(CNN) I was just petting an orange tabby cat in my Falls Church, Virginia, neighborhood, a cat I never met before. He was very cute. And he was purring and butting his head against my hand. Until he wasn't.

He sunk his teeth into my wrist, hissed at me and ran off. So began my personal episode of Law & Order: Feline Victims Unit, complete with cat mug shots and weekly check-ins from local animal control and public health officials. And rabies shots. Multiple rabies shots in the emergency room. And more than $26,000 in health care costs, an alarming amount considering I was perfectly healthy throughout the whole ordeal.

What I learned, besides fascinating facts about rabies, its transmission and the horrible ways one can die from it, was that how any one of us is a mere cat scratch away from financial peril if we aren't lucky enough to have good health insurance. Our confusing health care system makes it too easy for a person who should get medical care to postpone it or avoid it — even when that decision could be fatal.

After the encounter with the cat, I headed to a nearby storefront urgent care clinic, where a nurse handed me a form to fill out, which the city uses to track animal bites. She faxed the form to the health department and a police officer visited me as soon as I returned home.

I was asked: "Do you know the cat?" After some sleuthing in my neighborhood Facebook group, I developed a suspicion about whom he belongs to. But I couldn't be 100% positive.

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