A commissioned comic for @allkindsoffandomshere!
So I'm putting this here as a sort of public service. If you have never seen a rabid animal before, and you think you can handle watching it, I think it's a good idea to watch this. It's pretty upsetting to watch, so big CW on it, because this animal is essentially "dead but still moving." This is end-stage rabies. There is no saving this animal.
Before this stage, animals may be excessively affectionate or oddly tame-looking which is part of the reason why seeing people feeding foxes is upsetting to me. These animals might be, or might become, rabid, and there's no way to know without testing, which involves destroying the animal. Encouraging wild animals to be that close to humans is generally bad.
I grew up in the woods, so unfortunately we saw an uptick in rabid animals every spring -- you'd hear there was a rabid bat in this neighborhood or a rabid fox in this one -- but as wild animals and humans cross over more and more, we will see this more and more.
Opossums and squirrels extremely rarely get rabies, and we don't know why. They think the low body temperature of opossums inhibits the virus. The most common animals which get rabies in the US are raccoons, skunks, bats and foxes. Any animal 'acting unusually' -- not skittish around humans, biting at the air or at nothing ('fly-biting'), walking strangely (they kind of look like they have a string attached to their heads and walk kind of diagonal like they're being pulled along, a lot of the time) -- should be treated as though it's potentially rabid.
If you think you have been exposed to a rabid animal, including 'waking up in a room where a bat has gotten into it and there's a fucking bat in your room', please immediately go to the emergency room. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. Post-exposure prophylaxis absolutely fucking sucks, it is a series of shots you'll have to get in two stages, it's done by weight, and it feels fucking nasty, but rabies is 100% fatal. I cannot stress enough how essential this is, having been through it.
Thank you for reading, I love everybody, the end.
To be clear, I have been through post-exposure prophylaxis for rabies. In 2005 or early 2006, I forget which exactly, @urbanprole and I woke up with a bat in our bedroom bc our apartment maintenance hadn't closed up the HVAC system after replacing filters. I shooed the bat out with a broom and it was acting normally for a bat but we didn't take any chances. (Thankfully, MK was at her dad's that weekend.)
I felt absolutely wretched the next day - the worst I've ever felt, excluding surgery and childbirth - after each series of shots. I had to get 2 sets on different days. I got 8 shots the first day, and Emet got like 13 or 15 bc she's very tall, and it's done by mass. The only thing I can think to compare it to is the depths of COVID, but without the coughing. Your immune system is Working Hard to update itself so it can recognize and fight any possible exposure.
I basically laid in bed and ached and sweated and groaned, but after it was over, I was fine.
Fewer than 20 people have ever survived rabies, and none are known to have survived without immediate post-exposure prophylaxis. Do not fuck around with this. Do not approach strange stray or wild mammals, especially without protective clothing.
Several comments on this post talking about 'why can't the US eradicate rabies entirely' and my friends, it can be really hard to understand how fucking big the United States is, and how weird it is to have basically 50 small countries in a trenchcoat. Like, we're fighting each other right now in courts over medicine, for one thing, and for another...
Like, one of the people commenting on this post and wondering this is from Portugal. Portugal is 35,603 square miles, and the United States is 3.97 million square miles. Portugal is 0.0093% the size of the United States, which... yeah. Like. The single state that I grew up in (Pennsylvania) is 46K square miles.
So, like, for one thing, this country is trying not to explode while a small group of people try to make it explode. And for another?
The US? Is. Fucking. Huge.
Australia doesn't have Rabies, because as far as I'm aware it just never got here and we work hard to keep it that way.
But we do have Bat Derived Lyssavirus, which is basically a rabies doppelganger... Don't fuck around with bats. Go to a Dr if you come into contact with a bat because you don't always notice a scratch/bite in the moment.
No need to be afraid of bats, just appreciate them from a distance... They're wild animals. If you find a bat in distress call a ranger.
I’ve spent the last two weeks trying to convince coworkers starting a bat-box monitoring project that, even if they don’t intend to handle bats, they should get their rabies vaccinations.
bats are the only reservoir species for rabies here, and it has a pretty low prevalence. so is it likely they’re going to come in physical contact with a bat? not really. is it likely any bat they come in contact with will have rabies? also no.
but it only takes one, and pre-exposure vaccine is WAY less of a trial than post-exposure (and if, for some reason, you are exposed and DON’T get a post-exposure vax, then you’re dead).
As a wildlife professional mentioned, you should get post-exposure prophylaxis regardless of whether you have a vaccine or not if you're exposed. The vaccine is just to raise your chances if your risk level is high.
For a confirmed direct exposure, like a bite from a wild carnivore, yeah - sorry, I should have clarified that. In that case, what pre-exposure vaccination does is decrease the number of post-exposure doses required - 2 shots versus 4 or 5 vaccine + RabIg.
(I have it on good authority that the reaction from two doses post-exp is much gentler than to 4-5 plus immunoglobulin.)
Indirect transmission is so rare, though, that pre-exposure vaccination with regular titer checks is considered protective for workers in environments where incidental/indirect exposures could take place, in concert with PPE.
Yeah that would have been nice when I had mine. IDK if the dosing has changed but I got 8 shots and @urbanprole got thirteen.
(She's 6'8" and built like a brick house tho.)
It was pretty awful.
Adding from the notes because i think this is important
rabies shots are hyped up as being like so scary that people will avoid seeking treatment because they're "Probably" fine and people need to know that it's no where near as horrific as everyone says
Horror stories have the potential to cause needless death
Once a little boy went to school.
One morning
The teacher said:
“Today we are going to make a picture.”
“Good!” thought the little boy.
He liked to make all kinds;
Lions and tigers,
Chickens and cows,
Trains and boats;
And he took out his box of crayons
And began to draw.
But the teacher said, “Wait!”
“It is not time to begin!”
And she waited until everyone looked ready.
“Now,” said the teacher,
“We are going to make flowers.”
“Good!” thought the little boy,
He liked to make beautiful ones
With his pink and orange and blue crayons.
But the teacher said “Wait!”
“And I will show you how.”
And it was red, with a green stem.
“There,” said the teacher,
“Now you may begin.”
The little boy looked at his teacher’s flower
Then he looked at his own flower.
He liked his flower better than the teacher’s
But he did not say this.
He just turned his paper over,
And made a flower like the teacher’s.
It was red, with a green stem.
On another day
The teacher said:
“Today we are going to make something with clay.”
“Good!” thought the little boy;
He liked clay.
He could make all kinds of things with clay:
Snakes and snowmen,
Elephants and mice,
Cars and trucks
And he began to pull and pinch
His ball of clay.
But the teacher said, “Wait!”
“It is not time to begin!”
And she waited until everyone looked ready.
“Now,” said the teacher,
“We are going to make a dish.”
“Good!” thought the little boy,
He liked to make dishes.
And he began to make some
That were all shapes and sizes.
But the teacher said “Wait!”
“And I will show you how.”
And she showed everyone how to make
One deep dish.
“There,” said the teacher,
“Now you may begin.”
The little boy looked at the teacher’s dish;
Then he looked at his own.
He liked his better than the teacher’s
But he did not say this.
He just rolled his clay into a big ball again
And made a dish like the teacher’s.
It was a deep dish.
And pretty soon
The little boy learned to wait,
And to watch
And to make things just like the teacher.
And pretty soon
He didn’t make things of his own anymore.
Then it happened
That the little boy and his family
Moved to another house,
In another city,
And the little boy
Had to go to another school.
The teacher said:
“Today we are going to make a picture.”
“Good!” thought the little boy.
And he waited for the teacher
To tell what to do.
But the teacher didn’t say anything.
She just walked around the room.
When she came to the little boy
She asked, “Don’t you want to make a picture?”
“Yes,” said the little boy.
“What are we going to make?”
“I don’t know until you make it,” said the teacher.
“How shall I make it?” asked the little boy.
“Why, anyway you like,” said the teacher.
“And any color?” asked the little boy.
“Any color,” said the teacher.
And he began to make a red flower with a green stem.
~Helen Buckley, The Little Boy
…
I hate that I hesitated to reblog this just because I expect people to think it’s pretentious or melodramatic when it’s seriously real as fuck and I’ve witnessed it
Fuck man
When people say school is designed to turn kids into obedient workers this is the sort of shit they mean.
forgot to post these here. tears of the kingdom+long term nuclear waste storage warnings
reblogging now that the game is real!
if making whoopee is old timey slang for sex then are whoopee pies named that because they look like.......well......you know........
thank you for giving me that wonderful visual
Never expected memes in 2023 to require a working knowledge of German.