On Thursday, November 11, we arrived at a highly recommended lodge at Lake Mburo National Park, one of the closest safari parks to Kampala, looking forward to a weekend of relaxing, taking pictures of animals, walking, and biking around the park. We went on a night safari drive, figuring that the lodge would get a lot more crowded on Friday (we were correct), then had dinner, and planned to do the mountain bike safari the next morning.
Friday morning I fell off an elephant* and landed hard on my wrist. Dustin grabbed the ibuprofen, but we realized the first aid kit was in the backpack we hadn't brought and (luckily) the trauma kit wasn't going to do any good. So we went to the office and I asked for Tylenol, some ice, and an ace wrap, figuring it was a bad sprain- not my first sprained wrist, but definitely the worst. In the office, they had a first aid kit but it turns out not a lot of training, so they gave me some faux-tylenol and found some ice, and someone went to get some wood from the stables (seriously) to make a splint. In the meantime, the massage therapist put some yellow ointment on my skin and went to town and assured me that it wasn't broken because he couldn't feel any bones out of place. That hurt about as much as you'd guess. They ended up putting two sticks of wood against my arm and wrapping a very sad ace wrap around the whole thing, and giving me a sling. At this point I texted the health unit back at the Embassy; the doctor there said it could very well be broken, but the nearest hospital was an hour and a half away over terrible bumpy roads and I wasn't likely to do any more damage by waiting, so as long as I could handle the pain there was no reason to come home, but to please for the love of God not leave my arm splinted with the two sticks right against my skin.
So we stayed. Every staff member at the lodge stopped by to tell me they were sure I'd be fine tomorrow, and the assistant manager said she hoped we wouldn't let this ruin our vacation. Mountain biking was out, and game drives were out, since I'd need to brace myself on the roads and the bumping would be painful. But a walk should be safe, we thought, especially since I was pretty sure I wouldn't be going to yoga for a while and it's not like we can walk in Kampala. So Saturday morning, just after sunrise, we set out down the hill toward the park. Five minutes later, I stepped on a rock in the dirt road, rolled my ankle, and fell. Luckily, I was wearing the sling, so I didn't land on my wrist again; just scraped up my knee and my ankle felt a little weird. But I was wearing good boots and roll my ankles all the time, so we kept going. It was a fun walk, we saw a bunch of zebras, various antelope, and baby warthogs, plus hippo tracks (but luckily no hippos). But the further we went, the more my ankle hurt. And it hurt more throughout the day, to the point where I almost couldn't walk on it at all. By the time I realized I absolutely could not handle the pain, it was too late to head home- we'd never get there before dark. So I dealt with it, but we left pretty early Sunday morning. At each meal, every staff member working stopped by our table to ask if I was fine now, which was not at all infuriating.
I guess the universe decided I'd suffered enough, or I'd just pinched a nerve or something, but by Monday morning my ankle felt like a mild sprain. My wrist was not better, though. Monday morning I saw the doctor at the Embassy, who gave me a referral for x-rays, so we waited three+ hours at the hospital to get the x-rays done, then brought them back to the Embassy. Fracture. Got a temporary splint and a referral to an orthopedist.
Medical appointments are not exactly a thing here in Uganda, so the doctor would see patients from 11 to 1 in the order in which you sign up. We got there at 10, eventually saw the doctor, waited forever for a treatment room, and eventually got a cast, finally leaving at 2:30. Luckily, it was my left wrist and I'm right handed, but I spent the next six weeks trying to type one handed, not driving, having someone come to the house to wash and dry my hair, and sticking various long, thin, objects inside the cast to try to manage the itching (the eraser end of a pencil Molly gave me years ago saved my sanity). I got the cast off on Tuesday and have had two of ten prescribed physical therapy appointments since. It hurts pretty much every time I move it, but I can do a lot more already (like typing) so I do know it's working. The fracture isn't completely healed, though, so I don't know when I'll be able to put enough weight on it for yoga.
*And by fell off an elephant, I mean stepped off a bathmat and slipped on a floor made slippery by spray from the open-air shower.
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