A stray cat that I've been feeding bit a neighbor (She was feeding it too).  She went to the ER who started her on the post-exposure rabies series.  For some reason, she came to me to trap the cat in her garage for animal control to come pick up.

Now I'm sure that they're going to want me to start the series, too, because I handled it.

Joy.

Wow, this sort of thing usually happens to muppet.  Guess he dodged a bullet on this one.

They came & picked up the cat.  No knock on the door.

Her husband says they said they weren't going to destroy the animal, but keep it for observation.
I suspect that's just to keep her happy.

But I am (of course) still interested in the results of their "observations", just in case.

Chances of getting the disease around here are pretty low, anyway.  No bat population, no real racoon population (just the occasional possum & deer)

Be aware that the series is very expensive, at cost the first shot is $1500.

I was bit by a raccoon some time back. When I found the cost of the shots, I just passed on it. I seem to be OK, but it can take 10 years to kick in.

Good thing you got the cat. They'll cut off its head and send it to the CDC where they'll dissect the brain and let you know the results.

I looked it up online.  Median cost a few years ago was $4k, probably higher now.

Yup, that's the symptom of Rabies -- nodes in the brain.

It kills the animal that gets it -- pretty quickly, depending on the animal.  (unlike Syphillis, which can take years to make you insane).

I don't know how long a cat can have it before it dies.  Not too long (a month?) I'd think.

It's been hanging around for 9 months or more, so it'd have had to acquire the disease relatively recently.

Wouldn't the cat have to actually bite you?

Not necessarily. If you got cat saliva on you and then scratched yourself or whatever.

Supposedly you can get rabies from bats even if they don't touch you - it's enough that they fly nearby. I guess they spit on you passing or something?

I believe you have to get the bug into your bloodstream.  Perhaps breathing in bat guano might do it -- but I doubt it.  I think it requires a bite.

OK, you're right. The issue is that bat bites can be unnoticeable so if you see a bat in the room at night, you might assume it has bit you even if you don't know for sure:

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/rabies/bats_&_rabies/bats&.htm

There are times I'm really glad I live on an island...

yeah, an island of mad dogs and Englishmen?

Wow, and rabies can kill a human in a month.  Fast disease.

Whoa, a month?

I do remember that if some medical drama I saw once was medically accurate, you die if rabies gets to a certain point. It becomes untreatable. I guess that's true of most everything though.