These are excerpts from my journal for the past couple days.
Friday
Today was a bad day. I was hit by a car while riding my bike. Hit pretty hard. I was biking slowly the wrong way down a one-way street, on my way to go snorkeling. An SUV came to the street I was on from a side street to my right. The driver looked to the right when she got to the intersection but she didn’t look to the left, where I was, and she didn’t come to a stop at the intersection. She hit me going probably 20 or 25 MPH. It was a movie-style scene; I went up onto the hood and windshield then was thrown back onto the pavement. While it was happening, I just kept thinking to myself, “Don’t get hurt. Don’t get hurt.” My bike was bent and thrown to the side but not mangled. It’s still ridable. The lady got out of her car and was mildly freaking out in a nice way. She was very apologetic, though every few minute she’d tell me that I shouldn’t have been riding that direction on the one-way street (though it’s something that everyone does), and I’d reply by telling her that she should have stopped at the intersection.
I felt fine. I was a bit shaken up, scratched, and bruised, but it was nothing too serious. There was some bloody cuts on my foot and on one of my fingers. A handful of people had gathered around at this point. They encouraged me to sit down, so I did. After being there for a few minutes, police and an ambulance showed up. They checked me over. Took down my name and address. Told me to be careful and then left.
I sat for a few more minutes. The lady kept saying that she wanted me to go home with her so she could clean me up, but I refused because I felt fine. I’m not sure how much damage I caused to her car, but I hope it was something. I got back on my bike and started biking toward the beach again, but started to feel dizzy, so I sat down on a curb. I rested for a few minutes before biking back home to get cleaned up.
Here’s Laura, the lady that hit me, and me (mid-blink):
And here’s the cut on my ankle:
At home I realized that my $160 sunglasses had come off when I was hit. I went back to the scene but they weren’t there; I’m guessing someone picked them up. Oh well. At least I’m not dead or seriously injured. I walked over to Burger King to drown my sorrows in calories. My left hand was starting to hurt at this point. I ate a bunch of food, walked to the main plaza, and sat and listened to podcasts before walking along the water and back home.
Anyway, long story short, I now think that my left hand might be broken. It hurts. But it also might just be badly bruised. I’m going to wait a couple days and see. But it took me forever to type this one-handed.
Saturday
I didn’t sleep last night. At all. Zero hours, zero minutes of sleep. My hand/wrist were hurting like crazy, and there was no position I could put my hand in that didn’t cause sharp pain. It started getting light at about six in the morning, and that’s when I finally went out and bought some ibuprofen to try to reduce the swelling. I came home and iced my wrist some more. I decided that I needed to go to the hospital that day. I’d lost nearly all motion in my wrist and fingers.
I found a hospital to go to (thanks to mom calling my insurance company and figuring out which hospital they recommended) and took a taxi over there. I wasn’t sure if there would be an English-speaking doctor there, but luckily there was. An x-ray showed that no bones were broken, but that there was a grade 3 sprain, which is a complete tear or rupture of the ligament. No surgery or anything like that is required, but the doctor said I needed to get a splint for my wrist, ice my hand/wrist twice a day, and take a couple different medications for the pain and swelling. I’ll probably need to wear the splint for only a couple weeks. Excellent.
After leaving the hospital, I walked around to a few different pharmacies before finding the splint and the meds I needed. My wrist already feels significantly better after wearing the splint for half a day, and a good chunk of the range of motion has returned.
The splint:
Oh, and the whole hospital thing, including the x-ray, cost only $120, so it’s not really even worth putting on the insurance. I guess there’s a reason medical tourism is a thing in Mexico…
The only real downside is that typing is slower. I either type one-handed, which is really slow, or two-handed (or at least with two fingers on my left hand), which is a bit faster but hurts my hand after a while. Also, I won’t be able to get in the water and go snorkeling. Oh well. At least the hand isn’t broken and I don’t need surgery or anything like that.
My 27-year streak of never having a broken bone continues… barely.