I thought that in the US you had the Irish variety; the O'Possums.
Yes, it is often petting them; the fatal UK case a friend was involved with the bat was in the house, it was captured, during which a small bite on a finger happened, and the bat was expelled from the house. During the next few weeks the virus spreads up the nerves from the finger to the brain. By the time that symptoms develop weeks later the patient is a brain eating zombie and you know civilisation is over.
Sorry that is Z virus not lyssa virus.
Once you confirm the diagnosis, you have the difficult discussion that this is a an inevitably fatal illness and we'll do our best to keep you comfortable.
The last time I had to do a somewhat similar discussion was with paraquat poisoning. A fully conscious patient, anxious relatives, and a fatal overdose with no antidote that will lead to inevitable death over the next few days. So many google questions; all with the same answer. This is a fatal overdose, over the next days the kidneys will stop working, we can dialyse. then the lungs and we can ventilate, we can put on heart lung bypass (ECMO) but no one will transplant lung and kidneys because the toxin is long lasting. We should move to palliative care.
