Haohao--ouch!

Last Saturday, I accompanied Ate Daye to KALIPI Headquarters to help her with her assignment—updating Justice Nachura’s book. So I was the one encoding the case digests. My sister, Aei came with her friend, Bandam, and Haohao, my Kuya Jan’s pet, a dog (chaochao, how do you spell this?). I got very excited to see Haohao so I played with her.

Haohao is also happy playing (I guess) with me so she keeps on barking and opening her mouth with those sharp teeth, when she bites me on my legs. I am not hurt thinking that her teeth didn’t reached my skin. So we still played. When I got tired, I looked at my pants and it’s butas (it has a hole). OMG! So I raised my pants and checked my legs, and I saw a 1-in. wound with blood slowly flowing out.

I wanted to cry because I thought I’m dying, in 10-15 days. I didn’t know what to do. I don’t have any knowledge about first aid for dog bites. I just washed it with water and put so much alcohol. I don’t know if that helped me lessen my worries, but I continued playing with Haohao. In fact, I bought her 2 cups of ice cream. I couldn’t be mad at her coz I simply love her. She’s so cute, jolly and sweet. And of course, I have to take care of her in case she has rabies. She has to live for 15 days and more. But my Kuya assured me that Haohao has completed his shots last Thursday so she is safe.

But I was still worried. I kept on talking on what I should do. I kept asking Ate Daye to ask her brother, who is a doctor, on what I am going to do. I told my close friends about what happened and that I’m going to die after 15 days. Some called me insane. Some told me to have it checked just to be sure. Some frightened me with stories of the victims of rabid animals.

Sunday, I am not worried anymore. But I still asked Doc Extee, Ate Daye’s brother, about my dog bite. As doctors usually do, he scared me about the possibilities of having rabies. He suggested having it checked immediately and that I should get shots of anti rabies.

After lunch, I went home and told my mother about my dog bite. She got nervous and almost teary-eyed telling me to go to the hospital and get anti rabies. To calm her and to prevent incurring more expenses (because her blood pressure might rise), I went to the doctor and had my first ever injection ever since I knew that it hurts.