I agreed, and i got a wash, brushed my teeth, and got a change of bedsheets. Also got lunch and dinner yesterday, and breakfast this morning, albeit very small portions of each.
Waiting on my lawyer to get hold of me this morning. Really hoping to be out of here by this evening. My mate offered to come pick me up this morning and just drive me to Santo Domingo, but i thought it might be better for my case if i stayed here at least til i find out what the hospital says about a payment plan...
Well, it has been a busy old day. I suppose i suspected as much though.
My lawyers came round about lunch time and spoke to the hospital lawyers and tried to arrange a deal on paper. The original deal tabled, from the hospital, stated that i would make full payment within 7 days of signing! This is, of course, impossible, so have given up signing that piece of paper!
So it was back to the drawing board, and off they went to see what they could do.
In the meantime, i was brought some lunch by the hospital, also a small section of food, but lunch nonetheless.
About an hour later my lawyer arrived and said the words i haven't heard, in what feels like an eternity, "Simon, good news!"
He had managed to broker a deal with the hospital that i pay back the amount, in 6 months from signing the papers. They will charge interest at 1% a month on any outstanding balance, and after 6 months theyy will require full payment or they can come and confiscate my belongings to try make payment.
I wasn't too happy about this, but my lawyer said that seeing as though i had nothing, this would not apply anyway. He also said that he would see what we could do in these 6 months, as we had 2 court cases running alongside each other now. 1 with the driver, who is still in the country (his wife ran off and left him here), and 1 with the insurance company. The insurance company may take as much as a year or more to pay anything though, so for now, we would be concentrating on the driver and his assets to cover the costs. This should be settled inside of 6 months.
I certainly hope that it is, because it will be real scary in a foreign country with debt collectors knocking at the door.
I have also signed to say that before the debt is settled with the hospital, i will not leave the country, and that i give them the powers to enforce this with the immigration department.
And a few other clauses screwing me over if i dont come up with the cash in 6 months! But, this country is not one where you can be sent to jail for non-payment of a debt, so, as long as i make regular payments to them, they can see that i am trying to pay the debt off, and they cannot do much to me.
Lets hope the lawyer is correct in this! We'll know for sure in 6 months time!
They would not knock the bill down either, so it stands at a whopping 820 000 peso odd! Roughly US$21000!
So, that's the cost you put on a human leg! At least in a private clinic in this country anyway!
Now that the papers are signed, i am free to leave here and go back to Bayahibe, however my friends have not managed to locate me a house there yet, so i'm not quite sure where i am going at this point.
Hopefully this is the last thing i will need to be asking them for because it has stretched everyone i know here to try help me, and i feel really bad for them running around after me. Just a house to go, and i can start to support myself with the aid of my 2 nurses to look after me!
I must've fallen asleep after lunch, and was awoken by the doctor knocking on the door!
Wow! I hadn't seen him in almost as long as i'd been in here! And had a lot of questions to ask him!
He opened up the bandages, and got out the antiseptic creams and prepared the stapled area for removal of said hardware! It didn't hurt as much as i thought it would, and only a few of the 70 odd staples had actually grown closed. I have 2x 30cm cuts running from my left hip down to about half way down my thigh, and then the 2nd running from there, next to the first, down towards my knee.
The scars will just be 2 pencil lines, and i can see he has done a really good job.
The stitches on my knee came out too. This wasn't as painless unfortunately, but all looks ok too. I can see the knee is a little angry with all the work that has gone on in and around it, and he said that it will take 3 months to heal fully. In that time he has given me exercises to do every day, flexing the knee on the side of the bed with someone holding the cast and slowly lowering it till it pulls tight, then back up to horizontal again. He demonstrated, and it hurt like hell, but he said that daily exercise would slowly stretch the knee and get it back to full working range again.
Then he cut open a hatch in the front of the plaster cast with a tiny angle grinder, which was scary, because if he went too deep, we were looking at more injuries!
He opened the hatch up and removed the dressing and i could see what my shin looks like. Not as neat as the other areas of work, because he has had to pull the skin together a bit more, and kinda pinch it together and sew it. The stitches came out there too, and he explained that i had multiple fractures of the tibia. It took them a while to clean everything out before they could even begin the op. Also i had lost a lot of blood, so it was an emergency operation.
I asked him about the fubula being left in its fractured position and he said that the fibula is not an important bone in the leg, and usually it is not treated in these tib/fib fractures. He said it is commonly used as bone grafting material as it is not important to the normal function of the leg.
I am still gonna get a second opinion on this though.
I asked him about return visits, and he said that in a weeks time i must return for another xray to check the bones, and get a lighter cast put on. This would set me back around 3000 peso, about US$80. I have been told that it will be cheaper at the public hospital, so we will see where we go in a weeks time?
Then he left to write me a prescription of medication for pain killers. All my other meds have ended or are ending in the next 3 days, and don't need to be continued.
So, looks like it's almost home time, wherever that ends up being. I have to be out of here by 10am in the morning, so we'll see what the morning holds in store?
I'll continue the blog, documenting my recovery process over the next few months, and return hospital visits, etc. I know that this will come in exceptionally helpful for some person who might go through this same injury in the future.
I know that i have done loads of research in the last week, on the net, and recovery times are always one of the first things to research.
Here's to life outside of Prison Canela (clinks a glass of milk -- no beers for another 3 months i'm afraid, while i heal up)!
8)
Well, it has been a busy old day. I suppose i suspected as much though.
My lawyers came round about lunch time and spoke to the hospital lawyers and tried to arrange a deal on paper. The original deal tabled, from the hospital, stated that i would make full payment within 7 days of signing! This is, of course, impossible, so have given up signing that piece of paper!
So it was back to the drawing board, and off they went to see what they could do.
In the meantime, i was brought some lunch by the hospital, also a small section of food, but lunch nonetheless.
About an hour later my lawyer arrived and said the words i haven't heard, in what feels like an eternity, "Simon, good news!"
He had managed to broker a deal with the hospital that i pay back the amount, in 6 months from signing the papers. They will charge interest at 1% a month on any outstanding balance, and after 6 months theyy will require full payment or they can come and confiscate my belongings to try make payment.
I wasn't too happy about this, but my lawyer said that seeing as though i had nothing, this would not apply anyway. He also said that he would see what we could do in these 6 months, as we had 2 court cases running alongside each other now. 1 with the driver, who is still in the country (his wife ran off and left him here), and 1 with the insurance company. The insurance company may take as much as a year or more to pay anything though, so for now, we would be concentrating on the driver and his assets to cover the costs. This should be settled inside of 6 months.
I certainly hope that it is, because it will be real scary in a foreign country with debt collectors knocking at the door.
I have also signed to say that before the debt is settled with the hospital, i will not leave the country, and that i give them the powers to enforce this with the immigration department.
And a few other clauses screwing me over if i dont come up with the cash in 6 months! But, this country is not one where you can be sent to jail for non-payment of a debt, so, as long as i make regular payments to them, they can see that i am trying to pay the debt off, and they cannot do much to me.
Lets hope the lawyer is correct in this! We'll know for sure in 6 months time!
They would not knock the bill down either, so it stands at a whopping 820 000 peso odd! Roughly US$21000!
So, that's the cost you put on a human leg! At least in a private clinic in this country anyway!
Now that the papers are signed, i am free to leave here and go back to Bayahibe, however my friends have not managed to locate me a house there yet, so i'm not quite sure where i am going at this point.
Hopefully this is the last thing i will need to be asking them for because it has stretched everyone i know here to try help me, and i feel really bad for them running around after me. Just a house to go, and i can start to support myself with the aid of my 2 nurses to look after me!
I must've fallen asleep after lunch, and was awoken by the doctor knocking on the door!
Wow! I hadn't seen him in almost as long as i'd been in here! And had a lot of questions to ask him!
He opened up the bandages, and got out the antiseptic creams and prepared the stapled area for removal of said hardware! It didn't hurt as much as i thought it would, and only a few of the 70 odd staples had actually grown closed. I have 2x 30cm cuts running from my left hip down to about half way down my thigh, and then the 2nd running from there, next to the first, down towards my knee.
The scars will just be 2 pencil lines, and i can see he has done a really good job.
The stitches on my knee came out too. This wasn't as painless unfortunately, but all looks ok too. I can see the knee is a little angry with all the work that has gone on in and around it, and he said that it will take 3 months to heal fully. In that time he has given me exercises to do every day, flexing the knee on the side of the bed with someone holding the cast and slowly lowering it till it pulls tight, then back up to horizontal again. He demonstrated, and it hurt like hell, but he said that daily exercise would slowly stretch the knee and get it back to full working range again.
Then he cut open a hatch in the front of the plaster cast with a tiny angle grinder, which was scary, because if he went too deep, we were looking at more injuries!
He opened the hatch up and removed the dressing and i could see what my shin looks like. Not as neat as the other areas of work, because he has had to pull the skin together a bit more, and kinda pinch it together and sew it. The stitches came out there too, and he explained that i had multiple fractures of the tibia. It took them a while to clean everything out before they could even begin the op. Also i had lost a lot of blood, so it was an emergency operation.
I asked him about the fubula being left in its fractured position and he said that the fibula is not an important bone in the leg, and usually it is not treated in these tib/fib fractures. He said it is commonly used as bone grafting material as it is not important to the normal function of the leg.
I am still gonna get a second opinion on this though.
I asked him about return visits, and he said that in a weeks time i must return for another xray to check the bones, and get a lighter cast put on. This would set me back around 3000 peso, about US$80. I have been told that it will be cheaper at the public hospital, so we will see where we go in a weeks time?
Then he left to write me a prescription of medication for pain killers. All my other meds have ended or are ending in the next 3 days, and don't need to be continued.
So, looks like it's almost home time, wherever that ends up being. I have to be out of here by 10am in the morning, so we'll see what the morning holds in store?
I'll continue the blog, documenting my recovery process over the next few months, and return hospital visits, etc. I know that this will come in exceptionally helpful for some person who might go through this same injury in the future.
I know that i have done loads of research in the last week, on the net, and recovery times are always one of the first things to research.
Here's to life outside of Prison Canela (clinks a glass of milk -- no beers for another 3 months i'm afraid, while i heal up)!
8)
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