The game started out on a high. We walked with the Catolica mob to the stadium, clapping to their chants and enjoying the high energy. The experience in the visitor section was intense, to say the least! We jumped up and down and screamed with the fans, tried to learn the chants, and threw rolls of paper in the air. Abbie practiced saying her new favorite expressions in Spanish, and I was having a truly amazing time!
After halftime, my friends Ariel, Kate, and I were making our way back to our seats with our newly aquired Pepsi bebidas- only after making our way through a mob to claim our drinks...and witnessing a fight and a man be beat with a club a few times- when I was hit with an unknown object right on the side of my head. I stood in shock for a few moments, embarassed by my misfortune. I got my friends attention and told them that I think something hit me.
And that's when I looked down and saw all the blood dripping from my head.
Now, it sounds a lot more gruesome than- okay in all honesty it was a lot of blood. Luckily my generous friend Ariel gave me her t-shirt to wear around my neck to protect my chest from the sun, so I put the shirt to my head to catch the blood as we made our way back up the crowd to help.
I walked right to the first police officer, or carabinero, I saw and said foolishly, "Soy una gringa y no tengo dinero!"...I mean I had hoped he understood that I didn't want an ambulance, but just help. He handed me over to another kind, lady cop who walked me to the ambulance.
I don't remember much about the walk or the sights I saw, but I found myself sitting in an ambulance as a kind EMT cared for my head as another wiped the blood off my neck, chest, hands, and arms.
I felt like a character on The Walking Dead.
They healed me up and sent me on my way, telling me that I should probably go to a clinic and see if I needed stitches.
My friends took me to Clinica Catolica, coincidence? No, it was not! We chose this clinic because it was the closest to our house (hey, only ten minutes! Good to know!) (***Side-note, in Chile is is better to go to a Clinic than a Hospital, they are better, etc.)The clinic was very well organized...well, once we found the Emergency Room, or Urgencia! Once we did, we told the lady at the desk that I had a cut on my head and she told me to wait. My name was imedietely called and I jumped up, thinking I was going to be helped right away. I went into the Triage room and the woman gave me a bracelet and took my information. She then told me to wait for my number to be called at a caja, or payment desk.
I went and paid a reasonable fee and then took my seat, where I was told I'd have to wait about an hour.
By this time I had mostly stopped bleeding, an occasional trickle, but nothing like before.
Once my name was called, Ariel escorted me to a room. It was very clean and comfortable and their was a large glass door (tinted for privacy!). A handsome young nurse came in and gave me a robe to put on...which I put on backwards, to his amusement. He then had me lay down in the
The Doctor came in and asked me how I was, in Spanish. Ariel and I were both happy to see that he was handsome, very handsome. Hola Señor Sueno! Hello Doctor Dreamy! He checked out my hair and then even let Ariel take a picture of my cut with his Iphone...weird? No, it was magical and we all bonded and laughed. And then he started speaking English to us! He was born in California and had gotten his Doctorate at Northwestern (which is in Evanston, Illinois...very close to Chicago!) WHAT ARE THE ODDS? The hopeless romantic inside of me was screaming, "HE IS YOUR FUTURE HUSBAND! YOU WERE MEANT TO GET HIT BY A ROCK AND MEET HIM!"...tranquila Alyssa.
Three stitches and a little more bloodshed later and I left a healed woman! The staff at the Clinic were wonderful and I am pretty positive I left there as their favorite patient of the day, or at least the most annoying. Ariel and I were cracking jokes and making all of them, and each other, laugh. At one point when Dr. Daniel was beginning the stitches, he said to me, "Be quiet. I am a man! I cannot do two things at once!"...typical Alyssa.
I was so overwhelmed with the love and well-wishes I got from friends and family over the past two days. Especially my Chilean family, Javi, Wilson, and Carlos (who is a nurse and received a frantic phone call from my friends when I was in the ambulance, thinking he was at work and could stitch me up!). My roommates who came home to find me all bloody and wearing a sexy hair net.
My friends were so wonderful and supportive during the situation, especially keeping me calm during those first few minutes of chaos.
So overall the emergency room was a learning experience. I came out a little worse for wear, but I'm okay everyone! I will survive.
Now only if I can figure out how to get a date with my hot Doctor.
