Hi.
So, I go abroad on friday for two weeks.
Yesterday I woke with a weird.mark on my hand. I google lensed it to be told it looks like a bat bite. I measured it and it is the right size. IGoogle of course recommended a full course of post rabies exposure vaccines as bats arre the only.animal in the UK that cam carry a rabies like virus.
Here's the thing. I walk the dogs of an evening. There are sometimes bats around flying overhead but I.am confident I would have noticed one stopping to land on my hand (apparently they don't bite mid flight and have to anchor theirselves). It's the hand I hold the dog lead with. To my knowledge (I am confident) one never got anywhere near close. Which leaves one flying in through a window and biting me in my sleep (google says you'd always find a bat in the room, there is 0 evidence of any bat) I also have dogs that bark if a spider farts so if a bat was in tbe room surely they' have woke me up.
I'm waiting for the GP to get back to me (111 told me to send them a photo) .Obviously rabies is 100% fatal and not something to mess with. BUT if I do the jabs which are 4 jabs over 28 days, I will have to either not go away (it is incredibly important to me, it isnt a regular.holiday and I can't reschedule it) or source 1/2 jabs in the US which insurance would not cover. Tens of tbousands of debt which I cannot afford. All on the slight chance a bat somehow entered my home, bit me, and left with0 trace, and when only 0.5% of tested bats even carry the virus even if it was a bat bite.
I don't even know if the NHS would recommend thr jabs given I was never directly near a bat or found a bat in a room, but I'm just stressed as hell, please be gentle. But I'm hoping to be told that you regular unanxious people would just assume a spider bite or anything else and go about their lives without worrying about rabies. I am a super anxious person as you can surely tell.
Thanks if you made it this far.