Easter 2007

One year, my birthday fell on Easter.

When I was very young, I was given a white rabbit on this day. It was soon killed by my best friend's Boxer dog, who jumped the fence, came into our yard, into our garage, and jumped into the rabbit pen. My folks didn't let me see the rabbit. It all happened that fast.

A few years later, again for Easter, I was given a golden rabbit. My parents bought it at a nearby farm. Dad built a pen. THIS bunny was going to be kept IN the house.

It was a nice rabbit. They're not exactly "interactive", but it was gentle and I loved watching it. One Saturday morning, I was laying on my back on the floor watching cartoons on t.v., feeding the bunny a carrot as it sat on my chest. I was 11, and this was my definition of "peace". Then, he ran out of carrot, and bit my thumb.

Soon after, he died.

Rabies.

Rabies is an ugly killer of both animal and human...foaming at the mouth and going crazy. Very very bad. "Old Yeller" had Rabies, okay?

My folks knew what to do. The county officials retrieved the dead rabbit from our home. They sent the brain to the state capitol, where it was examined for Rabies. At this point, the bite victim is in the "first stage" of the threat of the disease. Had the system worked, the brain would've been tested, my family alerted, and the confirmed disease dealt with from there. Instead, the state moved slow, and then sent my rabbit report to someone bitten by a squirrel, and their squirrel report to us. Too much time passed.

We had to move ahead with the full Rabies treatment, since I was moving out of the incubation period, and reaching the point of no return. Otherwise, I could be dead soon.

I FELT fine! It was during the summer, and I played as usual. I didn't have a grip on this issue. My younger brother told me (years later) he remembers standing by Mom as I would leave for the doctor with my Grandma, and she would collapse into a crying heap in the floor once we'd driven away. I didn't realize there was reason for concern until I was being written about in the paper. My Dad had contacted them, and began exposing the bureaucratic screw ups.

Time was up. The Rabies injections HAD to begin.

It was a two week treatment. Each day, for fourteen days in a row, I was brought to my family doctor, my shirt removed, pants pulled down as I laid on my back on a padded table, four staff members held me down, a needle about 3" long was stuck into my abdomen, and stayed in there for a longer than usual amount of time. I'd never felt such pain, and nothing has topped it since. When they'd pull the needle out, a lump was left on my stomach.

They injected in a circle pattern of 7, then repeated the circle again for the second week. What was "interesting" was I found myself adapting to the pain. My tolerance rose quickly. By the end, although I was glad it was over (!),
I did not "dread" the daily experience. It almost seemed worth it - in my child brain - because on the way home, Grandma would stop at Tastee Freeze and get vanilla soft serve ice cream cones. Plus, I was, in my tiny world, temporarily "famous" with my friends.

God bless the child brain.

Later, I learned a younger girl was also receiving treatment. She began a few days after me, and was in the waiting room every day by the time I left. My folks told me that when she saw me leave, and I wasn't crying, it gave her courage to go in. I never met her or knew about this at the time.

I lived.

I never had another rabbit.

Easter has odd meanings for me.