I have an irrational fear and have had it for most of my life, which is quite a few years. Hydrophobiaphobia (I’m told this is what it’s called) is fear of contracting rabies. I fear that someday some animal is going to bite me, or even slobber on me, and I am never going to see it again, and then I’m going to get rabies and die.

Dying is almost inevitable in rabies. Only 29 people have survived rabies ever. Even with the Milwaukee protocol, a method of supportive treatment, most don’t survive. Luckily, rabies is rare. Only one to three people in the US die of rabies each year. This is in part because of the over 60,000 preventive vaccine series given each year.

That does not stop me from my fear. I’m better than I used to be as a kid when I would pet cats and dogs and ask myself if they’d bitten me and I just couldn’t remember. I would lose sleep at night checking for brain malfunction.

Nowadays, I just worry a bit and keep an extra close eye on my cats. It’s necessary because we have bats in the house. Cute, fuzzy little rabies vectors that cats like to play with. So it’s a matter of vaccinating the cats and making sure to bring the bats in to the Public Health Department to test for rabies. I think about the actions it takes to get the treatment if it comes to that. And my fear is much better, because I have a solution.