Health Update and a Poor Raccoon

I have not been posting much during the past month because I have been very sick. Some of you know that I ended up in urgent care with severe allergies. I went because my throat began to close up and blood was coming out of my ear. There was so much pressure in my head it felt like it was going to explode, and my hearing and vision were impaired. After telling the doctor that I was in a field for two hours with goldenrods in bloom along with hundreds of blooming black eyed-susans taking pictures, my symptoms and the exam, I was told that I had severe allergies. A first for me. I was given a shot and then put on steroids for 10 days and was told that I would be feeling better real soon. It took me 10 days until I began to feel better. So for all of you allergy sufferers out there, I feel for you. I had no idea that allergies could make you so sick.

Sunday, August 25th I was finally beginning to feel better. I had to go to the grocery store. It was 1:00 in the afternoon when I opened the door to my back porch. What I saw was another "first" for me. A raccoon laying on my porch!

I took these pictures from inside my house.

So many things were going through my head in a short amount of time. A raccoon in the city? During the day? It must have rabies, etc. It took one step and it fell to its side. "Poor thing. It must have been hit by a car." But I didn't see any injuries. It tried to walk again and fell to its side again. "OMG! The cats are outside!" I ran out the front door, found my cat Pachino and brought him in. I ran back out, found Ollie and brought him inside. The cats didn't have any wounds on them so they must not have had an encounter with the raccoon, thank God!

The raccoon took another step and fell to its side.

Now my concern was for the poor raccoon who was definitely suffering. I just wanted someone to help it but who would I be able to get a hold of on a Sunday? To make an already long story shorter, I called some neighbors and I had 6 people in my backyard with their phones calling different organizations to see if anyone could help but of course no phones were answered. An hour had passed when one person had a brilliant idea to call a trapper. He found someone that would come to the house but wouldn't arrive for 2 hours.

Everyone went home while I kept an eye on the raccoon and waited for the trapper. By now I was in tears and I just wanted someone to end this poor raccoon's suffering. The trapper arrived at 4:00 P.M. By this time, the raccoon had managed to drag itself from yard to yard. I took the trapper to the raccoon, he took one look at how the raccoon walked and said, "No, it was not hit by a car. No, it doesn't have rabies. But it does have distemper and it is really sick."

Look at this pitiful thing. How can your heart not break for this poor raccoon.

The trapper promised me that he would humanely kill the raccoon to end its suffering and he told me to bleach my porch. I have a large porch. You can only see 1/4 of the porch in these photos. I haven't used bleach for 20 years because it gives me migraines and I already get migraines every 2-3 weeks, but I had no choice. 8 hours had passed since I first saw the raccoon and my porch was cleaned.

Now I was worried about my 15 year old cat Pachino. He was due for his rabies vaccine 2 weeks prior but I had to cancel the appointment because I was so sick. Also, he hadn't had a distemper shot in 3 years because of his age. The vet said they don't like to give the distemper shot every year when they reach a certain age. I called the vet the next morning when they opened and they took him right away. The vet said that the raccoon could have had rabies even though it wasn't foaming at the mouth because the raccoon had the same symptoms of rabies or distemper. She said that Pachino would be OK but he would now need the distemper shot also.

That night I got a 3 day migraine from hell which was followed by 3 days of vertigo. But all is good now, The raccoon is out of his misery, my cat is in good health and all of my allergy symptoms are finally gone. Hopefully I will be back to posting daily again. I have missed all of you and looking forward to catching up with your lives.

All photos are my own.

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