“I need you to drive me to the emergency room,” came my mom’s voice bright and early on a Tuesday morning. Summer had just begun, and I was enjoying catching up on the sleep finals had stolen from me.
“Um, yeah of course. What’s going on?” I mumbled back while climbing out of bed.
“I think I have appendicitis,” was the rapid response.
We jumped into the car and began the drive to our local hospital. My mom turned to me and suggested that I drop her off and then go back home to feed and walk our dog, Abby, as my dad was traveling for business and my brother had already left for work. “I feel like I should probably just stay. Someone else can take care of Abby,” I answered, but my mom was insistent that she’d be waiting for a while and it didn’t make sense for me to wait too. I figured I should just go back home quickly and take care of it.
Twenty minutes later, I had fed and walked my golden retriever, changed out of my pajamas, grabbed a book and some granola bars and was heading back to the hospital.
When I arrived, I drove around looking for a parking spot for twenty minutes only to find every spot of every lot full. I finally pulled all the way through one lot to find a gate that led out to the slope of a public street. Other cars were parked here, so I figured it was alright for me to pull the black Volvo into a space.
As I got out of the car and began to walk down towards the hospital, a woman was walking up the hill with her beautiful black Doberman Pinscher. The dog started to pull towards me, and I, a dog lover, assumed he was excited to make a new human friend. We were getting closer to each other as I smiled at the woman and began to say, “What a beautiful dog, can I say hel—”
The dog lunged at me, and his powerful jaw, full of sharp teeth, clamped down on my wrist. That dog did not want to let go. He just kept biting down and growling, and it felt as if the pressure he was applying to the tiny bones in my hand increased with every moment.
So naturally I’m yelling and the dog’s owner is screaming; I’m trying to pull my arm one way, while the owner is pulling my arm in the opposite direction, and the dog is tugging in a third unique direction. After about 15 seconds, I manage to get free and turn around to, you know, get away. But this dog jumps at me again, catches the back of my sweatshirt, and tears a huge hole in the fabric as I continue my attempt to escape from the animal (honestly still most upset about that part; it was my favorite sweatshirt).
Now I have a car barricading me from this dog, who is still trying to get at me, along with its owner, who is screaming and crying. The woman was more upset than I was. Granted, the throbbing of my forearm and hand coupled with the shock could have been keeping me quiet, but part of me was thinking, “Jeez, this poor woman is really losing it.” Clutching my hand and breathing in through little gasps of pain, the apologies begin to tumble from my lips.
“ImsorryImsorryImsorry. I shouldn’t have walked towards you,” I stuttered out, immediately feeling foolish for assuming the dog was friendly and not out of its path.
“What? You’re sorry? Oh my God are you ok?” the dog’s owner cried in response.
“Yeah yeah yeah it’s fine I’m fine. I’m going to see my mom in the hospital anyway, so I’ll just have them look when I get inside it’s fine,” came my answer.
The woman gasped in horror at my admission as I quickly turned away, desperate to get away from this dog and out of the situation.
“WAIT, HE HAS RABIES!”
My body froze. I did one of those slow movie turns until I was facing her. “He has rabies?” I shuddered back in question.
I realized that I must have misheard her say “He has his rabies,” as in the dog has had his rabies vaccination, because she furiously shook her head and said, “No, no, no he doesn’t have rabies, he doesn’t.”
Eerie calm fell over me as I again realized how foolish I was being in not getting any information after the event, and I calmly asked, “Is he up to date on all his vaccinations?” I thanked her for her affirmative response and quickly hurried into the ER.
“Visiting?” the security guard at the front desk asked.
“Um, yes I am, my mom’s here, but also I was just attacked by a dog right outside so if someone could quickly look at my hand that would be really great.” Two birds one stone am I right?
As most people I explained the story to are, the security guard was quite surprised by how my morning had gone so far. After checking in on my mom and nearly passing out, I decided to admit myself so the doctors could clean and x-ray my hand. It turned out that nothing was broken, and I didn’t need stitches. Luckily, my now-ruined sweatshirt was long enough in the sleeves that it blocked direct contact between the dog’s teeth and my skin. My mom did end up getting her appendix out. I would have to say that all-and-all, it was a pretty eventful day for the family.
The events of this day are almost unbelievable, and since everyone is okay now, I also consider the whole situation fairly hilarious. I do however, circle back to the moments of my fervent apology and wonder why. Why in this situation where I was alone, scared, and in pain, was my immediate reaction to apologize for the “inconvenience” I had caused? I kept thinking that I should have known better, that my mom always taught me never to approach an unknown dog, and to always ask for permission before extending a hand to say hello. I was alone, and in retrospect I knew I should have been mindful of my safety; but when that was compromised, I felt so incredibly stupid at my own incompetence. But it wasn’t my fault for walking down that street at that time, and I shouldn’t feel responsible for it. I’m not trying to overreach in order to incorporate an interesting feminist spin on this, but I really do feel it’s an important reminder that as women we can sometimes be too quick to acquiesce, take the blame, or wipe away something that hurt us was a simple “It’s fine, I’m fine.”
I’m so thankful as I sit here (without rabies) looking at my barely scarred wrist, realizing that I really am fine and that things could have been a lot worse. But there is one thing I still have to remind myself not to be: sorry.