The scariest experience of my life

It was four days into our vacation. A Tuesday if I recall correctly. We had plans to go to a new beach with my husbands uncle but after driving there we found out the beach was closed. How that happens on a tropical island I have no idea but it makes sense since it was the week of thanksgiving and the "winter season". 

After a quick stop to discuss the change of plans we decided to go to the beach that we were at the day before. Crash boat beach, so beautiful. Is a must go every time we travel to PR. The water, the ambiance, is just perfect. I'm not even a beach person but I get in this water. Well I get in the water in other beaches too but salt water is not really my thing. I mostly hang out on the shore with the little ones. This day however I was daring. I got in waist deep and was on a boogie board with my toddler. 

Now you must know that I can't swim properly. I can float and can somewhat swim under water if need be so using the boogie board as a floating device was my way of "protecting" ourselves. We were all enjoying ourselves, chatting, and going with the waves which were not that strong. When suddenly I see a wave come our way. I look back and immediately know that this wave will push AJ and myself way into the shore. But as I look back again I know for a fact that this wave was going to take us under. I seriously thought the worse. And let's not forget, I Can't swim. 

As I'm underwater being shaken side to side I think of letting go of the boogie board to protect myself but quickly remember that AJ is on top of it too. If I let go he can go lose and who knows what his fate would be. So in a split second I manage to grab him by the waist and keep him close to me. I hold him as tight as I possibly can scared to dead that he would go lose and get taken by the waves that our coming on strong. Somehow in between all this I go head first into the sand feeling like I hit concrete. It was definitely a front flip under water and then another back flip. Then I found myself out of all that jumbo mess sitting butt first in the sand as the hubby and my son walked toward us. I quickly get up, hand over AJ to one of them I don't even know who it was and fix my top since there's boob everywhere. I started to feel light headed and touched my forehead feeling for the area that I hit on the sand. As I look at hubby's face he looks at me and says "babe your forehead. Is white". With a confuse face I stare at him then at everyone else in the group who are also staring at me. I ask what is it, meaning a scrape, a bump, a sea animal on my face, what was it? He says that it looks like a rug burn that pilled my skin off. He literally said "babe it seriously pilled the brown off your skin". Freaking butt-head said it laughing too. Shame on him. Then I started bleeding so I got out of the water and headed straight for a mirror.

This picture does it no justice. It was mainly bruised but Imagine the stares I got as I walked from the beach to our table :( it wasn't nice. 

As I sat down waiting for SIL to care for my forehead all I could think about was my baby AJ. My baby. What if I would have panicked and let go? What if I couldn't hold on to him like I did? What if he would have drawned because I was holding him tight and pulling him under water with me? because I'm sure he drank a lot, a lot of salt water. 

Im so thankful that we are both okay. And that only I got hurt from this. As I checked him for marks or bruses  and saw that he was fine I thanked God for protecting us. 

Needless to say that after that day I have not gotten in the beach again. I walk the beach and chill on the very edge of it but that's a far as I go. My mom always told me that the ocean is deceiving and cannot be trusted and after this experience I have learned the lesson. I will never feel the same about this beauty that although breathtaking can be very very dangerous. 

Seven days after the accident and this is what my battle wound looks like. I'm very sad about it. I always say beauty is not everything but my wave story is not that convincing. It looks more like I burned myself with a curling iron. :( the past few days the purple area had turned into scab-like and kept peeling off and today I was able to clear it completely. Of course that this has not stopped me from taking selfies and pictures with my family, after all it could have been worse and right now I'm only thinking about the fact that I'm alive, that my child is alive, and that this was the worse out of the scariest experience of my life.