Mind Control

I can move my arm by the power of thought

- Melissa Loomis

Half-asleep, I padded downstairs to open the door to the back garden.

My dogs Vincent and Vivian shot outside.

It was only 6am, but my two hounds never let me have a lie-in, even on a Saturday.

It was still dark as I waited for the dogs to come back in.

But then I heard a screeching noise.

Going over to the dogs, I saw they’d cornered a raccoon, which are common where I live.

‘Shoo!’ I shouted.

But both dogs pounced on the animal.

I went to grab their collars to pull them away, but the raccoon lashed out, scratching me.

Next thing, its jaw clamped down on my right arm. The bite felt like an electric bolt running through me.

I scooped up the raccoon and threw him over the fence, then looked down and saw that my arm was covered in blood.

Probably looks worse than it is, I thought.

‘What’s going on?’ my hubby Neil, 42, said, appearing at the back door.

‘I got in an argument with a raccoon,’ I told him.

The bite wasn’t that big at all, not even an inch in size. But, as raccoons carry rabies, I went off to hospital to have an injection, just to be on the safe side.

I thought that would be the end of it. Only, over that weekend, the pain didn’t dull, and my arm was swollen and red-raw.

‘I’m going back to the doctor,’ I told Neil.

I was put on a different antibiotic and diagnosed with cellulitis – a skin infection.