A PSA on the dangers of errant bats, rabies and anxiety
BY CONRAD BASCOM
LAKE MILLS GRAPHIC
This world we inhabit has one heckuva cruel sense of humor . . . For a person like myself, whose genetic inheritance happens to include more-than-healthy doses of stress hormones, those moments when the universe slaps us humans around with routine and arbitrary obstacles end up feeling like do-or-die, fight-or-flight situations to me. Some combination of nature and nurture has caused me to become overly-sensitized to stress—the neurologic circuitry between my hypothalamus and pituitary gland is hyperactive—and so both my body and my mind overcompensate in times of mundane and insane frustrations.
Stress and anxiety work in and through the body in a slightly idiosyncratic way. First, the hypothalamus recognizes stress signals and then communicates with the pituitary gland, commanding it to release adrenocorticotropin, the hormone that activates the adrenal glands. Once the adrenal glands have been activated, they in turn spew out flotillas of stress hormones into the blood stream—dopamine, adrenaline, norepinephrine, and cortisol. The stress hormones can have vast and varied somatic and physiological effects on a person—constrict blood vessels, raise blood sugar, increase heart rate, create pain, and cause hyperventilation to occur.
In the past few weeks, my girlfriend and I have been caught up in a saga of semi-epic proportions and locked in heated battle with an insidious infestation of Iowan brown bats. My poor girlfriend lives in this project-like cinder block of a dormitory—four stories, plenty of space, and one of those dilapidated and out-of-order ventilation systems that likely has innumerable entrances through which a bat can find its way inside. Two weeks ago, a bat appeared in the stairwell near her floor and I set about trying to ensnare the pipistrelle, so as to relieve her of the chiroptophobic anxiety she was experiencing.
During our first confrontation, the bat seemed almost docile and passive as it perched atop the wall—perhaps sleeping or playing dead. I felt as if I was trying to defuse a bomb as I craned towards it with hands outstretched to try and pluck it off the wall. Remember how I referenced our world’s “heckuva cruel sense of humor” in the first paragraph? I was referring to what happened next. Anxious about whether I had captured the bat or not, my girlfriend decided to call me right as I was teetering over the edge of the stairwell and straining to reach the bat, my fingertips mere inches away from its little body. BRIIIIIIING, BAZIIIIIING! Off went my grating ringtone, rousing the bat with its cacophonous bells, which sent the winged-rat wheeling away from the wall and down four flights of stairs. It would take another two run-ins with the bat, before I would finally smack it out of the sky in the laundry room with a well-timed and blindly-aimed swing from a racquetball racquet. As a first-time batslayer, I didn’t really know what protocol was in this instant, so I proceeded to ferry the bat outside on my racquet and put it out of what I presumed was its misery (as the poor bat appeared concussed and its wings wounded).
Hours later, I noticed two miniature bite marks on my ankle that quickly took hold of my mind and allowed my General Anxiety Disorder to build into something they’re not. Cue a few days of frantic worrying on the part of both myself and my girlfriend as we scoured every webpage and article on the Internet that contain any information on bats, bat bites, and the likelihood of contracting rabies from bats.
You see, somewhere, at some point in the past, I had read and/or saw something that really emphasized the dangers of rabid bats: the supposed way in which a rabid bat can land on an unsuspecting sleeping person and bite them without waking them up, passing the neurological contagion to the person through the pinprick bite marks. Classically speaking, rabies is associated with animal bites—and rightfully so, because as the degenerative condition causes the carrier’s brain to swell, it begins to manifest symptoms such as hallucinations and changes in behavior, which in turn can cause the carrier animal to attack creatures and people around which it is typically fearful.
There’s also a lot of disinformation online about potential ways in which rabies can be transferred to human hosts from bats in other ways: whether via their poop (called guano) and other excrements or else saliva. Though it may be technically possible for the disease to be spread in this way, a doctor in the Mason City ER assured me that it was very unlikely. Even though I had found these marks on my ankle that slightly resembled a bat bite, the doctor declined to administer the vaccination, because I had neither seen the bat bite me, nor woken to the bat flying in my girlfriend’s bedroom.
Evidently, the CDC guidelines for doctors had been changed to discourage the use of the vaccine, except in situations where someone was clearly bitten or sleeping in a room with a bat—the contradictions derive from the fact that many health professionals will encourage anyone that has encountered a bat in their home to go and get the vaccine, because, from an epidemiological standpoint, it’s impossible to determine whether someone is at risk of contracting the disease (you can’t test a living human to see whether they have rabies, because the test requires samples of brain tissue). In my girlfriend’s and my case, the doctor that spoke with us in the ER, felt that our exposure to a bat wasn’t grave nor dangerous enough to merit administering the vaccine. The sad truth is, that the vaccine is highly expensive and therefore must be divvied out with discretion. It’s unfortunate that our country hasn’t devised of a more efficient way of dealing with rabies exposure and vaccines—a visit to the ER costs a pretty penny.
The problem possible exposure to a rabid bat poses, is significant in that the consequences are so dire. You see, if you don’t get the series of vaccine and immunoglobulin injections used to prevent the disease getting a foothold in the body, you are likely to die, as rabies is untreatable and most always fatal. Not only that, but you have to receive the vaccine before symptoms start showing, or else the vaccine won’t be effective. The viral disease’s symptoms usually first show as an extreme fever, followed by violent movements, uncontrolled excitement, fear of water, excessive salivation, muscular pain, rigidity, confusion, and coma.
After our visit to the ER, I finally found some peace surrounding the whole bat incident. I succeeded in shutting my incessant worries about the possibility that I’d contracted rabies out of my mind for a while, deciding to put my full faith in the expertise of the medical professional. For about a week, I was able to enjoy day-to-day living again and much of the pent-up stress in my body dissipated. I felt good. That was until just last night, when, after staying away from my girlfriend’s dorm for a while, the two of us returned to spend the night there for the first time since I’d killed the bat,
I awoke in the middle of the night to a slight rustling sound and looked up at the ceiling to see a shadow streak across it silently. I froze, petrified, not able to believe what I was seeing. My girlfriend’s toe accidentally brushed mine and I nearly jumped out of bed in the pitch dark. My brain let out a couple instinctual kicks, as it feared that whatever had brushed me, was the bat that was obviously swooping about our room. My kicking woke my girlfriend. I had started to explain to her what I’d seen in hushed tones, when she let out a gasp. We both saw the winged creature flit past our view again. We hid under the covers and then dashed for the door, ending up locked out of her room in the process, as we failed to collect those necessary items, like keys and wallets, in the frenzy.
Long story short? Once we finally managed to reenter her room, the bat or apparition, or whatever it was, had seemingly evaporated and was nowhere to be found. Now that the sun has risen, the both of us are struggling to not let the situation fray our nerves and break us down. Soon, we’ll have to make the decision as to whether to take on another set of copayments and spend half a day in the waiting room of an ER, so as to get the vaccine, or else move on with life and pray that neither of us were bitten or that the bat didn’t exist.
All I can say is this: Be mindful of any bats you find your house. Pay attention. If you wake with one on you, go and get the vaccine. Be smart. Rabies is a miserable way to die.
Also, take people with anxiety disorders serious and tream them considerately. It’s miserable to have to live under heightened stress constantly, so put yourself in their hoes before you become dismissive and critical.
