding from their eyeballs. Then the dude winds up in the hospital suffering from sepsis because he was too stubborn to go to the doctor when he should have.
My plan was to go to Urgent Care - including Hollywood, which IS awesome - but alas - no vaccine for rabies! There goes my $100 option out of the window!
I should add that had I gone to the ER for the shingles it would have cost at least $1k and I don’t know how much insurance would have covered it. Regular doctor would also have been very expensive.
This made me laugh. Hard. Multiple times. I'm sure karma will now send a plague of rabid biting squirrels my way and when it does you'll be the first to know.
And if it makes you feel better I may well have had the same response to a squirrel. I mean we're from NZ where the only thing that might kill you in the wild is the wild itself.
Something worse happened to me when I was traveling once. I was in South India at the beach. I saw two red flags and in NZ you swim between the flags as that's the safe place and monitored by lifeguards. So I merrily swam before realising I was further from the shore than I liked. I tried to swim back in - doggy paddling for some absurd reason - then realised I was getting pulled out still. At that point I signaled to the lifeguards, the international signal for 'help'. I could see them looking at me from the shore but making no move to rescue me. I was getting tired by now and knew it was all over unless someone would help (yep, I know swim sideways to get out of the rip I was in but in this kind of situation logic can fly out the window) then another swimmer came over to me and that was enough to prompt the lifeguards to finally get off their arses. Back on shore I found out in India the red flags are where you SHOULDN'T swim, the opposite of NZ. I asked why they hadn't come out when they knew I was in a rip and was signaling for help. 'Oh we thought you were waving to your husband madam'. So they assumed I had a husband and that the international signal for 'help' was a wave. Did make me realise how we have a certain amount of conditioning from where we grew up and that even normal things while traveling can be bloody dangerous as a result!
On another note we've had an interesting conspiracy related phenomenon in our neighbourhood this week...a family of anti vaxxers storming the neighbourhood with a megaphone blasting anyone doing construction work on their property. It seems 'noise' is their issue. They've been abusing and intimidating people and on at least one occasion threatening to come back and kill someone. WTF. Their behaviour is typical of the parliament protest we had in NZ - violent, aggressive, entitled, misinformed. Are we going to now start seeing anti vaxxer terrorist cell groups in a neighbourhood near you? I'm starting to wonder if this might be a natural offshoot of the behaviour of that group...
And I almost forgot about the time in Cambodia I was walking across a road and a motorcyclist was coming towards me. Of course in NZ we stop and let them pass. In Cambodia they expect you to keep walking and they'll weave around you. Needless to say me stopping was enough for him to run over me. Luckily all I got from the experience was a massive bruise. So a squirrel nip is no doubt now looking like getting off from the OE experience very lightly! 😀
Oh yeah you gotta just keep moving when crossing roads in Seth East Asia and Africa. Find a local and weave through the traffic with them. If you stop or hesitate you’re screwed. Glad you only got a bruise!
It costs a lot to discover you are a Disney villian
Sorry but I just wheeze laughed at this comment
Kiwi living in the US. Been there (squirrel/rabies) and it sucks. My son managed to catch a squirrel once upon a time, and it bit him (definitely in the 'provoked' basket). One ER visit later, we were told squirrel-human transmission is very low, no shot required. At time of writing, my son is still alive, several years later. This is good because he was here to survive the bat scare. Just a couple if months ago, we found a bat in our bonus room. Tried for days to find someone who could do the injections for a sensible price. Nada. Our risk of being bitten in our sleep? Very low. Chances of dying if we were bitten? 100%.
So $10K later... 4 people with an ER visit each and 3 injection visits, we have maxed out our deductible, and 10K has gone directly into some millionaire's pocket. 10K we could have done a bunch of stuff with in the coming year.
There's a quote from Gladiator, right at the start:
"People should know when they are conquered". That's the US in a nutshell. They have no idea how conquered they are. You could literally tell them "I'm going to reduce your insurance costs by 80% and you will never need to pay more than a few hundred dollars a year for medical care, but you'll need to pay a bit more tax" and they would gnash their teeth and scream 'Communism'.
Rant over! Stay well!
Ughhhh. Hi, fellow kiwi. $10k is nuts, but also your only option. This story resonates hard!
Early on in Flightless Bird we did a Healthcare episode - and I chatted to Luke from Welcome to Hellworld (he documents the madness of American healthcare, and the police here) and he noted a similar thing: universal healthcare is seen as communism. And so nothing changes!
$10,000 later....
(but hey - you're all alive - and that is the main thing)
So sorry to read this story, David. I wish you well on your journey through the outrageous cost of medical care in the US! Hells, bells, $350/month just for health insurance! WOW!
This is just incredible. I just dropped you an email as would love to discuss this further. This whole US health insurance / rabies rabbit hole has Flightless Bird written all over it! I have to justify these upcoming bills in some way or I'll lose my mind!
You have just made me feel incredibly thankful to be and American-raised Kiwi, living and now a new citizen of NZ. I remember going to the ER at San Fran General for an injury to my leg, and having to wait for hours and hours to be see, due to the fact that I was a student with no medical insurance at the time. The shame of it all was something. I often hear the cries of "Communism" these days as I Skype with my Trumpster younger brother, who believes that Jacinda Ardern is a dictator, and a communist, as well as a cocaine addict! The American attitude to Public Health is something to behold! I'll never return to the US to live, and haven't visited there since 1996.
I feel your "bonus room" is entirely mis-named... 😮💨
A real estate agent would say "Here's the bonus room, and yes, the bonus is rabies!"
So...you all got bitten by the bat? Or do you need vaccinations just for being in close proximity?
The crazy thing is that the US taxpayer already pays more for their healthcare system VIA THE TAX SYSTEM than most OECD countries. And that's before you take into account insurance premiums, deductibles, copayments, etc etc. It is completely bonkers.
This graph (5th one down) demonstrates it nicely. https://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/graph-of-the-month.htm The OECD also notes that of all the OECD member states, only in the United States does voluntary health insurance and private funding such as households’ out-of-pocket payments account for more than 50% of the total.
Makes no sense unless you are an insurance company or health provider.
Oh David! What an adventure lol. I’m from Canada and in my experience our healthcare system is amazing. I was born in the 80s with a congenital heart condition called Tetrology of Fallot. Basically I had a hole in my heart. I had surgery at 11 months and then full open heart surgery at 3. Then had a kidney taken out at 4. Ive had regular checkups since then and received a pacemaker at age 26. I’ve had one replacement since then. At almost 40 I’ve never paid for any of it. My only expenses are the gas and travel to Toronto for checkups twice a year. I’ve received world class healthcare for basically nothing but my taxes. I love our healthcare system but there are definitely improvements needed after the pandemic. If I lived in the US I’d be dead or broke, or both!
That is fucking remarkable and can I just say GO CANADA!
We have a similar public health system in Aotearoa, New Zealand - which has its flaws, but it also pretty fucking amazing when compared to this insane, lumbering beast called the US.
Really happy to hear your story. Open heart surgery at 3. That's a lot.
Beware of Canada, they are a bunch of red flag waving commiestrying to spread revolution to the land of the free.
Wish they'd do a better job of it.
Haha, so typical of the Yank attitude!
This is 100% true.
Luckily I was so young I don't remember any of it. My parents had to go through some rough times though. I do have a badass scar down the middle of my chest which is a good reminder.
Getting my pacemaker was pretty real for me though. I was getting ready for work and passed out while shaving. Got rushed to the ER and then rushed in an ambulance to Toronto for emergency surgery. Apparently it's common for congenital heart patients to get pacers later in life. It's normal to me now!
Fellow Canadian with multiple health issues and a cancer survivor. So appreciative of our healthcare system. I do pay for prescriptions, but when I haven’t had insurance for that I was poor enough I didn’t pay much for them. But that’s it. There’s room for improvement, it’s not perfect. But I really appreciate never having to worry if I can afford it before I seek medical care.
We pay $5 per item for prescriptions in NZ, up to a certain number per year, then they're free.
Wow, cancer survivor! I'm so glad you're alright. thats tough for anyone to go through.
I hear a lot of people complain about our healthcare system but I would be dead without it so I'm very appreciative of it as well, even with all these idiot Premiers underfunding it lol.
Glad to hear you're surviving footrot flats
Years ago, my husband was bitten by a bat that had made its way into the cab of the truck he was driving. Yep...ER visit and subsequent return visits to get multiple shots. Not fun!
Here is another hack I would suggest, when you get the bill from the hospital (note: there will be one from the hospital, another from the doctor, and potentially another one...from somewhere. It's confusing, I know) apply for financial aid from the hospital. You never know if they will give you a discount or something. It's worth checking. Also, they can't put you into collections if you are making payments, even if it takes you years to pay it off. If you set up the payment plan with the hospital, it will be interest free, so DON'T put it on a credit card where you have interest that will accrue. If you have other questions, feel free to reach out to me. I am actually pretty good with this stuff.
One more thing, for your return visits, see if you can schedule them without having to wait in the ER. Waiting 4 times sounds ridiculous for a shot! Good luck!
Thanks for the tip. I have always feared having to go to the ER - and with one small bite, I now have to go a total of four times. At least it's not my ambulance: small blessings. Those things are EXPENSIVE in America!
Yes, insanely expensive, as are medecines!
Also, returns may be classified as a "follow-up" on the original visit rather than a completely new visit, so that may be able to save you the individual co-pay. I don't know how they would classify, and I'd bet they'll try to get additional per-visit fees from you anyway.
Yes - good point. I do hope that going back for the other 3 won't see me "admitted", which *might* help? I guess I'll find out.
Totally good point, Marshall! It's worth asking them how they are going to code it.
This is a good point. Many procedure codes have what they call a global time period where subsequent visits are included in the original bill. Surgeries for instance usually have a 90-day window afterward where post-op visits are part of original charge. Rabies treatment could include something similar. 🤞
Excellent advice. I never heard of this. Thanks for the tip!
Glad to help. :)
Your mental health system is blowing my kiwi mind Jennifer!
By which I mean mmMeN!T?aL [health system]
not [mental health] system, though I suspect the US has managed to make that into a nightmare beast too?
One of my favorite experiences as an expat occurred a couple of months ago at the wee hospital in Rarotonga. I needed lab tests done for immigration documents, a pretty full work up. The phlebotomist cheerfully took three vials of blood from me, and then advised me that I’d have to go to the clinic in town to pay for the service as they were remodeling the administrative office at the hospital and all the money stuff was being handled at the clinic. She apologized because I would have to pay cash, since the EFTPOS system was offline during construction.
No problem, I said.
She left the room, and I sat waiting patiently for her to return with the paperwork for me to present to billing. She finally peaked her head in about ten minutes later. She was surprised I was still there.
“Are you ok, my darling?”
(I absolutely melt at the pervasive affection of the Cook Islands.)
“Oh yes - I was just waiting for my paperwork. I mean...I don’t know how much it is for all those tests, but I probably need to stop at the ATM.”
She smiled at me kindly.
“So you want a paper to take with you, my darling?”
“Yes please.”
She disappeared again, then returned moments later and handed me a pink post-it note.
All that was written on it was “$5”.
I love that story. So PI and heart warming. Thanks for making my day
I suggest you don’t mistake a snake rattle as a sign of potential friendship!
As someone who has also attempted to pet a squirrel (despite growing up with them) and was only stopped by a friend who was with me going "what the hell do you think you're doing?" AND as someone who had to go to the ER due to a cat bite, I feel your pain. How dare they be so adorable?
I'm American but I've lived all over the globe and truly the way this country has trained us to not go to the doctor is the worst. I severely sprained my ankle when I was living in London while I was out with friends and told them I'd be fine to go to work the next day. One of them had to go "Molly, you're in England, not America. Go to the fucking gp" to get me to finally go. Nevermind the whole "insurance tied to your job" thing aka the only reason I'm still at my day job. ~~it's the worst~~
I'm glad you're doing alright. I'm sorry the squirrel was not your friend.
Massive schadenfruede over here with fits of giggles. Sorry the wee fella didn’t turn out to be Chip to your Dale. The adventures you could have had! Privileged to live in Canada with free access to healthcare. Visits and shots would be completely free and relatively easy to access. Seeing specialists can take months or years which is where we see some pretty negative balances here , but all that said - nobody should have to choose btwn rent or avoiding horrific death by rabies. Or potential squirrel friendships (high risk high reward !)
Cheers !
Oh dear, you have my utmost sympathy - really, because the same thing happened to me in Stanley Park in Vancouver about 40 years ago. I was, alas, an idiot New Zealander who fed the cute squirrel a piece of coconut strip and it kept right on eating, into my finger, which bled like hell. The concierge at our hotel spoke several languages. none of which was English, and offered me a bottle of cough mixture when I pleaded for disinfectant. At the time I had no idea squirrels could carry rabies, and it was two weeks later (past the time when a rabies shot could be administered) when someone blithely said "Oh, they're often rabid, you know!". The cold terror that crept through me is something I have never forgotten, especially since I already knew that symptoms could take up to a year to appear. In desperation I ended up calling the Canadian wildlife service, or something equivalent to that, and was told by a very kind and patient field officer that squirrels in Stanley Park were very unlikely to be rabid and not to worry. I worried, nonetheless, at intervals over the next two years. I was lucky - my squirrel was just a normal squirrel - a rodent, who had sharp teeth and couldn't distinguish the end of the food from the beginning of the feeder. Moral: never, ever, get near a squirrel!
Once more I have saved you from a horrible death (the other times are when I didn't snap your neck like a twig when we wrestled)
Fuming at this.
You either saved my life or put me in debt. I'll reflect on this more leading up to this year's Festivus.
Consider it the fee you didn't pay for borrowing my car for a full month
Look how clean that pigsty of a car came back!
Violent movements and uncontrolled excitement. For a brief moment, rabies sounds kinda badass
My initial knowledge of Rabies came from an episode of M.A.S.H. when Radar was bitten by a dog and they spent the episode trying to find the dog to test it for Rabies as apparently Radar’s treatment involved lots of painful injections for ever&ever, amen. Fortunately upon finding the dog, it tested Rabies free. Walking in the Sierra Nevada in ‘18 the Squirrels were touted as carrying Bubonic Plague. Every time I saw a Squirrel I said “ohhh, a disease vector” which was probably every bit as annoying to my hiking buddies as it sounds. Although they did have to ask for my meaning about the 3rd or 4th time I loudly proclaimed it.
You're able to avoid the rabies shots if the animal in question can be observed which is what they were trying to do, but that doesn't work when the animal isn't available for observation. I had a coworker that had to go through the shot series a number of years back, but I don't know anything more about it.
Alas yes, the squirrel ran off. I should have wrestled him to the ground and brought it to the ER with me!
I'd pay to see that.
🤣🤣🤣🤣 yes definitely wrestle the viscous beast
The test for rabies in an animal is to see if the brain tissue is infected. A fatal test for the animal.
I thought that in some cases they can do it through non-fatal observation, but that may not be accurate.
for domestic animals, the protocol is either euthanasia and sending the head to the health dept, OR, ten day rabies hold.
essentially, if you’re attacking folks because you have rabies, it will kill you before the ten days is up. so if the animal is still kicking, and not showing symptoms, you’re good.
i have never heard of this being done with wildlife tho.
(i am a registered veterinary technician in the US, have had to prep many heads for rabies tests 🫠)
Glad you got the shots, despite the horrible cost. I’ve always been very fond of squirrels - despite them really being rats with fancy tails and good PR. I was given a moth-eaten taxidermied red one by an ancient Chelsea Pensioner at the age of three nearly 60 years ago. ‘George’ went everywhere with me - even though he was hard to cuddle due to being nailed to a wooden plinth with one foot poised on a well varnished pine cone. When I emigrated to NZ, aged 46, George came too, even though by then his ears and several patches of fur had fallen off. NZ biosecurity imposed further indignities by ripping his pine cone off (because we don’t already have many invasive pine trees in NZ - chortle), taking that paw with it and charging me $200 for the privilege. Then he finally came to live in our NZ home and the new puppy scaled the couch, got into the shelf and reduced him to many small ginger bits.
"DAVID" "Oh Dave" hahaha
I stood on a rusty screw in the garden last week and did the same on Tetanus, Wikipedia, pictures of the disease, did I really need to go to the doctor? I'm in NZ, there's little cost$ but still the time, waiting and explaining your mistake.
My husband made me a call the local doctor and they were so kind, got me in straight away, the nurse gave me my booster. Tbh it was so much easier than getting a 'wellness' appointment.
Welcome to the wonderful thing that is the American healthcare system. /sarcasm.
Right now I have really good healthcare, I’ve got a PPO, so I can choose whichever healthcare professional I want to go to. The organization I work for pays the vast majority of my health insurance, so I pay about $80/month.
But before that, for about a year I was using Covered California (aka Obamacare) for my health insurance. I contracted shingles, though at the time I didn’t know that’s what it was. I thought I had MRSA or something like that. For a couple of days I put off going to the doctor because I was hoping the rash would go away on its own. It didn’t. Instead it the rash started going in the direction of the one place no one wants a rash to go to. That’s when I called the doctor. That’s when I was told there were no openings for several days.
So instead I went to Hollywood Urgent Care on Melrose. Best doctor I have ever been to, bar none, and I still go there if I have to. He took one look at me and said, “Shingles, and we have to treat this very aggressively.”
$130 for the visit, and $20 for the antivirals and antibiotics (the painkillers I had to get elsewhere). Because the doctor was aggressive in treating the shingles, I healed completely with no neuropathy. And the rash stopped dead in its tracks, never going to the place that I didn’t want it to go to.
On a separate note, a friend of mine has this term “septic masculinity”. We know what “toxic masculinity” is, but septic masculinity is when dudes think that what they’re suffering from isn’t that bad and they don’t need to see the doctor, even if they’re bleeding from their eyeballs. Then the dude winds up in the hospital suffering from sepsis because he was too stubborn to go to the doctor when he should have.
My plan was to go to Urgent Care - including Hollywood, which IS awesome - but alas - no vaccine for rabies! There goes my $100 option out of the window!
I should add that had I gone to the ER for the shingles it would have cost at least $1k and I don’t know how much insurance would have covered it. Regular doctor would also have been very expensive.
This made me laugh. Hard. Multiple times. I'm sure karma will now send a plague of rabid biting squirrels my way and when it does you'll be the first to know.
And if it makes you feel better I may well have had the same response to a squirrel. I mean we're from NZ where the only thing that might kill you in the wild is the wild itself.
Something worse happened to me when I was traveling once. I was in South India at the beach. I saw two red flags and in NZ you swim between the flags as that's the safe place and monitored by lifeguards. So I merrily swam before realising I was further from the shore than I liked. I tried to swim back in - doggy paddling for some absurd reason - then realised I was getting pulled out still. At that point I signaled to the lifeguards, the international signal for 'help'. I could see them looking at me from the shore but making no move to rescue me. I was getting tired by now and knew it was all over unless someone would help (yep, I know swim sideways to get out of the rip I was in but in this kind of situation logic can fly out the window) then another swimmer came over to me and that was enough to prompt the lifeguards to finally get off their arses. Back on shore I found out in India the red flags are where you SHOULDN'T swim, the opposite of NZ. I asked why they hadn't come out when they knew I was in a rip and was signaling for help. 'Oh we thought you were waving to your husband madam'. So they assumed I had a husband and that the international signal for 'help' was a wave. Did make me realise how we have a certain amount of conditioning from where we grew up and that even normal things while traveling can be bloody dangerous as a result!
On another note we've had an interesting conspiracy related phenomenon in our neighbourhood this week...a family of anti vaxxers storming the neighbourhood with a megaphone blasting anyone doing construction work on their property. It seems 'noise' is their issue. They've been abusing and intimidating people and on at least one occasion threatening to come back and kill someone. WTF. Their behaviour is typical of the parliament protest we had in NZ - violent, aggressive, entitled, misinformed. Are we going to now start seeing anti vaxxer terrorist cell groups in a neighbourhood near you? I'm starting to wonder if this might be a natural offshoot of the behaviour of that group...
Noise is their problem? Their megaphone sounds like it's probably being more of an issue!
As for the red flags in India: Great tip! Very funny, very terrifying. I am glad you got out. Rips are no joke.
And I almost forgot about the time in Cambodia I was walking across a road and a motorcyclist was coming towards me. Of course in NZ we stop and let them pass. In Cambodia they expect you to keep walking and they'll weave around you. Needless to say me stopping was enough for him to run over me. Luckily all I got from the experience was a massive bruise. So a squirrel nip is no doubt now looking like getting off from the OE experience very lightly! 😀
Oh yeah you gotta just keep moving when crossing roads in Seth East Asia and Africa. Find a local and weave through the traffic with them. If you stop or hesitate you’re screwed. Glad you only got a bruise!