18 Stitches

San Miguel has been called, “The City of Fallen Women.” It might better be called, “The City of Falling Women.” This is not because of some high rate of indiscretion but rather because they actually physically fall on the cobblestone streets. One frequently sees women (and let’s face it, men too) in casts, wrist braces or special medical boots. This weekend I joined their ranks.

I was all by myself when I did a header on Zacateros street around 2:00 Sunday morning. Yes, I was drunk but not THAT drunk. The problem was those blasted steps from Umaran onto Zacateros. If they aren’t bad enough, there is a rain gutter in the street at the same point. And I should have known better to have been walking with my hands in my pockets. I had nothing to put out in front of me to break my fall.

I landed on my right eye and the frame of my glasses cut a nice gash above my eye. At the time, I didn't realize that it was so bad. I picked up my glasses and put my hand to my head and felt it wet. I walked to La Cucaracha (my old watering hole and most famous dive cantina in San Miguel) to get cleaned up and German, the bartender, told me I needed to go to the hospital. I said no, I just needed to clean my face. He then took me into the woman’s bathroom and pointed me toward the mirror. "Oh shit!" was all I could say. (Picture a scene from Halloween II here, alternating red stripes down my face and a large flap of skin hanging lose above my eye.)

There is a private gringo hospital but I have been told that for trauma care, one is better off going to the new General Hospital. With a wad of toilet paper pressed to my wound, I got in a taxi and said, “Hospital General por favor.”

There were few people in the waiting room and I was admitted immediately. When I was asked what happened I really didn’t have the language skills for the details that I would have liked to share so they had to make do with the Spanish equivalent of, “I am drunk and fall.” (They probably wanted to know if I’d been in a fight or mugged in case they needed to notify the police.)

A nice young lady doctor cleaned me up, gave me a couple of injections in the forehead and proceeded with the sewing task. (I should mention that this is the first time that I’ve had stitches since my appendix was removed when I was 11 years old.) The sensation was not entirely unpleasant. I think I actually dozed off for a few minutes.

During the entire process she was very friendly. But then, after the stitching was completed, she asked me if I had a wife. I said no, that I have a husband. After that her tone changed slightly and I detected a note of sarcasm. I was glad that she was done sewing me up by the time that she asked the question; otherwise she might have taken a little less care.

She gave me a prescription for antibiotics and an anti-inflammatory and sent me on my way. At the front desk I stopped to pay my bill. 150 pesos (about $13 USD). A taxi was waiting out front and I took it home.

The swelling began the next day and is only beginning to subside today. After removing the bandage, Rod counted 18 stitches. The scar starts above my eyebrow, passes through about half of it and finishes on the side of my face; kind of like a lightning bolt. (Rod says I just wanted to look like Harry Potter.) It is starting to become black and blue.

We had our regular doctor look at it today. He said that they did a good job at the hospital, but I’ll probably have trouble growing half my eyebrow back.

Some time ago I gave my doctor and his wife a hard time for not wearing helmets when ridding their motorcycles. And now they do. “Maybe you should wear one when you’re walking,” he told me. I guess he got the last word on that one.