Here is a story I sent to my family. That's why its so long and detailed and personal...
Strange thing, but we woke up this morning after all this, finding out that two bombs had gone off in Turkey just 450kms from Istanbul killing nearly 100 people.
We excitedly booked our October honeymoon last April, planning to get married in December. As the date approached, we of course got more and more excited.
The plan we finally decided upon was to fly into Istanbul, Turkey where we would board the ship. The cruise was 11 days, and at the end we would stay five days in Istanbul to site see. The first thing that happened was our flight home from Turkey was cancelled, and Air Canada automatically booked us on a flight the next day. We decided that was fine, and we added one day in our hotel. We had decided to sign up for "Step" which is a e-mail service our US Government provides letting you know of issues with the countries you plan to visit. We received at least 5 notices of unrest in Turkey including shots being fired at the US Consulate, and warnings saying that US Citizens who are living in Turkey are cleared to return home due to unrest if they choose to. Next we were contacted by Expedia who then told us the hotel could no longer accommodate us for our dates in Turkey. After several very long phone calls with Expedia, we were booked in a new hotel. Next Kimberley broke out in hives after getting bites which to this day we have not figured out where they came from. Those are still happening but the hives have cleared up.
So as the signs mounted that someone thought we shouldn't go on this trip, the date still approached. We had discussed this many times, each time I convinced Kimberley we needed to go on this trip. Our trip was supposed to happen October 11th, returning October 29th. Well on the evening of Thursday October 8th, I was doing dishes in our kitchen which overlooks the backyard. Kimberley was doing laundry prior to our trip in the basement. She had allowed Bella to go in the backyard to go potty. Well Bella has a best Friend, Caleb the 75 lb Plott Hound and we Bella is over at Caleb's house they like to chase the raccoons out of his backyard. Well Bella in her courageous state remembering with Caleb, thinks she can do the same and scare the 35 lb raccoons out of our backyard too. Well this raccoon didn't agree. The raccoon attacked Bella clear up in the top part of the backyard and either chased or carried Bella down towards the house. Kimberley saw this happening, and ran out wielding the best weapon she could find, two pet blankets. Running out directly at the raccoon and Bella swinging the two blankets at screaming at the top of her lungs, I've never heard such a scream. By this time I knew exactly what was going on and I flew down the stairs and out the back door. I grabbed the blankets from Kimberley so she could go back inside. I swung the blankets and Bella managed to get away and ran inside. The raccoon then went for my leg, biting me in the right ankle. I've never experienced such an aggressive raccoon. I kept swinging the blankets and finally got him to back off so I could head back in the garage. At this time he had jumped up onto the fence and was staring at us in the doorway. Finally I grabbed a real tool a lawn spike aerator which weighs around 20 lbs. I went after the raccoon hoping to scare him away. Yes I now know I was supposed to kill him so he could be tested. I slammed the spike on the fence and he took off in the next yard. With all the screaming I'm really surprised nobody called the police. Thanks neighbors. We went back inside shaking and really quite terrified. We ran upstairs to check on Bella who miraculously looked unscathed at first, but she was favoring her right rear leg. Kimberley ended up with a pretty serious scratch on her leg, and I ended up with two puncture wounds from the bite in my ankle. We cleaned up, settled down and checked out Bella a little more thoroughly. She had a small spot of blood on her nose, and blood on her right rear leg. But since nobody seemed to have any life threatening injuries, and the raccoon didn't appear to be rabid, we decided to go to bed and return to normalcy. We certainly didn't want to miss out on our cruise. We figured we would see a doctor the next day and take Bella to the vet.
Part 2, the doctors.
So the next day was Friday and I went to work. Kimberley called her doctor. The doctor told Kimberley to go to the ER. After talking to a few more people at work, I also decided to go to the urgent care. Kimberley got on a train, and I drove to the urgent care in Concord. After being seen in the Urgent Care the doctor had contacted the SF CDC and the protocol is to administer the rabies vaccine no matter what. Kimberley found out the same thing upon arriving at the ER. Well the urgent care didn't have the vaccine, in fact the only place to get it is at the ER. Well here is the process. First you must get Immunoglobulins based on your weight. I ended up with 10.88 ml which needed to be injected in multiple muscles. Then we also get 1ml of the vaccine. So six injections for me and five for Kimberley at different ERs around the same time. Well now we both discussed with our Doctors in the ER about how do we get the vaccine on our trip. Unfortunately the vaccine must be maintained at freezing temperatures until it is administered. So you cannot be issued the vaccine so you can take it with you on a trip. Also you can't even get the vaccine from a doctor or a pharmacist, you MUST go the ER to get the subsequent injections. There is also no convenient way to get injections in a foreign country or on a cruise ship. The decision was made to cancel the trip.
After some tears on the phone with Celebrity Cruises, they agreed to cancel our cruise and transfer our payments to a new cruise, even though we did not pay for cruise insurance. (Yeah, we know now) So today, Saturday we already booked a new cruise for next April, with only a short docking in Turkey. We will be flying in and out of Rome this time, and I think we'll even take a drive up to Genoa to try to see where Kimberley's family comes from. Who knows, maybe we'll even find a relative. Bella went to the Vet and we found two puncture wounds, one on her back and one on her tummy. Also her leg turned out to be fine. She got some meds, and rabies booster and she came home pretty happy. This morning she already back to walking on her leg and the trauma has subsided. She even went potty in the backyard with Brent standing guard with the aerator again.
Back to normalcy, but what a story .
Sorry for the book and the typos which I'm sure are there
