Ok so I promised I would regale you with the hellish Saturday evening / Sunday morning hospital trip. Here I go ...
While we were at quite a fabulous party in Belgrano with our closest and funnest ( not a word ) friends, we had a pretty serious dance party going. The Indio and I were supposed to be leaving for El Tigre circa 10 a.m. but were still going strong around 6. Probably not a good idea but, hey, whatever. By this point most of the people had left and the entire floor was like a little beer pool. Typical, but not optimal for walking - especially in high heels. Poor Mercedes was coming down the stairs, which were slippery, small, and hard to see in the dark ( I almost face planted myself a couple of weeks before ! ) ... She eats it. Badly. Very, very, very and awfully badly. You don't even want to know what it sounded like when her forehead smashed into the floor. I thought I was a pretty brave person but I became as useless as a houseplant and pretty much was an embarrassment to the world of friendship.
Luckily Indio and Manolillo were right there to take over and take charge. We called the ambulance right away because there was enough blood to look like something out of Law & Order. Any kind of cut on the forehead always seems to bleed more anyway. Add the fact that you could see the bone ... and you have a pretty gruesome image. But here's the thing - Mercedes is such a badass, and is so amazing and perfect in every way, she didn't even cry !! She wasn't hysterical at all ( like we all know I would have been ) ... at first she was disoriented but we got her to calm down and despite being pretty much covered in blood, she was fairly relaxed.
Eventually the ambulance came, but unfortunately Manolillo didn't call the number on the back of the health insurance card - he had called like the public 911 instead of the private one - and the first hospital we went to was the most awful place I have ever been. Apparently it's supposed to be one of the better public hospitals, so I don't even want to think about what the worse ones are like. Most of the people who have bad accidents, are run over by buses, are drugged out and drunk, get robbed, and things of that nature show up to said hospital so you can imagine the crowd. Pretty motley. We arrive and it's raining; they have put cardboard boxes all over the floor so people don't slip. Practical, perhaps, but certainly not attractive ( or sanitary ? ). I look around and most of the signs on the walls are either broken, incomplete, or filled in with permanent marker where the lettering has faded.
You can imagine that I didn't want to set foot near the Neurosurgery unit when I saw that half the letters weren't even printed on the wall.
We all wanted to get Mercedes out of there asap but knew they had to do some X-Rays to make sure her bones weren't broken and to clean the wound. In the meantime a little visitor wandered his way into the hospital waiting room, alone and pretty high on something. He was clutching his arm and blood was dripping from his elbow and his fingers. He said that he was robbed but I didn't really pick up the rest of the details from his incoherent rambling. He couldn't even stand and the Indio had to help him to the ground to help stop his swaying. Blood was dripping all over the floor, and the hospital people just had him keep waiting there with everyone else. I was thoroughly grossed out but I felt so bad for this guy - ok so he was pretty bombed and the injury wasn't as bad as it seemed, but he was alone, scared and dripping blood after having been more or less violently robbed. Can someone maybe take him in the back and give him a bed and some water ? I was in shock that he was treated that way.
Once he went inside the hospital, they didn't even come mop up the blood all over the floor. Check please.
After an hour or so we manage to get Mercedes out of there and know we can take her to the better hospital, Swiss Medical. Once we arrive it's a whole different world. A modern building, clean, orderly, it looks like a real hospital. Someone else re-inspects and bandages the wound and says they called the plastic surgeon to come in to sew up the scar. Seeing as this cut was fairly deep and right on her forehead, we all said that she needed to have the best person sew it up as to avoid an ugly scar that would last forever. We're feeling good at this point, and they say the surgeon shouldn't take too long to arrive.
Three hours pass. We are all falling asleep on the waiting room chairs, starving and exhausted and still worried about our little lady's head injury. She was like the most upbeat of us all. She is a genia. I love her. She also looked pretty badass at this point in the morning ... Cute outfit gone awry with a huge white bandage on her head.
Indio and I finally leave around 12 noon when we realize that the surgeon is taking forever and there is nothing else that we can do. And by we, I mean he. I remained useless the entire evening and wish I could have done more, but I guess I provided some moral support and company while everyone else tried to get things done. I got a message from Mercedes at almost 3 p.m. saying she is finally home, relaxed and resting.
The kicker: her bloodstained white pants ( which were pretty much ruined, I thought ) came out completely fine in the wash that morning. The only stains that didn't come out were the ones of the dirt that she sat in while we waited for the ambulance. So strange.
We slept all day and I am still trying to get back on a non-noctural sleeping schedule. Everything today gave me
fiaca and I just wanted to relax in the sun. I think tomorrow it's going to be even hotter so I might do some sunbathing in the park.
I went to see an apartment this afternoon that I had found on craigslist. Three foreigners already live there: a German guy, an Honduran, and a French girl. The place was pretty spacious, well located and is really cheap for what it is. However, I realized that I have already done the "live with strangers, and even though they're really nice realize that the apartment will never be as clean as you hope and will lack the little details you would add to your own apartment if you lived alone or with a best friend" kind of thing. I want to be able to have a little haven I can come home to and know that it won't be a mess or just kind of disorganized. So the search continues. I wish I could afford the amazing duplexes I have seen in Palermo ... that would be heaven on earth.
Oh let me add a picture from the Hospital ... I hope you aren't offended, and if you are, well, be glad you weren't there in person.
I'll leave out her face just for the hell of it. At least she still had her adorable flower head-accessory ( quite in style here these days ) with her and at that moment was using her own cellphone to take pictures of the damage. Once she arrived home I asked her how many stitches she got and she said she had completely forgotten to ask. If only I were as laid-back as she is !
Alright, well I guess that is enough for now.
Lessons learned:
- If you find yourself in an ambulance in Buenos Aires, beg them to take you to a private hospital. If you end up at the Piruvano, run away as fast as you can, even if you have to take a cab. Don't get brain surgery at this hospital. You will probably emerge a few screws loose.
- Try not to break your head open in the first place. But if you do, remain in good spirits and just hope you have some really good bleach and stain remover for once you get home.
- Sleeping all day means that you will have a very hard time sleeping at night. Therefore, any and all consumption of caffeine - coca light, coca común, café con leche - should be eliminated from the diet, no matter how impossible that seems.
