I Break My Arm and Have to Go Home

---

My new assignment t the Sanctuario was coming along swimmingingly through the first week until Monday night (4/19) when I decided to bike into town after dinner because I needed to make a call and the phone line at the Sanctuario was dead. I hadn't used the bicycle there before and, evidentky, the breaks hadn't been properly reattached when someone fixed the tire the day before. I started down the hill toward town and noticed the lack of working breaks in seconds....fell within a minute. I'm not sure if the breaks finally kicked in and that threw me off, or if I just hit a pothole or patch of gravel. I got up and realized something was very wrong with my arm, but figured I'd probably just dislocated my shoulder, which would be easy enough to fix. I picked up my bike with my good hand and started back up the hill to find help. I think I was in shock, because the pain hadn't really started yet.

A student saw me walking back through a window and called out for help. A few people came down to meet me, and sent for a doctor who lives on the premises. He told me I had a fracture, but I didn't believe him. I kept asking him to either pop my shoulder back in himself or get me to a hospital. My arm had started to throb, the hospital was hours away, and no one moved with any sense of urgency. I wasn't afraid, but it was painful and frustrating. Looking back, I'm surprised I didn't cry at all that night.

Before we finally left, they gave me a shot of some painkiller. Gustavo drove and Monica came along to take care of me. I was not happy to learn that we had another stop to make on the way to the hospital: the finca. The finca is the farm/ranch where the swiss nun and priest responsible for the sanctuario live. Among other things, it includes a medical clinic. They wanted to speatk with the head nun and assess my condition before I made the trip to Salinas. After I'd been examined, the arm had been immobilized as best they could, and I'd been hooked up to IV antibiotics, we got back into the car for the long trip to the hospital. They also managed to convince me that it was a fracture and that I'd most likely need an operation.

The accident happened a little before nine in the evening and reached the hospital at two a.m. Most of that time was spent in the car, with Gustavo driving slowly around the many potholes on the Pacific Coast Highway. Poor guy even had to drive a stretch of it in the rain with no windshield wipers. I tried not to make it worse for him by complaining,but I'm sure the sounds of my pain management "breathe out" exercises everytime he hit a speed bump or a pothole, or otherwise caused me pain, must have made it hard for him. He was great about it, though.

When I got to the hospital, an x-ray showed a break in the upper arm so cartoonishly bad I almost laughed, and a coup and le small fractures in my elbow. They operated that morning, and treated the big break with an external fixation. Looks pretty scary. Too bad it doesn't give me bionic arm strength. After a few days recuperation time in the hospital, I flew to Florida on Friday. I'd wanted to stay in Ecuador and finish out the last two months in a cast, but was dissuaded by my doctor and parents, as my accommodations at the Sanctuario didn't have airconditioning (which increases the odds of a bacterial infection). The hospital staff was really great, and the Sanctuario sent different missionaries to stay with me each night I was there. Plus, my friend Alli came down to Salinas for a few days to help take care of me and keep in touch with my parents and our volunteer program. Don't know what I would've done without her.

I have a new splint now, and it looks like I won'y need a second surgery after all. Should at least look normal in 6 to 8 weeks!

---