Travel notes, part 2: What to watch for in the Mexican Pacific
The importance of situational awareness.
Our two-week stay at Troncones ended on the eighth day because of a totally preventable snorkeling mishap. As my husband and I were returning from a glorious snorkeling excursion, we misjudged our location on the return path to shore. We thought we were swimming back the way we came, but in fact we cut a corner around an extended rock reef. Strong waves swept us into an expanse of sharp rocks that lay just below the surface. They were COVERED in black sea urchins.
It was like being in an underwater tornado. I grabbed the rocks to stabilize myself and prevent being completely raked over them. But in the process, the sea urchin spines broke off in my hands and body. After several minutes of this — a surreal span of time that seemed like forever—I managed to perch on a rock (covered in sea urchins) until a wave receded. Then I scrambled ahead another few feet until I was safe from waves. My husband, Tom, who is a much better swimmer, was worried I might drown since I had gotten closer to the rocks and was more overcome by the waves than he was. Once he saw I was safe, he pushed off with his feet (getting a pin cushion of spines as a souvenir) to escape the strong current, and swam the 500 yards back to shore. He had used his emergency whistle, and a man on the beach made his way out onto the expanse of rocks with a pair of woman’s flip flops for me to wear back to the beach.
¡Qué horror!
Trembling and totally freaked out, we walked back to our house and stood under the outdoor pool shower to evaluate our situation. I was in shocked survival mode. The skin on my forearm was a mess, even through I was wearing a sun shirt, and we were badly cut and bruised. Our friends helped me cut off my shirt and we started pulling spines out. I stared down at my leg, horrified, as awful little tree trunk-like spines were extracted. They were 1/4” long. However, after a few minutes, the skin swelled from a reaction to the spines, and they were no longer accessible.
We knew we needed professional help, so we drove to the clinic. The Troncones “clinic” is on a remote dusty dirt road conveniently located just across from the cemetery. The doctor(?) wore an old Simpson’s T-shirt and spoke not a word of English. Still, between us, we could understand that he had no hydrogen peroxide or tweezers.
He did have the skill to numb my arm, cut off some large flaps of skin, and bandage it. But the spines? He advised not trying to remove them. Too painful. He recommended soaking them in hot water mixed with vinegar. Since the spines are comprised of calcium, they should theoretically dissolve. I wanted to ask: How do they dissolve if they are below the surface of the skin? How long does this take? What if that doesn’t work? But my Spanish was insufficient.
Leg soup.
Back at the house I was confronted by practical questions like: How does one soak a whole leg in hot water in a place with no bath tub? Just how hot should the water be? How much vinegar? After lying awake that night unable to sleep, I limped from our casita to the main house, put a big pot— the kind you might cook spaghetti in— on the stove until the water was hot, then carried it back to the casita and added vinegar. I set the pot next to the bed, bent my leg and set my knee down into the bottom of the pot so the water would reach my upper thigh. I leaned my body onto the bed and tried to rest. But the pot cut into my thigh and calf since my bent leg doesn’t squeeze into a pot as easily as I’d expected. I quickly determined this was bullshit. I tried to go to sleep, but the stinging on by bottom from literally sitting on the spines was breathtaking. I was amazed by the amount of discomfort. I kept going into the bathroom to take photos of body parts I couldn’t see to try and understand how they could possibly hurt so much.
The next morning, Tom and I both clearly saw that we had to go home. We hired a driver, got to the airport and limped to the plane in a daze. Once in Austin, we headed straight to the ER.
No one at the ER had ever treated sea urchin spines. We were the weird case everyone wanted to check out. I had the feeling they were privately consulting AI to try to learn what to do with us. After the X-rays came back, the head doctor sat down next to me and solemnly explained that “this is going to be a process.” He said he would try to get as many out as he could, but I’d need to see a hand surgeon and probably another specialist for the leg.
A Kendall Roy dream.
First there was morphine. Then came the Ketamine. I left that room and went somewhere much much nicer in a dreamy fog. However, I could still feel a hideously annoying sharp nibbling at my leg and hand as the doctor quickly dug in and picked spines out that were just below the surface. I am reported to have screamed, “No, no, no, no no,” endlessly at the top of my lungs for the entire time. After doing his best, the doctor bandaged me up and we went home.
A man is a very heavy thing.
That doctor was right. It was (and continues to be) a process. The x-ray of my hand showed 10 spines that needed to be removed surgically.
The next week, my husband had spines removed from his foot by a foot surgeon. And three days later it was my leg’s turn.
It was quite a circus at our house. Tom had no experience on crutches, and I could not use my right hand. He almost fell on me twice getting from the car to the bed when I got him home from the surgery center. I tried to help him navigate from the bed to the bath room, and was amazed by how big and heavy he was. What a production! What if he fell? The lesson here is to practice getting up off your chair using only one leg. You never know when you’ll lose a leg.
The process continues DIY.
After two emergency room visits, three surgeries and several procedures between the two of us, we continue to extract spines that the doctors missed. One day, out of the blue, Tom dug a 1/4” spine out of the bunion in his foot. By himself.
Two and a half months have passed. Today a toddler asked what was the “purple thing on my arm,” and I found myself trying to explain what a scar is to a 3 year old. I’m convinced I still have some spines in my leg. But how far do we take this before we just learn to live with it? I’m still trying to decide.
Please let me know if you have any advice,
Yvonne
Share the Love!
Let a friend know about How We Love Food.
Truly a nightmare and beautifully written
This is horrific. I’m so sorry. I kept reading because your writing is beautiful. I hope both of you fully recover soon.