My dog is fine, though, which is the most important thing to me. The raccoons scratched my arm kinda bad and my legs are covered in scratches. My doctor can’t be sure if the raccoons had saliva on their claws, and wants me to get rabies shots just in case. She sent me to an ER because she can’t get the shots in our area.
I’ve been at the hospital for 3 hours and haven’t been seen.
It’s after my bedtime and I have to wake up at 5am for work…
I’m not having a good time.
Choose your capitalist fate!
Path A: medical bankruptcy.
Path B: incurable disease and certain horrible death.
Quite a system the wealthy have built for us. I’ll be terribly disappointed if the book doesn’t end with a bunch of guillotines.
*American fate
Capitalist was correct. Look in Europe, the social health system is non stop attacked and set in danger. More and more, capitalist system wants health to be a an open market
Yeah, well health shouldn’t be a market in the first place.
Same in Canada. Every year we hear of at least one province debating privatizing healthcare as though thats gonna fix our problems and not just make it exponentially worse.
The 38 OECD economies are all capitalist. Only 1 lacks universal healthcare.
Path C: Go out biting some people who have it coming.
I’ll also be disappointed
Path C: get fired without cause because you needed to take a day off to recover.
Call your lawyer and sue the shit out of those raccoons. I hear they’re rich.
He’s a tanuki/raccoon dog, not a raccoon
The law does not make such distinctions!
In Florida, you have to use the trash can you were assigned at birth.
Omfg you right. You think this guy would help?
I’m sorry this happened to you, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. By the time clinical signs of rabies present, you’re already a “dead man walking” so to say. I hope you and your dog are able to recover swiftly!
Exactly. I don’t want rabies. And thank you! My dog didn’t realize we were being attacked and wanted to play with the critters. Made it harder to get him inside. I didn’t even realize I was injured until some time later when I noticed scratches on me. Adrenaline is crazy.
Been there. Happened to me in grad school but I woke up to a bat on my leg. Thing with bats ks you can’t tell if they bit you because their teeth leave little baby pinpricks that look like damn near everything else that bites, including mosquitoes.
I got a bill for $13,000. Basically 1000 for every shot to the ass they gave me. I had to pay it from my student loans. Yay America.
🎶America! Fuck yeah!
Making you poor for
Basic medical attention!
I would have graduated, got a job overseas, and just left the debt in America.
Heck, you can take all these $$$, fly to a decent country visa-free, get a rabies shot and a lavish vacation. Why TF Americans don’t ddo that is beyond me.
If you capture the bat, they can test the bat for rabies instead of treating you.
And leave that poor bat with $13,000 of medical debt!?
What a bunch of assholes.
Sorry, had to do it
Post exposure shots should be covered by nearly every insurance. The preexposure ones are not.
The shots are a lot cheaper than dying of rabies, which is often done in a hospital.
die in a hospital? In this economy? No thank you, I’d rather die at home.
A coworker of mine says, “If I’m meant to be in a hospital, I’ll wake up there.”
“Or die at home from a curable illness.”
If you get rabies, you might as well elect to not be hospitalized. What’s the point of trying to stretch out your life for 2 or 3 more days of agony?
Don’t be silly, you can’t afford to die there either.
Seriously, a couple years ago I asked an ER doctor to just let me die. I have insurance but the issue was air medevacc.
It’s bankruptcy expensive.
a couple years ago I asked an ER doctor to just let me die
Did they let you die?
He hasn’t answered yet, that’s not a good sign.
Alone
Man I’ve NEVER heard of a raccoon attack that’s fucked up. I’ve interacted with a million raccoons (including one that broke into my kitchen once) and they have never come close to attacking me. Sounds like they might indeed have rabies. Glad you and your pup sound ok. Just call in sick if you need the sleep tomorrow.
These raccoons were young and seemed scared. They made some wicked noises though. I stayed inside for as long as possible after that. I didn’t know if a mama raccoon was hanging around
My tired brain read this as you had to pay the raccoons $1500 or they would give you rabies. Can’t even go into the woods without being extorted.
Guess they took pointers from this dude
The problem is that if you pay them, all the other shit heads expect to be paid. The ticks will make you pay $2000 to not be infected with alpha gal and Lyme’s disease.
that’s why is better to pay the $500 the opossums ask for protection
I just got the rabies series of vaccines.
Bill was $9800. After insurance it was $285.
Oh damn, I got the rabies vaccine when I worked part time at a vet school because they offered it. They were like “Uh but you’re IT, you don’t really need it, so you could skip the hassle…” and I was like “Why would I turn down an opportunity to get a vaccine? Reprogramming my immune system is awesome, sign me up!”
No wonder they looked annoyed, LMAO.
Uh but you’re IT, you don’t really need it
“You severely underestimate our users…”
I was advised to wait until I got out of the US to get the Rabies booster series. Ended up paying around $120 USD for all 3 shots. Checkmate, capitalists!
Oh wow
Wow that is just extortionate. How long is the vaccine valid for?
Umm I can’t actually remember. I think it’s something like 1-5 years.
Even at it’s longest, that’s about $2000 a year - that is still crazy.
Yeah it’s crazy how corporations just extort you when the alternative is death.
America is almost the last country in the west that doesn’t have free healthcare:
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-with-universal-healthcare
Africa is not a country… and there are many African countries with “free” healthcare such as Algeria, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Mauritius, marocco, Rwanda
South Africa too
Funny, because neither of those are countries.
Most countries don’t have free healthcare. But require people to be insured. E.g here in NL you have to have atleast basic coverage costing roughly 140 euro a month
Yep. Many countries country got free healhcare. Even my South East Asia third world country got free healhcare. But in some European countries, it is affordable-based healthcare system. In the Netherlands, you’ll get a rebate (about equal to the amount paid) if your salary is less than certain threshold. Basically (almost) free healhcare.
Guess what web browser is promoting this guy? Yes, your guessed right, Brave. Case closed.
On the positive side, you are now one of an elite group of those who have a raccoon attack story.
And lived to tell about it
Not only that, but a raccoon gang. That’s like an initiation into the raccoon underworld, full of human trash smugglers.
That’s a helluva expensive shot. I mean, you should definitely get it, but nobody should have to pay that much for it. I guess that’s USA…
That’s just the copays for all the shots. I have no idea how much of the vaccines will be covered
No offense, but you’ll probably be waiting a long time. ERs typically have to deal with many simultaneous crises and you aren’t an emergent situation.
Some urgent care centers might have a rabies vaccine on hand.
Yup, rabies vaccine is something that can wait to make an appointment next day. It’s incubation period is usually a couple of months, or a week in the extreme cases, so a day or two won’t make a significant difference. Not something an ER will triage first.
Go to sleep, call your work first thing in the morning, and make an appointment where they have the vaccine available. I doubt your boss won’t let you take a day to get a rabies vaccine, but if he does, tell him you will bite him if you start showing symptoms at work, ha ha.
Extremes? Its been documented to incubate for over 20+ years
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3424805/
But your right its normally much faster than 20+ years. 31-90 days is the average.
The vaccine, from what I’ve read, is commonly only available at ERs. And you can’t make appointments at ERs.
I’d just tell your work to fuck off.
Quite the chance card you drew…
Sorry you have to go through this! Seems like a valid excuse to call out sick if you’re in the ER.
Only in the US is it they expensive.
Otherwise infuriating and time-consuming… Perhaps everywhere. But really, rabies is not! something to mess around with. Even with the smallest chance.
