Breaking Bones in Paradise

Here’s my reflection in a sling, taking a shot of a colorful flying insect.

Gerry asks, “What is it about women breaking collar bones?” Krysia, a horseback rider pal, wrote that she sure knows how it feels to break a clavicle! Karen wrote that she’d broken her clavicle when she was seventeen and still walks around with a metal plate and four screws. My Swiss neighbor, Gabriela, broke her clavicle when somebody hit her with a golf ball (she had her metal removed after a year). She said that you can always kind of feel the metal afterwards in your shoulder and wanted it removed, even though it meant another surgery under general anesthesia. Coincidentally, we had the same surgeon at Cima, Dr. Alfonso Pereira Garcia (who does very nice, neat work, if you ever need the service…). He told me that if I wanted the metal out, then I should call him in about 18 months.

Turns out lots of people I know have broken a clavicle. I guess pretty much all skiers, horseback riders, rugby players and other assorted sportsmen/women have broken something or other over the years. But this was the first broken bone for me after all these years of pushing the high-adventure envelope and, yes, having lots of falls, but no serious injuries, until now.

Breaking News: The President’s husband, Jose Maria Rico, just broke his hip and ended up at – Cima Hospital! This is definitely the season for breaking bones!

I learned how to fall a long time ago, on my 18th birthday. As soon as I reached the age of consent, I signed right up for sky diving, back in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where parachute training was vigorous and military-style (it was the same with scuba diving training there – they wouldn’t even accept you into the course if you couldn’t swim six laps in an Olympic-size pool). They really train you in Michigan - none of those quick, easy, honeymoon courses, like down in Mexico, that get people killed. If you were not pronounced ‘fit’ after all the parachute training, then you were not allowed to jump, not even with the static line. During the training, we novices were taught how to fall, how to use the whole body to absorb the shock, how to roll with it! We had to jump off a high ledge and practice falling, over and over again, until it became second nature. Sky diving is definitely good training for anyone wanting to learn how to fall without injury.

So, over the years, I have called upon that old training to conquer the fear of falling and going with it; rolling right back up and landing on my feet. However, the time when my horse Matchi threw a shoe, we both went flying, and he fell on top of me, it didn’t help at all… I went to X-ray my shoulder at Cima but, luckily, it was just a bruised scapula. Over the years, a number of friends, who have visited me here at El Tigre for hiking, have gone home via Cima Hospital too (bruises, broken bones, heatstroke, etc.) taking memories and hospital bills with them! Unfortunately, accidents happen in the jungle...

But this fall was just plain stupid. I was coming down the stairs, like I’ve done hundreds of times in the past, happy as a lark. Gerry and I were going out to dinner on Saturday night to celebrate the fact that it wasn’t Friday (He’d had a rough Friday, shuffling me back and forth from the Pro-Nativa Conference, held all the way across town (the other side of the world, according to GRAK) in the beautiful Hotel Bougainvillea.


Shot of lovely, native Palicouria species.

It was an outstanding first Conference for Pro-Nativa – all serious gardeners and landscapers in Costa Rica should study this important trend in landscaping. Look to your own garden first, and open your eyes to the treasures provided – birds dropping seeds: a beautiful fern, a Gesneriaceae species, a Piper? Some might call these volunteers, ‘monte’ (weeds). But weeds are just plants in the wrong place. Maybe that weed belongs there more than what YOU planted there! And it could be more beautiful and easier to take care of!


Take a look at the forest and woodlands nearby where you live. Can you possibly improve on such beauty as Mother Nature provides? Pro-Nativa says no. Watch the press and literature for conferences coming to your area. You might meet the authors of your favorite botanical reference books: Willow Zuchowski, Barry Hammel, Deedra McClearn and others; passionate promoters of native plants in the garden. Native flora also attracts a breathtaking array of native fauna, creating something approaching perfect serenity, uplifting the spirit.

But I digress. I was planning on going out and having a wonderful Saturday night dinner with my long-suffering husband. It was dark. Walking down the stairs, I thought I’d reached the bottom step. But, no! When I turned right to walk over to Gerry, instead of stepping onto the floor, I walked out onto – air! As my body then began to roll to the left, it slammed into a column, collar bone first... It hurt a lot and Gerry said it didn’t feel right. So, we agreed to stop at Cima on the way to dinner to get it checked out. I figured, if the usual occurred (ER, X-ray, Orthopod prescribing sling/analgesics) then we would be out and on our way to dinner within the hour. Well, it didn’t quite turn out that way…

The X-ray showed a diagonally broken clavicle with a large space between the two pieces of jagged bone. It was a shocking sight to look at but what came next shocked me even more. The orthopedic surgeon could not just maneuver the two pieces back together again. He would have to cut my shoulder open, put a titanium plate on top of the bones, and hold the pieces together with titanium screws! Simple as pie! He could get time in the operating room at 11 p.m. that night. He just needed to phone a few people: another surgeon, an anesthetist, an internist to check me out and see if I was fit for surgery, etc. When had I last eaten something?

I was ready to bolt! No, I didn’t want surgery! I went through open-heart surgery twice as a kid. It saved my life but the experience changed me forever. I don’t like to get cut. I don’t like needles, the smell of alcohol, hospitals…
Gerry showed up at that point and concurred with the surgeon, as it was obvious that the bone would not heal without surgery. So I did end up in surgery, and Gerry had his Saturday night dinner alone, long after midnight, at a local McDonalds. He hasn’t been to a fast food joint in years. I can just imagine him, sitting in a McDonalds crowded with adolescents out on a Saturday night, eating a ‘Quarter Pounder with Cheese’ all by his miserable self, while I got surgery costing us plenty because of a really dumb accident. Yeah, I know, now I really owe him!

After the surgery, I had to spend the night at Cima, so missed the catholic procession in El Rodeo on Sunday, and also missed the Peace Festival taking place in Ciudad Colon. It’s not easy getting discharged from a hospital. I wanted to leave as soon as I woke up in the morning, but had to wait until I got another x-ray and a visit from the surgeon. However, we pushed and pushed and eventually got things moving more quickly. No, I didn’t want to choose from the menu for lunch – I didn’t want any lunch at all! I WANT TO GO HOME NOW.

We finally got out of there, after paying the bill of course: $7,000. And as we were leaving, just for another turn of the knife (or scalpel) as it were, the internist hurried over looking very concerned. Apparently, we were leaving so fast, he’d not had a chance to bill us for his services…

And now Gerald has another project to keep him busy: extracting money from our insurance company…


Here’s a shot of Karla and her 15th birthday cake. We used a cheesecake recipe out of a wonderful Southern Living cookbook that Beth Crane gave me some years back – still my all-time favorite when searching for something extra special. As turning fifteen in this country is a special birthday, Karla is doing exactly what she likes – for a while, at least! Hiking and riding! It’s school summer holiday here, so on Monday, a group of kids set out for a six-hour hike down to Piedras Negras and back. And all the dogs went with them for some long needed exercise.

This morning, the Finca kids went out horseback riding, with Jose guiding them. Of course, I stayed home being miserable with the sling, but was glad to learn that both kids and horses had a wonderful time. The horses appear to enjoy going out as much as the riders!

Later, Gerry grilled hamburgers and we feasted on cheesecake for desert. This was my first appearance in public since getting the sling – albeit just in the kitchen, and only with the El Tigre ‘family’. But it felt just wonderful to laugh and get teased.

Gabrielle, our neighbor, called from Switzerland to wish me well, and told Gerald to treat me kindly. He responded that he was already well-established in his new role of slave – cooking, cleaning, running errands – all for his ill-tempered, complaining, ungrateful wife. Oh how our poor spouses suffer!


But, truly, everyone is treating me very well. Yaneth made me pupusas, fresh bread and yoghurt. Margarita sent over some delicious guayaba preserves. Abby sent me flowers! Jorge brought me over a bag full of the latest delights to feast on from Paoul and Gabrielle at Finca Hamadryas (granadillas, tiny sweet bananas, chayote, and creamy avocados). Armando brought basketfuls of citrus and herbs from the garden, so we made a delicious iced tea with some of the herbs: clove basil, spearmint, chocolate mint, pineapple sage and stevia. And he even planted a new rock garden that I could view just outside the window, using native ferns and plants brought up from Cerro El Tigre!

Ornamental bananas and Zingibers are now producing beautiful fruits and bracts. However, both are considered invasive (a la Pro-Nativa Conference). So what do we do? Well, Armando cut armfuls of them to take to the local procession on Sunday and for display at our charming church in El Rodeo, later to be safely composted.

Just outside the house, Jose cut a nice raceme of still green bananas and left it on the ground to ripen, as usual, along with several ripe, yellow bananas, sitting alongside. I figured he’d left some of the ripe bananas for the monkeys. But, would they show? Sure enough, hours later, a troupe of capuchin monkeys came up from the forest to help themselves to the oranges and bananas in the garden. Now, here’s a piece of (fascinating?) information that you can use at your next cocktail party. Capuchins actually peel bananas before eating them, dropping the peel onto the ground. But they don’t peel oranges; they pound them on a branch to soften them and then just bite into them, sucking out the flesh and juice. I have a great bird’s-eye view of the monkeys feeding from our bathroom window. They don’t like being watched, however. So I have to do it furtively, like I can’t really see them. And then they glance away, like they can’t really see me. Even though we can see each other perfectly well, we just act like we can’t. That’s monkey etiquette...

Birds don’t like you watching them either when they’re feeding their nestlings. Some wrens built a big nest just outside our bedroom balcony, and they’ve provided us with many hours of entertainment. Although, if we go outside on the balcony to watch, they scold us - Hey! Hey! Hey! Get out of here! - until we retreat back inside. Only then do they resume feeding the nestlings. Then one day they were all gone! The fledglings had left the nest (flown the coop?).

Finally, thanks so much to everyone who wrote and called! It really means a lot! I still can’t write much because it’s not easy writing with my right hand – I’m a leftie. Barry says using the other hand builds new neuronal connections, but it just makes me feel stupid and awkward!