The Kindness Of Strangers....

Today is my mom's birthday. She would have been 94 years old. Throughout this day I have held her close in my heart and thoughts.....doing little things like thinking in "Canora time" ...... Having soup and bread for lunch.....going for cake and coffee this afternoon, where we literally said happy birthday to her, Judy Jones and Barb Slowski!

We went for an evening bike ride and were going to go for a late supper and have either the grilled sardines, that Phyllis talked about (because mom loved canned sardines, for sure!) or we were going to have "shrimps"! Then, we had a harsh awakening when I lost control of my bike, while going over a very odd railway crossing track and fell hard, hitting the pavement with a powerful force! It was awful!! I tried to protect my head, which I hope I did, even though my face/ nose took some banging force and my forehead connected to the pavement with a scrape. My right shoulder and hand took the brunt of the spill and my left knee got badly scraped and is swollen with a large, swollen hematoma.

My almost crippling fear: a head injury.

Immediately, we had at least 5 strangers offer to help us......one woman, Elia, stayed and kindly insisted that she would help me get to a 24 hour private medical clinic (There is no hospital here in Tavira). I was so scared of a potential brain trauma that we accepted her offer. I was seen by a dr. , who spoke VERY little English but who felt quite confident that all my injuries are minor.....big swelling & bruising but no brain injury.

We were able to contact our landlord, Valter Reis, whose wife Melanie is a doctor (radiology resident). She immediately came to the clinic to either take us to Faro hospital or take us back to the apartment. She and Valter just live upstairs and she was very comforting /reassuring that if I have ANY signals of a brain injury tonight, she will drive me straight to the city of Faro for medical attention/intervention

We are back 'home' in our cozy apartment ..... I feel bruised and battered, physically and emotionally.....it was an incredibly vulnerable feeling to be in a foreign country, to be in need of help and to be restricted/impaired by language barriers and much uncertainty about processes to receive medical attention. My injuries are basically superficial and could have been sooooooo much worse!! I believe we were given a huge wake-up call about a lot of things .........one of them being to get a bike helmet on(!!!!!!!!!!!!) - ME the queen of "wear our bike helmet at all times", Regretfully did not have a helmet on and ....... always have Valter's phone # our medical insurance # with us at all times. We were tremendously blessed by the kindness of many strangers but especially Elia (who turned out to be Valter's cousin), Valter and Melanie!

No pictures today......

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