David and I biked to the far end of town for lunch, and after, Dave hopped on his mountain bike and headed toward the street. Mountain bike, right, no problem! Unfortunately, his foot came off the metal, serrated pedal as it went over a curb and the pedal back-lashed into his shin and cut upwards. The result was a “v” formation 2.5 inches on one side and 2 inches on the other.
A cab helped us to the urgencia and luckily for us they take the person gushing the most blood first. Of course, the nurse flopped over the skin to scrub away dirt, and you could see the bone. It made both our stomachs flip, but poor David did not have any numbing solution. O M G ! They did numb before the stitches, and the nurse told us they charge by the stitch, so dollar signs are dancing in my head. When we got to the cashier window and the total bill was $10 plus another $6 for the antibiotics we decided we did not have to submit it to insurance after all, and David gets to bring home a souvenir from Panama.
Stitches need to be removed in 7 days, which was the day we were traveling to Costa Rica. We checked with our new hotel and they informed us that there was a clinic in our new location. We moved onward to CR and went to the clinic that afternoon. The doctor told us that the stitches were not ready to be removed and to come back on Wednesday. We did just that and they were removed. Doc said that it is healing nicely but no swimming for a week and make sure David does not bump his shin. If he does he is likely to have the injury reopen which will require surgery.