For those of you who haven’t heard yet, a big door fell on me at the job site yesterday. It hit me in the lower back and my preliminary x-rays and CT scans show that I have a hairline fracture in my pubic bone, and fractures on my S1 and S2 vertebrae. I can’t put any weight on my right leg without excruciating pain. None of the fractures are displaced, so all things considered, my injuries could have turned out a lot messier. Damage seems to be pretty localized. I’ve had no nerve problems -- never lost any sensation in my legs, no tingling. I can wiggle all my toes, not that they were very dexterous to begin with. Some residual soreness today in my right hip and arm, which probably also absorbed a lot of impact, but yesterday we were focusing on my pelvic region and lower back.

 

Suffice it to say, I’m not going be able to see the project through to the end. The doctor who has been taking care of me thinks I should stay off my feet for 6-8 weeks, and then I can graduate to crutches. There’s really no point in me staying here, as I need assistance to do pretty much anything.

 

They’ve been taking great care of me at the hospital. As far as I can tell, the staff has been doing everything right in terms of helping me move around, on and off different gurneys and examining tables. The nurses are heroically strong: they’re my size, and they have to be able to support my entire body weight when they’re helping me to the bathroom. I’ve got a limited phrase book that helps, and my classmate Justin was with me all day yesterday to help with Spanish translation with the hospital staff. The photo above (thanks, Justin!) is me having my first lunch at the hospital, which also supports my theory that things are the same everywhere: they gave me chicken noodle soup, toast, jell-o, and OJ. It was just like a hospital meal back home! Yesterday the jell-o flavor was purple, today it was green.

 

I’ve been going through that cycle of emotions often typical of accidents: frustrated and angry that this has happened, and also extremely disappointed that I won’t get to see the looks on the faces of the Camino Seguro people and the kids and moms who we’ve built the park for. But I’m also relieved that I should make a full recovery in time. There was an outside chance I could have been turned into a human pancake. I might  have been saved by a nearby pile of debris which probably kept the door from flattening me, and my classmate Ryan and some Guatemalan workers nearby reacted quickly to lift the door off of me.

 

My STA travel insurance policy has come in really handy. It was the rare day that I had my policy information with me. I thought it would be a good idea to have it handy during our weekend excursions, so I had it in an envelope with my itineraries, and Monday morning it was conveniently still in my daypack.  Some combination of my expenses are being direct-billed or reimbursed, and they’re taking care of the logistics of arranging my flight home with a nurse escort. My doctor recommends that I wait a few more days for the swelling to go down before traveling, and to stay reclined as much as possible, so I think they’re lining up a chain of gurneys for each connection I have to make. I think the insurance company also wants me to go directly from the airport to a hospital, so they can evaluate my charts in person and make sure I made the trip okay.

 

Peter was actually on his way out of Guatemala when all this was unfolding, and he got the news during his layover in Houston. He decided to come back and make sure I’m comfortable, and I just got off the phone with him. He’s currently in a taxi on his way over, and I should be able to check out this afternoon and move to a hotel.

 

The plan right now is to go to Pittsburgh, where my parents are pretty plugged in to the medical community, and my mother will be able to rearrange her schedule to assist me.