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Zugzwang 21

Holiday Ideas & Foreign Travel
TaurusTheBull
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Zugzwang 21

#374011

Postby TaurusTheBull » January 6th, 2021, 6:30 pm

Hi,

Whilst 2020 will forever be remembered for worldwide havoc, I'd got off lightly, and 2021 seemed to offer brighter prospects. My Turkish visa had nearly expired and I had enjoyed a refreshing New Years Eve swim in Kuşadasi. My flight to the sunny Balkan uplands of Albania was just days away.

And then, bang!

After a walk to the north of the town on New Years Day, I strolled onto the small triangular patch of sand in the centre of town. It was just before sunset on the first day of a 3-day weekend lockdown, something that seemed to work for Turkey. A few people were around, and the usual motley collection of strays.

I walked onto the beach where two passive dogs were relaxing. A woman walked nearer the sea. When I was about twenty metres from these dogs one of them barked, nothing strange in that, but this bark seemed to be a clarion call for three or four other dogs, further away, to start running along the beach. My bemusement turned to anxiety and then to abject terror as I realised they were heading towards me! I didn't have a bag to swing and so just kicked out at the first two, and this arrested their advance.

Unfortunately, life is not a Jet Li film, and it's impossible to cover 360 degrees on loose sand when canine brutes are converging from all angles. One sneaked in behind me and ripped through my goretex jacket and left four red welt marks on my upper left buttock. I was more aware of my jacket than the state of my bum, but that soon changed. I was so incensed that I turned on the perp and charged him. This tactic worked and he backed off. I managed to retreat off the beach whilst pretending to be in charge of events, but in fact those few seconds had a much more profound effect on me than on my assailants, most of whom had probably forgotten about it seconds later.

When I saw the damage, as darkness fell, I started to think. Surely those tagged ears meant the dogs were vaccinated (the answer, in Kuşadasi at least, seemed to be "not necessarily")? Was mine tagged? I hadn't noticed and wouldn't be looking out for the bugger to ask him. After Internet consultation and extensive cleaning of the wound, I retired to bed to consider my situation.

Rabies is not a nice death and neither is that in much doubt once symptoms appear. Thousands of people die from rabies every year, mostly children in poor countries, but unsuspecting adults succumb too. The post-event treatment consists of four or five injections and, depending on where you are, it often isn't cheap. Without wishing to disrespect the staff at Kusadasi Hospital, who next day gave me a tetanus jab and my first rabies jab, they seemed to indicate that the full rabies course would be as expensive as one of those pre-pandemic world cruises!

I managed to avoid that by the fact that I had previously asked how much the jabs would cost (and was told "not much") and had also told them that I could only get the first rabies jab due to my expiring visa. On pointing this out, they immediately relented and said that they would call it an emergency, which was quite a relief when I realised how much they had appeared to be asking.

That dog had left me with no good options. My plan evolved into a reluctant return to lockdown UK, an ironic nod to the adage of being better safe than sorry. Covid rates may be going through the roof but ignoring potential rabies is the Russian Roulette of gambling.

As I awaited my flight in Istanbul, I was in reflective mood. The only two places were face mask removal was possible were the restaurants and the toilets. Talk of social distancing, lockdowns and self-isolation in 2019 would've been associated with prison, a dystopian nightmare or a novichok release. And yet here we are, accepting all manner of imposition and restriction, often illogical. I have come from somewhere with less contagion than UK, and yet I am treated as guilty, with house arrest for ten days.

It just so happened that my route home from Stansted took me past the London Hospital for Tropical Diseases, and so I popped in and had my second rabies jab, along with immunoglobulin at the wound site and in either thigh. As a walk-in who couldn't give prior notice due to the uncertainty of travel at this time, I cannot speak highly enough of the way I was received and treated, which also included liaision with my GPs clinic such that I can get the last two jabs near home.

So it looks like the stress and drama of the last five days has finally started to abate. No-one will ever know what would have happened had I done nothing, but self-isolation, lockdown and a bleak winter are prices I am happy to pay for my health. I live to bite another day...

Happy New Year!

Cheers
Taurus :-)

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