Rabies Graduation

The Year 2000. Not only was it the age of Y2K hysteria, but it was also the year of my high school graduation. The world had always followed our class because of this unique age we would graduate in - the new millennium.

Preparation for this once-in-a-thousand year-event began as soon as we became elementary schoolers in 1987. My mom put together a time capsule to be opened upon our high school graduation. We went to local car dealerships and asked for catalogs of what the new cars looked like that year and saved newspapers and got extra Happy Meal toys at McDonald’s to commemorate this age. 

In Fifth Grade, a government initiative dubbed us “The Smoke Free Class of 2000” in an effort to make us pledge to never smoke cigarettes, thus eradicating the habit for all generations to come. But no pressure, right…. Rudy from “The Cosby Show” was the face of the campaign and appeared in videos warning us about the dangers of smoking. Though, years later, it would be discovered that her TV dad was a predator and the world should have been more focused on that.

Our teachers doled out all the swag for this initiative. Rulers, stickers, and shirts in lemon yellow with blood-red script with the logo. At some point in the year we put on some sort of program for our parents and sang a song about our desire to avoid nicotine. The song went: “We are the smoke free class of 2000. Two triple zero everyone’s a hero. or a SHEro! Healthy lungs, healthy heart, we won’t have to stop because we will never start.” 

What an anthem! Between this, the DARE program, being on the tail end of Nancy Regan’s “Just Say No” campaign, and the fried egg “This is Your Brain on Drugs” commercials, we should have been the safest class ever to walk the hallowed halls of a learning institution. 

The years rolled on and we were finally seniors. It was the last day of school and my mom wrote me a note to get dismissed early so I could get a pedicure with flowers airbrushed on my toes. I was wearing a cute little plaid skort with a white shirt from The Limited and a periwinkle cardigan. The shoes were chunky Skechers sandals and the hair was chunky blonde highlights with butterfly barrettes. (None of this is important to the story, I just really wanted you to know how cute my outfit was. 2000s girls I know you feel me right now!)

Post-pedicure I returned home to be feted by my parents for a job well done graduating high school without any major guffaws. 

Recently our weiner dog, Barkley, had started to develop dementia. He would get really aggressive out of nowhere and was particularly unfond of his once best friend, Curly, our Jack Russell Terrier. Dad had purposely kept Barley in the laundry room to isolate him from Curly since Barkley was prone to attacking him. 

That evening I headed out to celebrate with some friends. Overwhelmed by the excitement of listening to Nelly’s “Country Grammar” CD in a parking lot by the park, I didn’t consider that Barkley was behind the closed door I was about to open. All five pounds of Barkley came barreling out towards Curly and the two immediately began sinking their teeth into the other's neck. 

I panicked. “Oh, balls,” I thought. “Dad is going to be pissed because these two are hard to separate once they start dueling.” So I took it upon myself to break up a dog fight. 

I don’t know what happened next. I must have screamed because my parents appeared and my dad suddenly had a snarling dog in each of his hands. I wandered into the kitchen and my mom followed behind me. I mumbled, “I think I got bit.” And started to feel faint. My mom walked towards me and I held my right arm out to her to reveal a bite through my wrist that nearly went all the way through both sides of my flesh.

Initially I was in shock so I didn’t feel much pain. Mom and dad drove me to the ER about 15 minutes away. The pain ramped up as we pulled into the parking lot on that humid Friday night. The only attending doctor was the new ER resident who clearly had no freaking idea what he was doing. He seemed shaky cleaning out my arm guts so I tried to relax him by telling him about the Beverly Hills, 90210 finale that had just aired. 

“Donna and David finally got married…(sort-of doctor cleaning dog saliva out of my wound and not paying attention to me)…Kelly and Dylan seem like they are going to end up together…(no response)…And I am not sure how I feel about that. Like, Brenda challenged Dylan and I think he liked that, but Kelly really understood him in a way that the Walsh family could just never wrap their heads around…”(brief glance from kind-of doctor before flushing out my wrist and making me yelp with pain. I can’t prove it, but I think he did that to shut me up.)

Since it was a dog bite, it was important not to stitch the gaping wound because the bacteria could get trapped. So after he swabbed out the black hole that was once my wrist and bandaged me up, I was sent home with some crazy strong antibiotics and supplies for my mom to disinfect the dog-bite abyss. 

I didn’t let the flesh wound dampen too much of my grad weekend. I went to see the movie “Road Trip” with my girlfriends at the Northrock 14 screen theatre in Wichita on Saturday night. Sunday afternoon was graduation and I put on my black shift dress from Express and the Steve Madden black slides every teen girl had been lusting after. I collected my diploma, and kind of swatted hands at the Superintendent since I was unable to actually shake hands with the five pounds of bandages on my wrist. Later that night I went to a pasture party where I was finally able to listen to Nelly’s album with most of my class. And then fell asleep in my friend TJ’s basement next to a strawberry wine cooler. 

Monday was a sad day. The decision had been made to put Barkley to sleep because he needed to be tested for rabies since he had become aggressive and spent time outside, thus creating the potential to come in contact with an infected animal. If he did have rabies, dad and I would begin the summer with a series of shots to keep us from foaming at the mouth. And the only way to test for rabies was postmortem. I didn’t go to the vet’s office - it felt too heavy for me. 

I went to bed Monday night still uncomfortable from my wrist hole but basically on the mend. In the middle of the night I was suddenly awakened by this burning feeling between my legs. I went to the bathroom and it stung like a dozen bees when i peed. I started to cry. I hobbled back to my daybed and laid back down. I wanted to take my non-gimpy hand and pick up a rake and just scratch the hell out of my crotch. I thought that a cold cloth might help so I walked like a bow-legged cowboy down the hall to get a washcloth soaked in cold water. Once back in bed I shoved the cloth in my underwear thinking that would solve my problem. Perhaps it helped momentarily, but ultimately it just dried my labia out even more, creating more pain. I was too embarrassed to wake up my parents to say my vagina was on fire, so I just laid in bed and cried. 

A family of night urinators, my dad got up and heard my sobs. He opened my bedroom door and said, “Danya, what’s wrong?” 

I couldn’t tell my sweet dad who had always doted on me that my lady land was a scorching desert, so I wailed “I’m just so sad about Barkley!” He accepted my excuse and sat down on the bed and said that he was sad too but we just had to remember the good times and be thankful for those. I said, “Ok, I think I just need to get some sleep.” But really I just needed to cry for my labia some more. 

At some point I must have fallen asleep. My mom came into my room that morning and asked if I was doing ok; dad had told her about my nighttime sobbing over the dog. I told her that something was really making my crotch feel like a fire zone. She said, “oh dear. That’s probably from the antibiotic. Yeast infections are a common side effect.” I knew nothing of yeast infections but I did in fact feel that the heat coming from my baby maker was hot enough to bake bread.

She went to the pharmacy right away and brought back some Monistat. Ladies, let us all take a moment to say a big “Thanks” to the makers of this wonder cream. I spent the day laying in the basement, airing out my crotch and compulsively applying my new BFF to my girl part. 

And that was how I graduated high school.