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.
America is almost the last country in the world that doesn’t have free healthcare, except for Africa.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-with-universal-healthcare
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
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
Canada is copying the US and will join them soon. Check out all the private, for profit clinics popping up in Alberta.
and the nice systematic fucking up of our national healthcare to gather support is a beautiful cherry on top
Guess what web browser is promoting this guy? Yes, your guessed right, Brave. Case closed.
Funny, because neither of those are countries.
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.
Path C: Go out biting some people who have it coming.
I’ll also be disappointed
So would I
Path C: get fired without cause because you needed to take a day off to recover.
*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
Meh free healthcare is in our constitution, just like many other countries in Europe. The only place experiencing this problem to this degree is the United States. It’s not a capitalist problem at all.
some friendly advice, maybe don’t cite your explicitly socialist constitution when explaining that capitalism isn’t ackshually the problem.
Socialist constitution means they have in there provisions to impede the private ownership of the means of production.
This is why we need better education in the US.
Also, this is why we can’t have healthcare. We don’t know why we deserve it.
I was talking to a person once about single-payer Canadian healthcare. And she said, but what if someone doesn’t work? Should they still get it?
[I mean, yes.]
I said, how come you don’t ask that question about cops and firefighters? You don’t say, well if someone doesn’t work, should the firefighter’s come to their house if there is a fire? We have single-payer police insurance and single-payer firefighter insurance.
But after the fire, you’re on your own!
America! Fuck, yeah.
Wow. This is the stupidest thing I’ll read all week. Thanks, friend!
some friendly advice, maybe you should read more
He said without a hint of irony.
Socialism in EU may not have the meaning you think it has, it’s very distinct from communism. It can be called social democracy, like Bernie Sanders, maybe.
For example, the previous French president was from the French Socialist Party and the current primer minister of Spain is from the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party, and they are not radical lefties.
In this case, socialism means accepting the free market capitalism for the efficiency it may bring to the economy, but with good regulation and, mainly what the USA lack, a good social safety net (free healthcare, free education etc…).
The 38 OECD economies are all capitalist. Only 1 lacks universal healthcare.
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.
Yeah, well health shouldn’t be a market in the first place.
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
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.
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? You’re paying for it, right? 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…”
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.
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!
This is one reason why I’m glad there’s no rabies in Australia.
Yes, but every animal is venomous. You guys probably die in 5 seconds from a wombat bite.
Nah, wombats just lure you into sticking your head in the hole they’re hiding in, and then crush your skull with their muscly ass. https://theoatmeal.com/comics/wombats
There’s some things I don’t miss. I used to have to shake my mail because big spiders would get into the slot on the mailbox :)
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!
🎶America! Fuck yeah!
Making you poor for
Basic medical attention!
Syllabic perfection, I’m impressed! Well done!
I sung it a bunch of times to make sure it felt right.
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!?
The rabies test requires decapitation, so don’t worry, the debt went to the bat’s widow.
What a bunch of assholes.
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.
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.
The vaccine, from what I’ve read, is commonly only available at ERs. And you can’t make appointments at ERs.
Ah, shit. Best of luck to OP then.
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.
I had a similar situation happen to me actually.
The rabies shot sucks but the most annoying part is returning for the follow-ups. The tetanus booster I had to get was much much more painful.
Good luck, sending positive vibes your way!
I had my first shots broken up into 4 injections. One in each arm and leg. It hurt so fucking bad. I got a tetanus booster last year after I got bad oil burns, and it didn’t hurt nearly this bad. It was probably the burns distracting me then, though
That really sucks, but they used to give them all to you in the stomach, so at least you avoided that.
Yeah, that’s not a fun situation to be in. Are you fortunate enough to have sick time that you can use for this unplanned event?
I used all of my sick time when my ovaries were covered with cysts and I couldn’t move because of the pain. My work is very accommodating though, so I’ll be able to take time off unpaid.
Oh dear! That pain was probably unimaginable and I am so sorry you had to go through it. If I were your manager, I’d find a way to pay you.
I didn’t feel the scratches and stuff until hours later. I was so full of adrenaline. The rabies shots were ungodly painful.
I bet some asshole neighbor is feeding them and they are on vacation. So they see human and they think “food”.
Don’t feed any wild animals, your doing them a favor.
My neighbors feeds deer twice a day. It brings in so many other critters
Jeez here it is. I won’t bait or salt lick deer. Its all bad.
My neighbors feeds the deer corn and apples. He has them trained to come when he whistles. It’s so dangerous for the deer…
man that really sucks. i had to get rabies shots a couple years ago and it was not fun. for my second follow up shot i thought about skipping the wait in the ER and going to a pharmacy 40 minutes away that offered rabies vaccines, only to find out there’s a difference between pre-exposure and post-exposure shots and having to go to the ER anyway. if you end up also getting tired of the 3 hour waits in the ER and look for an alternative, i would strongly recommend making sure they offer post-exposure vaccines.
Raccoons can Fuck off
