I had encouraged a dear friend who lost her husband to not stop living her life...she is independent and loves to travel, so she booked a room along the beach the other week. Sok she is out on her front porch, having her morning coffee, and this cat comes over to her, and starts weaving in and out of her legs, while she's petting it. She must have been petting it for 5 minutes, and then it bit her.
By early evening, her whole arm starts to swell....and she could not bend her fingers.
There is something in every cats saliva that can cause horrible infection in a human being....
so, she packs up everything and drives to her home hospital.
They admit her, and the doctor calls the renters, explains her story and asks him if he could locate the cat that fits that description, however, none of the neighbors had one.
So, the next morning they take her up to the OR and completely clean out the infection, and it was very infected....they leave the wound open, and immediately start rabie shots on her....she said the first 3 were very painful and after that they were not bad, however, she was out of work for a week, and had to go back to the doctor, and he kept cleaning the open wound out...plus she had to soak it 3 x's a day.....
What an ordeal? Poor woman.....
so I went into the internet to find out more of what this is in a cat's saliva and couldn't find much, however, I did find others who had posted similar stories, however, some of them were sick a month or more...depends on where the bite is and how long it's left go.