sorchawench (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sorchawench) wrote2011-12-15 01:16 am
sorchawench) wrote2011-12-15 01:16 am
Entry tags:
Traveling Travesty
I grew up as an Army brat. Dad put in 22 years before retiring and 21 of those years I was part of the great fiasco that comes with moving every few years as the military bounced us from base to base.
My earliest memory of major upheaval comes when we moved to Panama. I was pale, scared, had the barest ability to count to 10 in Spanish, and there we were, moving to another country. I remember our arrival in the airport, we were novelties with our pale skin, light blue eyes and blonde hair. My Mother told us later that she was offered money for us, in that airport.
I am not entirely sure she was joking.
Most days in Panama were like an eternal vacation. Where one could step off the porch and choose from a selection of fruit trees, bananas, oranges, papaya, mango...hanging ripe and sweet in the sun. We were serenaded every morning at 6AM by flocks of parrots, come to roost in the fruit trees, have breakfast and gossip about bird like things. Weekdays after school I would join my friends and we would race across green fields cut out of the jungle and have adventures within the jungle's edges, never straying too far into the darkness for fear of panthers, pirates, and the occasional monkey.
Weekends were spent on the beaches. We had access to both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans within a 2 hour drive. We learned to snorkel and swim like dolphins. Coral reefs became a second playground for us as we held our breath, diving deep and exploring it's wonders.
It was during one of these excursions that I became one with the sea, in a bad way.
My parents loved to snorkel and dive. They would leave me in charge of my brother within the low tide zone and they would head off into deeper waters, deeper reefs. My brother and I would play within the tide pools, temporarily turned into mermaids by the power of our imagination.
One weekend we visited a new beach. As the tide rolled out it exposed a good mile or so of reef top. Flat as a table, with hidden drops and caves. My parents were well off, into deeper water and I had grown tired of playing with my younger brother, so I decided to explore and see just how far out I could walk.
I'd made it pretty far out when my Father surfaced at the edge of the reef. He told me the tide was coming back in and that I needed to be headed back to the beach before I got myself into trouble. Then being the joker he was, he yelled "CATCH!" and threw something in my general direction.
Now, I wasn't much one for playing catch. I preferred books to balls and was more inclined to injure myself playing a sport than I was to succeed at it. Dad knew this, and didn't aim directly for me, but made the throw anyway. I cringed and tried to dodge, God only knew what he was throwing at me...it could have been anything from an octopus to seaweed...I just knew I didn't want to catch it.
And that's when the accident happened. Dad had thrown a sea urchin in my general direction.
Sea urchins are extraordinary creatures. They live on the sea floor and in reef systems. They come in a variety of colors and sizes. This one was about the size of a baseball, round, white, and covered in spines. I managed to dodge it with just about every part of my body. So the fact that it slammed into my leg near my right ankle was a fluke. The fact that the shock of getting hit with a ball of needles propelled me backwards and into a tidal pool was probably to be expected.
I recall my Father's face, when I surfaced. He was initially trying hard not to laugh. I'm sure it was quite an amusing image, me, shrieking and flailing like the girl I was, before falling over into a reef pool. Once he fished me out however the humor was over. The sea urchin had put those spines to good use and my leg was now bleeding from more than 30 puncture wounds. Some still had needles in them.
I, ever the overly dramatic child, saw blood and began wailing like I was dying. Dad was torn between trying to calm me down and figuring out how to signal my Mother, who was still diving nearby. Finally he managed to get her attention and together they helped me limp across that mile of reef top, back to the beach and the car.
They gathered my brother, who was delighted that we were having an actual adventure and demanded to know if I was going to die. I was near hysterics at the time and didn't have the energy to spare to beat him as an elder sister should. We ended up driving half an hour or so through the jungle to a little clinic in a relatively remote village. No one there spoke English. We didn't know very much Spanish, but thankfully the local doctor was capable of dealing with my injury. For the most part.
With tweezers and a lot of patience he pulled out the remaining needles and cleaned me up. I remember I got a shot of something we later determined to be antihistamines, as some sea urchins are poisonous and can cause swelling and redness around the area, which may lead to severe pain and infection. In my case, multiple deep puncture wounds may cause fatigue, weakness, muscle aches, shock, paralysis, and respiratory failure. And of course, the lovely side effect of death.
I'm comforted now by our lack of being able to communicate with the Doctor at the time. I know my 11 year old self would not have handled death well at all.
We ended up calling it a day on our little beach adventure and drove home. Dad felt horrible for hurting me and I managed to weasel a fruit ice out of him, from a local vendor, before we made it home.
Now one might think this was the end of this little travel travesty. But oh no....fast forward about 4 years. We were in southern California then and I had just tried to break my ankle playing softball at school. Remember....I'm clumsy.
I tried to warn them.
I'd managed to try a gallant slide into home plate, which looked more like a cartwheel gone horribly wrong. I came down hard on my ankle which promptly began to swell and turn colors. My coach proclaimed me broken and off to the ER I went.
We went through the normal rig-amoral of x-rays and were in the process of getting fitted in a walking cast for my severely sprained ankle when the ER doctor came in with a questioning look. They'd found something in my x-rays it seemed, something that wasn't supposed to be there.
There on the X-ray, were faint white lines, hovering near-ish my ankle bones. Sea urchin spines. Once we explained what they could be to the doctor, he told us that they had apparently calcified in my body as opposed to working themselves out.
Imagine the conversation I had with my Father that night.
I'm 37 now and as far as I know, I still have sea urchin spines in my leg. Only I think they are weather foretelling spines now, as I get those occasional twinges from the area when the weather gets colder.
Oh, and Dad? He never threw anything more dangerous than a pillow at me again.
My earliest memory of major upheaval comes when we moved to Panama. I was pale, scared, had the barest ability to count to 10 in Spanish, and there we were, moving to another country. I remember our arrival in the airport, we were novelties with our pale skin, light blue eyes and blonde hair. My Mother told us later that she was offered money for us, in that airport.
I am not entirely sure she was joking.
Most days in Panama were like an eternal vacation. Where one could step off the porch and choose from a selection of fruit trees, bananas, oranges, papaya, mango...hanging ripe and sweet in the sun. We were serenaded every morning at 6AM by flocks of parrots, come to roost in the fruit trees, have breakfast and gossip about bird like things. Weekdays after school I would join my friends and we would race across green fields cut out of the jungle and have adventures within the jungle's edges, never straying too far into the darkness for fear of panthers, pirates, and the occasional monkey.
Weekends were spent on the beaches. We had access to both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans within a 2 hour drive. We learned to snorkel and swim like dolphins. Coral reefs became a second playground for us as we held our breath, diving deep and exploring it's wonders.
It was during one of these excursions that I became one with the sea, in a bad way.
My parents loved to snorkel and dive. They would leave me in charge of my brother within the low tide zone and they would head off into deeper waters, deeper reefs. My brother and I would play within the tide pools, temporarily turned into mermaids by the power of our imagination.
One weekend we visited a new beach. As the tide rolled out it exposed a good mile or so of reef top. Flat as a table, with hidden drops and caves. My parents were well off, into deeper water and I had grown tired of playing with my younger brother, so I decided to explore and see just how far out I could walk.
I'd made it pretty far out when my Father surfaced at the edge of the reef. He told me the tide was coming back in and that I needed to be headed back to the beach before I got myself into trouble. Then being the joker he was, he yelled "CATCH!" and threw something in my general direction.
Now, I wasn't much one for playing catch. I preferred books to balls and was more inclined to injure myself playing a sport than I was to succeed at it. Dad knew this, and didn't aim directly for me, but made the throw anyway. I cringed and tried to dodge, God only knew what he was throwing at me...it could have been anything from an octopus to seaweed...I just knew I didn't want to catch it.
And that's when the accident happened. Dad had thrown a sea urchin in my general direction.
Sea urchins are extraordinary creatures. They live on the sea floor and in reef systems. They come in a variety of colors and sizes. This one was about the size of a baseball, round, white, and covered in spines. I managed to dodge it with just about every part of my body. So the fact that it slammed into my leg near my right ankle was a fluke. The fact that the shock of getting hit with a ball of needles propelled me backwards and into a tidal pool was probably to be expected.
I recall my Father's face, when I surfaced. He was initially trying hard not to laugh. I'm sure it was quite an amusing image, me, shrieking and flailing like the girl I was, before falling over into a reef pool. Once he fished me out however the humor was over. The sea urchin had put those spines to good use and my leg was now bleeding from more than 30 puncture wounds. Some still had needles in them.
I, ever the overly dramatic child, saw blood and began wailing like I was dying. Dad was torn between trying to calm me down and figuring out how to signal my Mother, who was still diving nearby. Finally he managed to get her attention and together they helped me limp across that mile of reef top, back to the beach and the car.
They gathered my brother, who was delighted that we were having an actual adventure and demanded to know if I was going to die. I was near hysterics at the time and didn't have the energy to spare to beat him as an elder sister should. We ended up driving half an hour or so through the jungle to a little clinic in a relatively remote village. No one there spoke English. We didn't know very much Spanish, but thankfully the local doctor was capable of dealing with my injury. For the most part.
With tweezers and a lot of patience he pulled out the remaining needles and cleaned me up. I remember I got a shot of something we later determined to be antihistamines, as some sea urchins are poisonous and can cause swelling and redness around the area, which may lead to severe pain and infection. In my case, multiple deep puncture wounds may cause fatigue, weakness, muscle aches, shock, paralysis, and respiratory failure. And of course, the lovely side effect of death.
I'm comforted now by our lack of being able to communicate with the Doctor at the time. I know my 11 year old self would not have handled death well at all.
We ended up calling it a day on our little beach adventure and drove home. Dad felt horrible for hurting me and I managed to weasel a fruit ice out of him, from a local vendor, before we made it home.
Now one might think this was the end of this little travel travesty. But oh no....fast forward about 4 years. We were in southern California then and I had just tried to break my ankle playing softball at school. Remember....I'm clumsy.
I tried to warn them.
I'd managed to try a gallant slide into home plate, which looked more like a cartwheel gone horribly wrong. I came down hard on my ankle which promptly began to swell and turn colors. My coach proclaimed me broken and off to the ER I went.
We went through the normal rig-amoral of x-rays and were in the process of getting fitted in a walking cast for my severely sprained ankle when the ER doctor came in with a questioning look. They'd found something in my x-rays it seemed, something that wasn't supposed to be there.
There on the X-ray, were faint white lines, hovering near-ish my ankle bones. Sea urchin spines. Once we explained what they could be to the doctor, he told us that they had apparently calcified in my body as opposed to working themselves out.
Imagine the conversation I had with my Father that night.
I'm 37 now and as far as I know, I still have sea urchin spines in my leg. Only I think they are weather foretelling spines now, as I get those occasional twinges from the area when the weather gets colder.
Oh, and Dad? He never threw anything more dangerous than a pillow at me again.
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