Over a month ago I was out walking my roommate's dog in my apartment complex, it was late at night and as we passed a group of bushes the dog stopped to sniff, this cat jumped out and attacked him. Without thinking, I kicked it away but I was wearing sandals and came back bleeding on my foot. I went inside, rubbed the wounds with hand sanitizer, then washed out the wounds with soap and water for a few minutes, then rubbed them with sanitizer again and put antiseptic lotion on them. I became terrified of getting rabies. We went back to the attack spot the next day and the cat was there with two young kittens, which were hiding in the bushes and were most likely the reason for the attack.
The neighbors in the building say they have been watching over her for over 2 years since their neighbor left her there and she's never acted ill or rabid. But I am terrified. I went to the hospital and they said the rabies vaccines were expensive (the number they quoted was too much for me to afford) but they gave me a tetanus shot. I saw the cat every day for weeks, and I just saw her again the other day, she doesn't act sick at all. But I have freaked myself out by Googling rabies and the symptoms (I have a relatively uncomfortable sore throat and I am having an anxiety attack at the moment because I read that that is one of the symptoms) and I have been scared that the cat I have been seeing isn't the one that jumped out at us that night. Logic would dictate that it's the same one because her kittens were maybe a month old so she wouldn't have let another cat near them so it would almost certainly have to be the same cat. And since the people have been taking care of her for 2+ years if she had rabies she would have died. And her kittens would have been born with rabies and died as well. Plus the wounds aren't angled right for her to have bitten me, but I'm still terrified. I have awful, awful anxiety and I'm a really bad hypochondriac as well, I'm absolutely terrified that I have rabies and I'm going to die. I've had a few headaches since then and I have had this sore throat since yesterday. I would think that the first sign would be a fever though, but my fear is over-riding any time I try and tell myself something comforting. Please someone help me.