After the “Snap, Crackle, Pop”, swelling and pain continued to escalate. Unfortunately, the closest clinic was 1.5 hours away over a windy, pothole ridden dirt road. I thought of the drive into Pavones… things were flying around the car like we were in a zero-gravity spaceship. Thinking of doing it again with a rib injury brought on a level of anxiety that I did not know was possible. It hurt to take more than half a breath and that was something I could control. The bumpy ride out was sure to be unpleasant at best.
We decided to spend the next several days in our studio apartment doing a whole lot of relaxing. We explored the little town of Pavones, and I spent a lot of time icing my swollen ribs. We spent an afternoon on the Rio Claro River which ran through the property and did a “test run” drive to Punta Banco, which was only like 1 mile away…spoiler alert- while the jungle and beach were amazing, the drive roughed me up. Heading into our last day in Pavones, I was terrified of the upcoming drive.










What should have been a 1.5-hour drive on the dirt road took over 2 hours. Lianne meticulously avoided potholes and bumps as much as possible. Dozens of cars passed us along the way. While we hit a few bumps that made me squeal like a pig, the ice pack helped and the ride was mostly uneventful. We eventually made it back to Uvita, where there was an urgent care clinic with an X-Ray machine.



I winced as the doctor looked at the contusion on my rib area. He laughed, “Welp, there are almost definitely some breaks in there. The only question is how many!” I laid down on the X-Ray table and whimpered as the pain coursed through my side. He scanned me and within a minute we were looking at the results. “You made a mess of your ribs alright! There are 3 breaks.” The good news was that there appeared to be no lasting damage. The bad news was that he said I would need to take it easy for the foreseeable future. This included the bummer that it would be a few months until I could surf again. On the bright side we are headed to Europe for almost 2 months where surfing was already off the list of planned activities. Unfortunately, Junebug and Lennox have no idea what “Dada needs to take it easy” means so wish me luck!

Dang! DANG!!! Where is Europe?
Ireland to start!