I Should be Dead

I have been bitten by dogs three times. The first two times I put some disinfectant on the bite, bandaged it, and went on with things. Eight days ago was the third time I got bit. I'm not saying what dog, or where the dog was that bit me because of the fact there is some asshole stalker who reads my blog, and seems to have a grudge against dogs. So it is enough to say that I got bit. Again, I put disinfectant on the bite, bandaged it, and continued on with my life. That is until later that evening when my upper arm started twitching. 

I decided to go to WebMD, an internet site where you enter your symptoms and they give you a quick diagnosis. I entered "twitching upper arm" and "dog bite", and WebMD told me that I had rabies. Not only did I have rabies, but it was terminal, there was nothing I could do about it once the symptoms started, and I had seven days left to live. So for seven days I worried. I told Mark that I had to go to the doctor, and then decided that it was too late for the doctor to save me, so why go. Back and forth in my mind I went, go to the doctor, don't go to the doctor. And then yesterday I realized it had been eight days since I had been bitten. That is one day longer than WebMD said I had to live. Not only was I still alive, but my arm had stopped twitching two days earlier. I went back to WebMD and re-read what it said about my symptoms. I had missed one important thing, and that is that the symptom of twitching wouldn't manifest itself until five to seven weeks after the dog bite.

I learned three things over the last week. Don't look up your symptoms on WebMD, it will only scare you. Go to the doctor the minute you think you should, it's better to be safe and look stupid than be dead. And don't try to get too close to a dog that clearly hates your guts, because it will probably bite you.