Skip to main content

Stitches


Feb 17th
Today I had my first trip to a Panamanian hospital.

There is a beautiful tree whose branches stretch out over the river in Los Mortales.  Our Panamanian friends showed us where we can climb up the tree and jump into the river.  The highest I’ve seen a gringo climb before jumping into the river is 15ft., the highest I’ve seen a Panamanian climb before jumping is around 35 ft.  The river at it’s deepest is around 7ft. at its shallowest it’s around 3 ft. Today I made the mistake of jumping off a tree branch onto the shallow side.

Where I landed in the river there was around 4 ft. of water covering a bed of rocks. As soon as I landed I knew that I had cut my foot, I was just hoping it wasn’t going to be a bad cut.  Turns out it was a bad cut.  When I lifted my foot up it was covered in blood and there was a gash between the pad of my foot and my toes that was 3 inches long and about a half inch deep. 

With the help from everyone at the river I climbed out of the river, wrapped my foot in a towel, and hobbled up the hill to my closest friend’s house.  When I arrived Annie, a fellow trainee, cleaned and wrapped my foot in gauze, while Carolina, my host niece, went to tell my host mom what had happened.  By the time my mom arrived to the house there was a big crowd of trainees and Panamanian friends and neighbors. 

My mom was not pleased to see the crowd, or me.  As soon as she arrived she started screaming at me.  All I could make out from her yelling was that if I had stayed in my room this never would have happened, and I ever did anything like this again I would be in a lot of trouble.  All I could manage to tell her was that it was an accident, everything would be okay, and I needed to go to the hospital to get stitches.  When she finally stopped yelling everyone at the house was able to convince her that I really did need to go to the hospital in the chiva some of the trainees had hailed for me.  After a 45 min. ride to La Chorrera Nick and I arrived at the hospital.

My least favorite part about getting stitches is the waiting for hours in the emergency room for a procedure that usually only takes a few minutes.  So I was happily surprised when the very pretty nurse brought to the back after only a few minutes in the waiting room. 

The doctor gave me four shots of antithetic inside the cut.  I wish they could figure out a different way to give local antithetic, getting shot inside an open wound isn’t as much fun as it sounds like it would be. After the shots the procedure was pretty painless, until he started the last stitch.  Apparently I need a fifth shot of antithetic because when he put in the final sharp metal hook I felt it while it slowly sliced through my flesh.  To make matters worse I have very thick skin on the bottom of my foot, so had he to try to push the hook through the final layers of skin four times.  When it was all said and done I ended up with five stitches and prescriptions for antibiotics and painkillers.

I just hope the cut doesn’t get infected from all of the dirty water in the river.
Photos from the river before I cut my toe




Location: Los Mortales/La Chorrera, Panama

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Welcome to the Darien

August 2013 The Darien is Panamá’s largest, easternmost and least developed province.   It is home to one of the world’s densest and most ecologically forests, some scientist claim that the Darien rainforest is denser and more difficult to navigate than the “deepest” sections of the Amazon.   The due to the region’s geography and biology, the Darien rainforest is the only place from the top of North America to the tip of South America where the Panamerican Highway does not connect.   In fact there is not a single drivable road that connects Panamá to Colombia.   Due to it’s inaccessibility and history the Darien has an almost mythical reputation.   Was written about in great detail when western powers were searching for the best path to build a canal through Central America.   Numerous survey parties went to explore the area and all of them returned unsuccessfully and in horrendous condition or never returned at all. Without an incredibly experienced...
Post a Comment
Read more

Tower Stove

June 6t h          I recently returned home to Piedras Gordas after traveling to La Canoa in the province of Herrera to visit Peace Corps volunteers Nick Duckworth and John Doyle.  Nick is a CEC volunteer from my training group who is living and working in La Canoa. John is a CEC volunteer that has been working in La Canoa for the last two years.  Nick is overlapping with John for the last few months of his service.  During his time in Panama John has been working on a “Tower-Stove” project in his community and throughout the country.  He designed the “Tower-Stove” with another Peace Corps volunteer, and the founder of Contextual Solutions, Steve Bliss. To date John has built over 30 “Tower-Stoves.”          The “Tower-Stove” is a particular eco-stove model that built with the  hope of reducing or replacing the use of the fogón (traditional Panamanian wood burning stove).  The “Tower...
Post a Comment
Read more

Super Size Me

Feb 21 st Apparently I’m too big for Mama Chomba’s house.  A couple of days ago when I plopped down on couch I broke the wooden beam that supports the seats.  The couch is much more comfortable to sit on now, but after sitting on the couch all day there is a crater 6 in. deep in one of the seats. I’ve been trying to disguise the hole by filling it up with the clothes people leave in the living room.  We’ll see how long that works for. Last night I used the sink to help me stand up after using the bathroom.  It wasn’t a very good idea. I ended up tearing the sink out of the wall, and putting all my weight on my foot with the stitches, which is what I was trying to avoid in the first place. I’m just going to blame these incidents on all of the carbs I’m being fed.
2 comments
Read more