Too Cute to Be True?

Two nights ago I awoke around 3am realizing that I had just felt something scamper up my torso and over my face.  I flinched and then heard it hit my headboard.  I assumed it was a tiny salamander that we have all over the house and since it ran off, I fell back asleep.  A few moments later, I felt a nibble on my toe.  I turned on the light and saw a brown mouse jump down to the floor.  I checked my toe - no skin abrasion.  I went to the bathroom and when I came back, I couldn’t find the mouse.  I think it had gone out, probably the way it came in - through the balcony door I had left open all night due to the heat.  I called Jay, who instructed me to wash my toe thoroughly and apply eucalyptus oil, in case of rabies.  I wasn’t sure that the mouse was gone but I couldn’t find it under the beds so I knew I had to try to go back to sleep.  It was very difficult to fall asleep as I wondered if this bold little mouse might try another trick.  But I managed.  I went about my day the next morning, telling my housemates of my funny little tale, but eventually, I decided to do a little online research about rabies.  According to the World Health Organization, if one has been nibbled, without skin actually breaking even, one should seek the rabies vaccine.  Ugh.  Mannnn.  So I hopped an auto-rickshaw to the hospital.  At the ER I was told that because it was Sunday, they could not do anything for me.  Broken English.  No further questions.  Another hospital was a 10-minute walk away so I headed there.  In the ER, I was told to go to the main office to get a file started.  I soon had a hospital ID card and was walking my paper file on over to the ER.  The doctor there wrote a note and slipped it into the file and told me to go to the pharmacy with it.  Down the hall at the pharmacy, they printed me a bill and sent me to the cashier’s office where I paid it.  I returned to the pharmacy with the receipt and they handed me a small brown bag and instructed me to head back to the ER.  I did so and a woman there took me to a back room.  

I noticed on my pharmacy receipt that the vaccine I was given was tetanus so I asked the nurse if this was correct, being that I was there in case of rabies.  She said “Tetanus is enough.  It is enough.”  She then opened the bag, extracted a syringe and prepared it with the tetanus vaccine, and glovelessly injected me.  I was on my way, $2.72 later.  It was all rather speedy, I thought.  I really expected to lose half a day to it all but it was so quick.  On my way down the hill to catch a rickshaw, I began searching the net on my cell phone to figure out why I was given tetanus for rabies.  I found nothing.  I saved the page that asked “Is tetanus effective for rabies? NO” and another page listing the rabies vaccine I indeed needed and headed back to the ER.  I showed the doctor my phone and he said that for mice, one does not need the rabies vaccine.  So I then looked that up and found that indeed, it is extremely rare for mice to transmit rabies to humans.  It’s possible, but hasn’t been heard of yet.  Then the doctor explained that mice could carry tetanus so that’s why I got that.  Ok.  But had I gotten a better explanation I would not have taken the tetanus vaccine since I’ve had it recently.  But ah well.  Please join me in wishing and praying that I don’t have to be treated at an Indian hospital in the coming months.  Not because the quality is poor necessarily, but communication is such a challenge and it’s not fun to wonder and guess and trust gloveless people’s judgment.  But in the end, all is well.  I’ve confirmed with one American doctor and one Indian medical student that the course was the correct one.  As I was explaining the story to the med student today, the thought crossed my mind that I was possibly dreaming the whole thing up.  Gasp!  What if I did?!  The reason I wondered is because I remember the little brown mouse being so darn cute, almost cartoonish, and thought, “Waiiit...is that really what mice look like?”  Ummm.  Hmmm.  We may never know.