Today was crazy. We all woke early for what was to be our last day of work. We were all mostly packed to be able to leave for Arenal after lunch. We were excited and happy, and suddenly tragedy struck. Mom was coming out of the bathroom when she slipped on some water and fell. We all heard a thud and a yell and rushed into the hall to see what happened. I was concerned about her knee, and was making sure that everything could bend and nothing was broken, when I noticed she was bleeding from the head. One of the kids grabbed a towel so we could put pressure on the bleeding. Then Alex ran down to use his Spanish to tell whoever was in the house what happened and that we needed medical help. Rosa (one of our CCS cooks - who speaks only Spanish) came up, took a look and called Margeth. Margeth said to call the ambulance, but unfortunately there is only one ambulance in all of San Carlos and it was 25 minutes away. Margeth lives very close and she came right over to accompany us to the private hospital by taxi. While waiting for Margeth, everyone was pretty freaked out. I kept thinking mom was going to pass out. I could tell the injury was not huge, but whenever the head bleeds it looks worse then it really is. And it was a little scary. Rachel sat in the hall next to the security guard - both of them were very freaked out!
The strong CCS volunteer guys came up to help get mom down the stairs and into the taxi. The hospital was just around the corner thankfully. It looked a little scary from the outside, but was very clean inside. And NO waiting! Margeth was there to translate since the doctor did not speak English. Three stitches and only about 1/2 hour later we were back at CCS with instructions for mom to spray an antiseptic on the area twice a day and take Tylenol for pain. I was a little worried about concussion, but everything really turned out okay - well as okay as it could be when getting hurt in a poverty stricken area of a foreign country. Mom's knee and ankle hurt a bit, and she feels terrible and probably a little scared. I said I wish it had happened to me instead. And I really wish that. I don't want her to be afraid to travel.
Afterwards, we thought about the whole accident. The sink in the tiny bathrom had a small leak, and so the floor was almost always wet. We had all noticed wet footprints that morning, and are kicking ourselves for not wiping them up. When mom slipped, she reached out to grab (ironically) the medical board that was hanging on the wall - you know, the one that they strap injured people onto to get them into an ambulance.... It fell off the wall and hit her on the head, causing a bump and small cut. What a bummer. But, you can't second guess what happens, and it doesn't matter anyway. The key to travel is flexibility. Instead of driving for hours on narrow, 2-lane roads around the mountainous coutryside of Costa Rica, we elected to return to San Jose on Saturday morning. We were able to get some much needed sleep (at least I needed sleep!), and can now do some day trips from here. And Alex was able to see Harry Potter in English at the Escazu MultiPlaza theater on Saturday night - something he wanted to do the first day we landed in Costa Rica. Pura Vida.
No comments:
Post a Comment