Sorry for bringing this up so many times but I have been TOTALLY freaking out today with this rabies thing. All that happened was that a bat flew over my head 28 days ago. It did'nt bite me. My hands were in my pockets the whole time. It flew 20-25 feet over my head. Still, to put my mind at ease, I went to the ER - even though I felt very silly. But hey, it flew over my head so I was "exposed" I guess(?)

Then I came home and worried myself sick for over two weeks until I cut my finger and had to have surgery. Then my mind was on the surgery for awhile (and recovery) but for the last week or so I have been back to obscessing over rabies again and now I read that you can sometimes just breath in aerosolized rabies and possably get it that way!.

When they did surgery, they gave me a nerve block in my arm pit and that whole area has gotten very sore over the last 3-4 days - even going up into my shoulder, backbone and the left side of my neck. I've also had a thickened feeling in my throat like it's constricted sometimes. I thought all this might be caused by the injection in my arm pit but the surgeon is insistant that that's impossable so now I really AM freaking out!.

The first 3-4 nights after surgery I slept sitting up against the side of the bed with my back which was fairly uncomfortable and on the fourth night of this, I woke up several times because I was sleeping on my cast or had fallen over to one side, etc. So, I began sleeping in a rocking chair out in the living room and each morning I would wake up with a stiff neck on the same side where they did the nerve block (the left side) and a lumpy, constricted feeling in my throat. Sometimes when I swallowed, it would hurt just a tiny bit like a small "cramp" (but not sore or anything). This made me think "rabies" because I read that rabies could cause problems with your throat and encephalitis (ie; stiff neck?). So I was imagining rabies racing it's way up to my brain and really freaking out over this. I mean REALLY freaking out!.

Then, all day today I have had explosive diarrhea (sorry, gross I know) and my rectum burns like crazy. On top of all this, I have had more saliva than usual for about a week now (not drooling or foaming though) so that only adds to the fear and terror.

Now I should tell you folks that these symptoms *could* be caused by IBS/GERD (thus the diarrhea) GAD (thus the throat probs) and when I look back at other posts (from other forums) over the years, I can see that I've had the over-salivation problem several times in the past (going back years).

So I just don't know anymore and even if I did have rabies, it's too late now because you have about five days from what I've read. I just don't see how it's possable to get rabies from a bat flying over your head though. I mean, I used to handle live bats from time to time (now that I think about it) when I was a kid and went to stay in my uncle's cabin in the woods and there was a bat out back that we killed many years ago and that one was out hanging on our laundry during the day (much more likely rabid during daylight hours!). My friend also told me all kinds of bat stories back from we he was a kid, etc.

Anyway, I don't know what else I can do or say. I'm just really freaking out. I even looked at all the rabies statistics in my state for the last two years and did a lot of other reading elsewhere. Is this a tempest in a teapot or should I really be freaking out right now?. Does having a bat dive-bomb you or swoop over your head constitute "exposure"?. Does anyone else here have any bat stories to tell?