traveloehrs

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!