Like I Needed an Excuse to go Shoe Shopping!

warning: this post contains kind tales of blood, the squeamish have been warned!

Yesterday when I got off the bus in Moncloa I had to jump off. The bus couldn't pull up next to the side walk, and I have short legs. This combination made it necessary for me to jump. I should have looked before I leaped because I ended up jumping on to a piece of glass. Yes, street glass teaming with germs and other things. This piece of glass went through my cheap ballet flats and into my foot. It hurt like a bitch.

I hobbled through the metro home and investigated why my foot was killing me. That is when I found the glass and blood in my shoe. I tried to pull it out with tweezers, but it was pointless. I promptly emailed my mom with my boggle. She suggested that I soak it and hope that helped it work its own way out. After 30 minutes in hot water the glass was still there. Twenty emails later my mom agreed that I should go to a doctor in the morning. I went to bed, hoping that the glass would magically jump out of my foot and I wouldn't have to explain to Spanish medical professionals that I had glass stuck in my foot.

My dream did not come true. I woke up at 11:30 and the glass was still there. I went back to bed and again woke up with glass in my foot at 2 o'clock. I decided that I was going to go to the doctor across the street because I had to hobble there, and didn't want to hobble around looking for another place if this guy was just across the street. The only flaw in my plan was that he doesn't open until 4:30. In the meantime I ate lunch, watched some Simpsons dubbed in Spanish.

When 4:30 rolled around I packed my insurance card and the list of vocabulary I thought I would need to explain myself and walked the half block to the doctor. The number of people also waiting surprised me; there were about a half dozen people in front of me. I hoped that some of them were just waiting with another person because I had to be back to meet the plumber who was going to fix our sink and hot water heater at 6 o'clock.

Finally my turn came, about 45 minutes later. I told the doctor that there was glass in my foot and that I couldn't get it out. He took a look and told me that he couldn't do anything and that I would have to go to a clinica, which I think is kind of like a mini-hospital. He wrote down what was wrong and what I needed and told me where the clinica was. I took my note and left to meet the plumber.

After the plumber left I walked the 3 blocks to the clinica. I went to the reception desk and explained that I had glass in my foot and that when I went to the doctor on my street he told me to go there, but I didn't know who to see or where to go. I showed her the paper and hoped that she would piece my explanation together with the information provided by the doctor. Not so.

She looked at me and asked if I needed and X-ray or what. It was at this point that I was beginning to loose all hope of ever getting the glass out of my foot, so I began to tear up and almost cry. I told her "No. There is a piece of glass in my foot and I can't get it out." Next she asked if I wanted to make and appointment to get it taken out or see someone right now. As nicely as I could manage I told her right now, if possible. She then entered all my information into the computer and escorted me up the stairs to the emergency guy.

I waited for him for about five minutes. When I went in he tried to speak English with me, by asking "what is your name?" and when I told him he said "ah... la americana" as if he had heard my lame attempts at explaining my situation downstairs and knew I was not Spanish. He had me lay on the table and took a look. Then he pulled out some huge tweezers and tried to pull the glass out. If that was going to work I wouldn't be on his table. When I realized I couldn't watch this whole thing go down, I layed down and closed my eyes and plugged my ears (the sound of metal tweezers on glass shards in your foot is actually quite traumatizing).

He dug around for a few minutes, which felt like forever. Finally he had the chunk of glass out. I lost a few giant drops of blood in the process and my wound was bleeding pretty profusely. I can't stand the sight of blood, especially when it is mine and not inside my body. Over the summer I had to get several blood tests done, and one time I fully passed out in the chair. Each and every time I made my mother go with me to hold my hand and distract me. The last time, when the woman had to draw several vials of blood I got light headed at the sight of the number of vials she had pulled out.

This time my mom couldn't come with me and I had to distract myself. Because the doctor doesn't speak English and my Spanish decreases relative to the amount of stress I am under there was no hope for conversation. After the extraction, he cleaned up my foot and bandaged it. Once the wound (which is about the size of a pencil eraser) was covered he asked how I was. To be honest, I was light headed and a little queasy. I answered that I was much better than when the glass was in my foot, but as soon as the sentence was over I threw up in my mouth a little. The pain, or the sight of my own blood on the floor, or the stress of the situation or possibly the combination of it all made me sick.

After I spit out my vomit and drank a little water, the really nice doctor made a little insert for my shoe out of a sponge so that I wouldn't put any pressure on it while walking home. He also gave me bandages to put on it and told me what to ask the pharmacist for to disinfect it. What sucks the most is that he told me to rest it for the weekend. So last weekend got eaten up by my cold and this one is sacrificed to the glass wound.

Next weekend I will be going shoe shopping. I want to buy better quality shoes so that I never have to go through this business again. I also just like shoes.