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2008 EMYR
Schedule
Thursday, May 8th, Kekova, Turkey
I can see that I am
going to have to update more frequently during the
course of the rally. My entries will get far too
long if I let it go for more than four or five days.
Our routine to date has been to sail all day, tour the
next day, and sail again the following day. The
sails become overnight ones once we leave Turkey on the
16th and the program will change. I doubt it will
feel more relaxed, but you never know.
We had quite a trauma
on Zia after our arrival in Göcek on Tuesday night.
Everyone is fine now. That said; it was the most
harrowing experience we have had to date as parents.
Yep, we had a kid injury. And a nasty one at that.
It has been our worst nightmare since we started
cruising, actually since our kids were born, and it came
true about an hour after we finished docking. We
were sitting on Zia with our friend Dr. Dave from Gone
Native. Joe and Dave had befriended each other
while they were both bachelors in Marmaris in early
April. We hadn't seen him since we left Marmaris
on the 21st. His family has since arrived and they
joined the rally in Göcek.
Sitting in the cockpit,
enjoying a beer and chatting away, one of the kids
suddenly races down the dock saying, "Juliana cut her
leg."
I must confess that I
didn't think much of it - Juliana tends towards
clumsiness - until we asked, "How bad."
"Really bad."
We all three go racing
down the dock. As I pass by more kids along the
way, I pick up my pace to a flat out sprint.
Abject terror would be a good description for what I see
in the faces I go by. Luckily, we are close to the
end of the dock. I come upon my poor, sweet little
girl, perched on one leg, holding up the other leg of
her shorts, fear and shock marring her innocent
features. Her panicked eyes dart between my face
and a huge, deep, gaping gash about six inches
long on her thigh. Scooping her up in my arms, I
tell Joe to go see what inflicted the wound. Dave
tells us he has everything we need, take her to his
boat, and goes with Joe. As I carry a screaming
Juliana towards the other the end of the same dock, the
two of them run by me on the way back to Gone Native.
"We'll go get the table ready. Bring her straight
there." Rob from Twixter comes out to help carry
our sixty pound daughter, handing her off to Joe as he
comes running back to assist.
By this time I've
learned what happened. Juliana is walking across a
metal grate that covers the lights and spouts of a
fountain at the end of our dock. There is a big
hole in the middle of the grate.
.JPG)
She doesn't notice it
as she traverses the fountain. She falls through.
Cassie is beside her. Juliana pulls her leg out of
the hole and thinks to herself, "I must have scraped my
leg. I better take a look." Then she starts
to scream.
Dave and Desiree have
everything out and ready. Dave is a pediatric
anesthesiologist and Desi is a general practice
physician.
.JPG)
Some suggest it would
be better to take her to the local hospital. We
resist. Here, her wound will be treated
immediately, without even a delay to wait for an
ambulance. With that much of her leg exposed to
the elements, we didn't want to risk any potentially
infectious contact. Besides, we have two supremely
qualified doctors already on the case.
The worst part of the
procedure were the injections of Lidocaine. I
don't know exactly how many cc's Dave used, or how many
times he injected her leg, but it seemed to take forever for
Juliana to stop screaming, "Ow, ow, ow, owwwwwwww"
between clenched teeth. She was sweating like
crazy. I sat at her head, blowing on her face and
neck to try to make her more comfortable. She
couldn't bear to look at her leg so Joe held up a towel to block the view.
I sat behind the towel not looking, but Joe was in plain
sight. It was too much for him at one point as he
starts collapsing on top of the patient. Desiree
gently guides him outside where he lies down in the
cockpit.
Once her leg is finally
numb, Juliana relaxes. In fact, she's a little bored. "I wish I had my book."
.JPG)
Joe retrieves the
camera along with her book and returns to the operating
room. From there on out, Juliana is chatting away,
telling us what her book is about and asking questions.
"What kind of boat is this? Why is there a sticky
note with the name Artemis on the wall?"
We are all pretty
impressed by our brave girl. Thirty-one stitches
later, she walks down the dock back to Zia on her own
two feet. Okay, slowly limps might be a better
choice of words, but we are delighted at this positive
sign. She took a double dose of antibiotics that
night and takes two a day for the next two weeks to
prevent infection. We clean and re-bandage her
wound every day. It is sore, but she is up and
about, playing with her new friends with only the
occasional complaint.
.JPG)
She'll no doubt have a
scar, but we apply a generous slathering of antibiotic
cream when we change the bandage and will continue to do
so after the bandage comes off to help minimize it.
I've posted the more
graphic photos on a separate
page. Be sure to be sitting down. It
isn't a pretty sight.
In the end we are
thankful. We are thankful that no muscle was cut.
No nerves were severed. No arteries were slashed.
We are thankful that it happened when it did, with Dave
and Desiree at our sides. I can imagine, and have
imagined, many far more stressful and harrowing
scenarios. Could I have done that for Juliana if
it had happened on the boat while we were out at sea?
I do have all the necessary equipment and medicines.
I don't have any skill, however. My short three
day medical course two and a half years ago seems like a
distant memory. One thing I do remember, however,
was the instructor telling us that often times the
goriest of wounds are the least life-threatening.
This was certainly the case here. Horrifying,
ghastly, and sickening as it was, Juliana was thankfully
never in serious danger. May this remain our most
harrowing moment as parents for the rest of our long
lives!
Next Entry >>>>>>>
Many thanks to our friend Craig Homenko for his assistance in setting up the website.
We also would like
to thank our buddy Scott Brunner who has been kind
enough to host the website on his server.
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