Rabies? Rabies!

Meet Young Man.


Rose, Tianne's beloved Didinga dog, must have been something of a looker. In her two short years of life, she had something of four litters of puppies. When this last bunch came, the three of us carefully considered our track record with Sudanese pets and quickly decided that it would be best to get rid of the whole kit and caboodle of new, fine furry friends.

We started the process of divying out Rose's newest litter to friends, neighbors and former Sudanese political leaders. Young Man was given to our good friend, Philip Lajore. Unfortunately, the puppy wasn't the only young man living in that house. The responsibilities of feeding and oh, I don't know, taking care of the little critter somehow eluded our Sudanese buddy.

Eventually, Philip suggested a new, very Didinga-father-like, arrangement in which he would be the technical owner of Young Man, while we would assume all physical love and care of the puppy. And because we like Philip soooooo much and mostly liked the arrangement, we agreed to joint puppy custody.

Everything was going just great until a few weeks before Christmas when Young Man started acting strange. At first, we thought he had a cold or maybe a chicken bone stuck in his throat. With time, rather than improving, he stopped eating and then drinking. He seemed confused and was drooling like nobodies business.

We decided to do what anyone living in the bush, without a vet, would do. We self-medicated the pup. A little Doxycycline has never hurt anything.

The next morning, post-Doxy, Young Man was totally out of it and foaming at the month!

Yes, sing it with me now:

Young Man, was foaming at the mouth.
I said, Young Man's, head was twitching around.
I said, Young man, even started to growl.
So, we decided to kill him.

We hit him with a hard p-o-l-e.
We hit him with a hard p-o-l-e.

Now, can't you see, we didn't want to be cruel.
but who wants to die like a fool...

right before his demise
- photo was taken from my safe perch atop Elly's bed -

"Who's going to kill him?"
We were scared. Real scared.

Now, before you start to worry and wonder if Elly, Tianne and I are moments away from a painful and unusual vampire-like death, you should know that we are all quite safe and mostly sound at this point in time.

Once we started to suspect that Young Man might have rabies, we contacted our amazing team leader, and when needed fill-in father and doctor, Phil Byler.

Phil puts up with a lot from us Didinga girls and this little rabies fiasco was no exception. As you might have guessed, communication is no easy thing from Sudan. So, Phil stepped in and immediately started researching our risks of exposure and the proper steps to be taken in response to our contact with Young Man.

Within hours, our AIM family had consulted rabies experts (who informed us that a person can still be at risk of contracting rabies even if they weren't bit - major bummer!), located the proper rabies vaccinations and scheduled a pilot and flight to drop off the medication the following day.

We Didinga ladies are in VERY good hands!

Tianne and vaccine #1

Elly

and me...
I love this shot (no pun intended - hee hee)!!!

Anyhow, we started the five series rabies vaccination a few days before Christmas.

Keeping the shots cold and finding someone to administer them throughout the following month of road travel through Sudan to Uganda, Uganda to Rwanda, Rwanda to Uganda and Uganda to Kenya was no easy task, but hey, us missionaries are a resourceful bunch...