Last Thursday Kathryn called me at work to say that Smokey has come across a raccoon sleeping under our deck. He’d cornered it and was barking like mad. She wanted to know what to do. I told her to get the hose and spray Smokey which should give the raccoon time to get away. She did and then sent this photo. She had nicely written on it “A New Friend.”

Friday morning, our “friend” was back under our deck and Smokey again, in no uncertain terms, let it know whose yard this was. Mike got Smokey back in the house and called Animal Control because the raccoon didn’t seem well. We all went about our day.

Kathryn texts me around 4pm on Friday to ask if Animal Control should be coming back. I didn’t think so and honestly thought she was just asking as she’d been texting me asking about the fate of the raccoon and hoping they were going to try to rehab it or relocate it.

Well, turns out it had rabies (sorry Kathryn, only a trip to the Rainbow Bridge for our friend) and Animal Control was there to let us know Smokey was now under a mandatory 45 day quarantine – luckily at the house. Only allowed out to do his business. We have to limit his contact with people (no invites to our house this summer) and even in our fenced in yard, he has to be walked on a leash. We were so focused on this that the call from the health department took us totally by surprise.

The health department was calling because they wanted to see if any of us had touched Smokey following the two incidents. If the raccoon had spat on him and then we touched him, we could be infected if we had a cut etc. None of us could remember specifically touching Smokey but then again, it is such a common thing, it wouldn’t be memorable.

Thus began a flurry of calls to the doctor, ER etc to figure out our next steps. In the end, we decided, despite the small chance of getting rabies ourselves, that we would start the shots. We spent Friday night at the ER getting the first round of shots. When I was a kid, there was always the threat that if you had to get the shots, they were administered through your “naval” as my Mom would say, making it sound all the more disgusting. Fortunately, while it is still a series of shots, you get the shots in the arms and legs. We got 5 on Friday night, one on Monday and have two left to go. We can only get the shots at the ER so it is a bit of an ordeal. With two adults and one child, they aren’t sure where to put us. We all were in the adult section Friday and all in pediatrics yesterday.

Yesterday I felt we had too much, too little and vastly contradictory information all at once. It was overwhelming. It’s great to be able to read so much on the web but difficult to get some questions answered and then you see differing opinions. We actually got that between the health department, animal control and the ER doctors as well. Today, maybe because the routine is setting in, I’m feeling a bit more in control.

Smokey, our yard warrior, just had his rabies shot about a month ago, but got another booster yesterday. He was super excited to get out of the house even if it was to go the vet. As I write this, he is lazily napping on the floor, gently snoring, blissfully unaware of the craziness that has come upon us.

Last night I asked my friend Mary, who is currently undergoing chemo (who BTW, is kicking cancer’s ass – her tumor has dissolved almost completely!) if my “rabies card” trumped her “cancer card” if nothing more than because of the uniqueness. But she had to outdo me with some story of how she might have gotten cancer/chemo induced diabetes. And the win goes to…Mary.

I have to look at the positives. Smokey wasn’t taken from us which given his separation anxiety, would have been devastating for him and of course, for us. We have access to treatment. We have friends who’ve offered support and sympathy for our situation and I have Mary to keep me grounded. This whole episode will be yet another interesting chapter in our lives. But as Kathryn lamented the other night “Why do things like this always happened to us?” I’m not exactly sure what other things are on her list, but I’ll let her tell those to Dr. Phil one day.