KAPOWWW! THE SOUND OF BUSTED SPARE RIBS – PERU 1978

The other day when I spoke of my damaged arm, compliments of my attempt to revive a skating career, I was reminded by Ange, in a comment, that this was not the only time I had worked in a less than perfect state of fitness. Her memory was of another story she listened too. This, during countless hours spent locked in cars or hotel rooms, hearing me drone on and on about the “good ol’ days”. I expect she had heard the story a dozen or more times over the years. Until I was reminded of it, I had completely let it fade into the never never land of my mind. But here it is, revived! Oh, you lucky souls. Once again the story takes place during my time in Peru.

The date was early 1978, and exactly on the day of my birthday. I was only a short time in Peru at this point. It all started as was typical of any weekend. We piled into our vehicles and headed for the city, to blow off some steam and sink a little bit of our money back in to the Peruvian economy. At that time 4 of us were living in a third floor apartment near downtown Arequipa. As was the tradition on every weekend, we had planned a celebration around something or other. Lord knows it didn’t take much of an occasion to warrant a full on party. With 250 expats, most single, from many different countries all converging on the city at once, it was inevitable that there would be a reason to party.

This particular one was to be a celebration that would not likely be forgotten, especially because it was my birthday. We had started the festivities early in the afternoon to ensure we had enough time to get properly warmed up for the evening to come. I was surrounded by friends from work, Jawbones a Brit, Wolka from the Colca (a Canadian German from Vancouver), BdK (my wild South African friend) who had made a special effort to come down from the Andes for my party, JP and Kate also friends from Canada, PJ and Agn’s our project manager, and a few others from the hood. Deysi had not yet arrived, and I would go to meet her later that evening.

The preliminaries to the evening were in full swing when my friend, the idiot Wolka decides he loves me soooo much and picks me up in a Birthday Bearhug of epic proportions. This was one big boy, he had a barrel chest that went from his knees to his neck. He had one measurement which was 50″, 50″, 50″, 50″ and included upper, middle, lower and head dimensions. Along with this water tank figure came the strength of legends. He was without a doubt the strongest person I had ever met. Suddenly he has me up in mid air and is trying to give me a birthday smooch, which I am valiantly resisting, when he decides to toss me like an old rag doll onto a couch a few feet away. With a mighty heave he throws me over the couch and onto the hardwood floor behind it.

I know I heard a loud snap, but thinking back, it could have been my mind thinking there should have been a loud noise of some kind. I get up and for an instant I contemplate charging this beast. Luckily it was still early in the festivities and I still had a wee bit of common sense remaining. For the remainder of the day and until late at night I was totally anesthetized and did not feel much discomfort, although I do know I told Deysi a few times that my ribs were sore. All in all, it was a great birthday.

Come the following day, though, and I wake up feeling like an elephant has done a few chest compressions on me, with his foot. I can barely breathe and each movement is torture. Well suck it up is all I can do. My mommy is not there, Desyi does not yet know me well enough to sympathize with me and none of my friends could give a shit. So I get packed, crawl my self into Wolka’s truck and we set off for the Andes. I’m half sitting, half laying on the seat and cannot move one inch without mind bending pain.

At one point I let out a sneeze from the dust, and for any of those who have ever done just that, I don’t have to explain the new level of pain you can reach. I may have whimpered a bit. I’m sure I was not lucid for much of the trip, but during our mid journey break, before leaving the desert, I consume a few quick beers. This seems to help a lot and I manage to make it back up to camp. End of story right? Nope it is never going to be that easy for JimboRed. When I get myself into crap, there is no depth to which my woes will sink.

Come the next morning, I wake up, blink an eyelash and nearly faint from pain. “MMMMOOOOMMMYYY”, I cry out. Now I am really hurting. At this point I know it’s not going away anytime soon. I think I have done some damage. I get dressed, hobble over for breakfast, describe to our company doctor, over the phone, what has happened and wait for a magic pill. What he says is this, “you are going to need to come back down to the city so I can examine you. Can you get in your vehicle and leave now”? “Geezus, what’d he just say? He’s gotta be kidding right?” Our leader is with me and says, “well you heard the man, adios, see you when you are able”. I didn’t get the sense that his was an appealable decision.

I get my chauffeur to bring my vehicle around and pack my clothes for a long trip. My car arrives, it is a four wheel locked-in, Land Rover that can climb the mountainside like a goat. What it is not, is a luxury car. It has absolutely no shocks, springs or suspension of any type. The seats are like benches made from hardwood, it is completely manual makes a hell of a noise and does not move without jumping a couple of feet first. More of a lurch I would call it.

I get in, everybody says so long, and away I go. The road down from the mountains never felt like as much of a goat track as it did this day. There were at least 50 ruts and potholes in ever 100 square feet. My driver happened to hit every one of them. I let out a scream going into the first hole and it never ended for 2 hours until we got out of the mountains onto the Pan American highway.

I had never felt pain of this sort, ever, in my life. The thought of smoking and coughing sent a cold sweat to my forehead. A sneeze would have, had me, throwing myself over a cliff. Even writing this gives me chest spasms. We arrive at the Clinica and the Canadian company doctor is waiting for me. The little fella’s so excited, I might have been his first real patient since arriving from Canada. They take me into an x-ray room and start snapping pictures. He gives me a couple of local aspirin for the pain. I knew where I wanted him to put his aspirin, although I didn’t have the strength to tell him. Soon enough he’s back, with the news that I have fractured 3 of my ribs. Geez, no shit, eh! I didn’t expect it was a hang nail.

Now comes the best part; if I’m a Swede then I am probably going to somewhere warm in the Caribbean to rehabilitate. I’m preparing my goodbyes for my homies and making a list of beach clothes I’m going to need for my convalescence. What this idiot comes up with is, “well what would you like to do now?” I’m thinking “Bermuda, Bahama come on pretty mama….we’ll take it real slow….”, when he adds, “there’s really not much we can do for broken ribs, it’s not like we can put a cast on them. Why don’t I give you some more of my aspirins, go back to your apartment and rest the remainder of the day”. “And then, and then?” My anticipation is building and he flops out, “and then you can go back up into the mountains and take it easy at work for a couple of weeks”.

I have to give my head a shake. Did I just hear that right? Back up into the mountains? I can hardly lift my body from the bed and am in too much pain even to have a minor rage. I can’t speak. I’m gobsmacked! With that he turns and tells me, “take it easy driving on those bumpy roads going back up”. Now every cuss work and bad thought I can muster rises to my mouth, only, I hurt too much to even squeak out a damn. I just sink back feeling utterly hopeless. My driver sticks his head in and says, “mister when would you like to go back”? I can only wheeze swear words at him out of broken ribs.

Now, besides hurting so much I can barely breathe, I am now feeling sorry for myself. I am very careful not to cough, fart or sneeze, or to comb my hair, even the ends of it hurt. The next day, I’m on the road, headed back. I believe that, if it was possible, my driver hit even more potholes with this “buckboard”on the way back. I was to remain in Peru for almost two more years and every time I looked at that Land Rover, my ribs hurt. However, soon I arrived back at camp, to the amazement of everyone there. The Project Manager was like, “what you doin here, you idiot”?

I see Deysi peering out from behind him, and is that, a look of sympathy in her eye? If so it was the first one I had received. The hulk who threw me over the couch and broke my ribs, just laughed and said, “geez, snaky you sure are weak”. Last thing I will say is I truly disliked our Canadian Company doctor for as long as he remained there. All I could dream of was whacking him across the ribs, strapping him onto a motorized buckboard and driving him up and down the goat track we called a road, into the Andes, a few times. Like my ol’ daddy used to say, “son whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”. You think?