Gathering No Moss

The Rolling Stones are here in Budva playing a concert date on Jaz beach tonight. (Yes, here in Budva!) Everyone from the hostel and the radio station went to the show except me. I get to do the Cinderella routine because I have a bad back that wouldn't support me walking, standing, jumping around, dancing with the hordes, or getting jostled by rabid Stones fans, for hours at a time, with no place to sit down should my back need a break from it all. Anyway, you know, those old rockers just aren't my thing, and neither are these big, giant stadium concerts. I just don't do crowds. Though, I had originally wanted to go, just so I could say I saw the Rolling Stones perform -- in BUDVA! And, that would've been a laugh. But, I guess I'm keeping my €50.

So, I'm minding the store tonight here at the Hippo. And, blogging my way through the peace and quiet. It's rare to get peace and quiet right now at the hostel, given that the summer rush is fully upon us, and we're at max capacity every single night, pretty much. It's been a crazy couple of days since I've been back to work here and at Ponta Radio. Ridiculous amounts of non-stoppedness. I'm going to WANT my days off when I get them now!

In fact, this Wednesday, for my first full day off from work now that I'm back *at* work, I'm taking a day trip to Dubrovnik -- the pretty, clean, more cosmopolitan, waaaaay over-touristed big sister of Budva, located on the Croatian coast. I signed myself up for a bus tour for the day. Why, oh, why, you might be asking me? Since, I've already been there, seen plenty of it, and don't like it all that much, etc. etc. I'm going because I've got to cross an international border before July 18th, to legitimize my stay here in Montenegro, and a bus tour to Dubrovnik is the cheapest way I can do that. Them's the rules, since I don't have a work visa to stay here for longer stretches of time. It's been just about 90 days since I was out of the country last. Which means that it's been 3 months since I've been here in Montenegro! I can't believe how the time flies. Though, I feel like I've been here for ages. I can't believe what HAPPENS to you as the time is flying, is more like it.

It's been 3 months! I've been in and out of home-sickness, in and out of back injury, in and out of fights with David, in and out of photo albums, and in and out of epic friendships with our hostel guests. And, there are 3 months left to go. Crazy! This stone continues to gather no moss.

You Made Me Love You. I Didn’t Want to Do It, Didn’t Want to Do It.

ABOVE: Lights of the town across the bay from my room in Igalo. I went arty with the camera and made the lights run.


D A T E L I N E : Thursday, 5 July 2007
Penultimate Day at the Institute
Igalo, Montenegro

You know a couple of weeks ago, I waxed melodramatic about how clingy I can be about things? Well, it’s true, even here in the weirdest back rehab spa I’ll ever visit in Eastern Europe. (Because there are so many others in Eastern Europe for me to judge against, right?) But, sitting here on the spacious private balcony of my room overlooking the blue-green waters of the Boka Kotorska and the surrounding hills, I’m getting a little sad that I’m checking out and leaving for Budva tomorrow, to go back to what used to be my normal life – life before the back injury, when I didn’t lay around all day trying not to move my back, when I worked more, cleaned bathrooms, hung laundry, and led walks up to the monastery 12 minutes from the hostel. When I went to the beach on my days off, took daytrips, walked around Old Time taking pictures, and could go to a bar at night with friends if I was off shift. I’m going back to the hustle and bustle of lots of strangers invading my space constantly and no chance to run around naked after a shower air-drying if I want to. I’m going back to what was supposed to be the 6-month adventure in Montenegro I was having, if my back hadn’t gotten hurt. I guess my adventure took a detour.

It’s funny, when this whole thing happened in the middle of May, I was so pissed off that my plans for the summer were being hijacked by the bad luck and clumsiness of a slip and fall accident. I had already gotten used to a month and a half of life in Budva with all new favorite things to do. And, I hated the even newer routine of lying around all day alone, trying to remain conscious when all there was for me was eating, sleeping, reading, watching DVD’s, and hanging out online. It was so frustrating not to be part of the Budva that I had gotten used to.

And now, over a month and a half later, I’m about to be discharged from the Igalo Institute with pretty much a clean bill of back health and I’m a little sad to be re-entering hostel society with all the activity and responsibilities that it carries with it. I’m a little sad to be leaving behind the slovenliness of laying around all day, every day, with no expectations on me except that I not move too much. And, I’m actually a little sad to leave behind these last 2 weeks of weird Igalo Institute routines that I’ve been developing sharply. God, maybe I’m just sad about losing yet another routine!

After tomorrow, I’ll probably never again wake up before 8:00am and be happy about going off to any sort of group activity. I’ll miss all the nice, pretty therapists who wrap me up in mud, point hoses of water at strategic parts of my body while I’m immersed in warm water, and demonstrate walking on tiptoes around the swimming pool for me. I’ll miss the cute waitress who calls me “my dear” and has a fresh, hot cup of black tea brewing at my table as soon as I arrive for dinner in the restaurant. I’ll miss being done with my day by 12:noon and having nothing else I have to do except lounge around on my balcony keeping myself entertained counting how many colors of blue I can see in the water below me. I’ll miss being so close to the promenade at Herceg Novi, which I can get to after a short, 50¢ bus ride, where there’s a great little movie theater that thinks it’s an art house, the best gelato café on the boardwalk anywhere, and a lovely cliffside walkway right next to the water which has even better people-watching than anything in Budva.

It’s interesting to me how much I dreaded coming here all this time, and now that I’m having to leave, I’m sad to go. That means I liked it here, I guess, which is the most surprising bit. Igalo turned out to be more than just good material to blog about in my snarky little way. It turned out to be a good experience that I’m not sorry I had.

Bloggie Goes to Igalo

D A T E L I N E : Tuesday, 26 June 2007
Day 2 at the Institute
Igalo, Montenegro

There’s no internet connectivity here at all, and I’d have to walk 2 km into town to get online at an internet café, so guess I’m going to send this out late, whenever I can connect this laptop to a signal. Here I am at the Igalo Mediterranean Health Centre for my back treatment. I have to stay here for 10 days after all. The doctor who assessed me yesterday was saying that this treatment is supposed to take 3 weeks, but I wasn’t down with all that. She was wearing a form-fitting, black knit dress with white polka dots on it and a ruffle at the hem of the skirt when she met with me for my official clinical evaluation, so how am I supposed to take that seriously??? I need at least a white lab coat, if not a stethoscope draped over the shoulders, for me to buy into anything a doctor has to say. I’m giving it 10 days and then I’ve got to get on with my life.

Things here are going to be quiet and slow, something I can only appreciate up to a point. If I only had to take all this down time for 2-3 days at a stretch, I’d be much more into it. But, 10 days is going to be rough! There’s nobody here for me to talk to! Virtually no Americans come here, or even other English-speaking nationalities, I’m told. And, I’m a complete anomaly, being “Chinese” and all. The other stats to share: About 80% of the patients, or clients, as I’m sure the PR people here at Igalo would prefer that I say, are 55 or older, and of the larger, rounder body type. And, the facility itself? Think: 1980’s corporate hotel, with all of its old, dark wood décor and by now, broken-downness, that’s sort of funny and sort of depressing at the same time. In fact, all the things here, the staff, the clients, the services, the food, all of it, is pretty sad. On the funny spectrum, it would weigh in at the pathetic end, not so much the clown end.

But, on a positive note, my room is just huge, and has a lovely view of the Boka Kotorska, the biggest fjord outside of Scandinavia. (Maybe that’s why all these Norwegians like to come here for treatment all the time!) I have a nice, big balcony with decent furnishings, a full-sized bed (I miss full beds like you wouldn’t believe. It’s been months since I’ve slept in one!), and some chirpy crickets in the ventilation ducts in my room, which I presume are part of the nature-sounds therapy that this place offers but doesn’t seem to list on the brochures. And I’ve got a lot of time to hang out, work on my tan, read my books, make more mix tapes in iTunes, watch DVD’s that I’ve borrowed from various sources, and write things. And, oh yeah, there’s the therapy bit that I’m also here for. That stuff is interesting, to say the least! Day 1 of my treatments was a mass of confusion, seeing as how there’s NO orientation offered here in the least, except for the unsmiling person who gave me a card with some strange code words noted on it in a foreign language yesterday. Excuse me, I don’t mean to be a Princess, but I need a little bit more hand-holding here. Please?

Anyway, after a very frustrating day of running around like it’s the first day of school at a new junior high and I’m trying to figure out my class schedule during passing period, I’ve found out the therapy routine. I’ve got 20 minutes of group exercise at 8:00 am for core strengthening with an instructor who speaks about 5 words of English and the rest of it is Serbian and Norwegian or German or something, I think. There’s only one person my age in the class, and he’s pretty decent-looking, but says all the funny things he says that makes the rest of the class laugh in some language other than my own, so I can’t partake in the amusement. Then, I have one-on-one “lessons in movement now that your back is broke”, which is boring, so is thankfully not every single day. After that, I get breakfast, which is taken in the sad version of a Las Vegas buffet-style restaurant, only with inferior food quality and not everything is buffet-style quantities. Then, onto: underwater massage (a hose pointed at various sections of your back and legs while you lay in a big, warm tub, for all of 11 minutes), group pool exercises (with all old, overweight people, thankfully, while the instructor is some scorchin’ hot mama!), and then my mud wrap for 15 minutes (which lots of my lady-friends who like to go to day spas would enjoy, but I find too gooey to appreciate). And then, I’m done for the day pretty much by 11:30 am.

Like I’ve been saying all along, this is part of the experience of this particular adventure. So, I’m just going to sit back, relax, and put up with whatever they hurl my way for the next 9 days. Go ahead. Do your best to break my spirit, people! I’ve got bloggie on my side to vent into. And, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. It’s 9 days away, but it’s there.

Mostly Horizontal

It's been almost 4 weeks since my dramatic, lifestyle-altering fall-down-the-stairs-in-the-rain incident, and I'm still usually found horizontal on a pull-out bed in the office of the Hippo. But, I'm more mobile now than I have been for ages!

I was facing some tough decisions for a while these past several days, since it looks like the damage to my back is kinda serious. (I had thinned-out cartilage between two bony bits in my spine that wasn’t holding a disc in place very effectively, so when I fell down-went boom, the disc slipped south and to the left and is now pressing on a nerve that will, over time, kill said nerve to the point where one of my feet will stop moving, and then I’ll have SERIOUS issues, blah-blah-blah.) But then, I was told of this alternative medicine institute 2 hours from here near Herceg Novi, the Igalo Institute, where I can undergo all kinds of alternative therapy to get the herniated disc back into alignment. The neurosurgeon that I saw last week at the clinic in Podgorica recommended that I go there for at least a week and a half and, if that doesn't work, then I should probably enjoy some back surgery. (ACK!)

I had a really crappy week pondering these options. But, after a good cry, I found the website to the "institute" and, okay -- IT'S HILARIOUS!

This place is trying to be a *spa*! For rich foreigners! And, it's known to the Norwegians like Cabo San Lucas is known to Americans! Among other things, they treat arthritis, allergies, cellulite, sports injuries, chronic eczema, obesity, stress, multiple sclerosis! They do breast augmentation, dental work, shiatsu massage! They do Thalassotherapy! These are treatments based on the use of seawater, seaweed, and algae masks/wraps! I sense a sushi reference coming on! But, anyway, they also feed you well here! You have these beautiful private rooms with balconies that overlook the Boka Kotorska, the largest fjord outside of Scandinavia! Their medical staff of 51 physicians, 93 nurses, 178 physical therapists, and 27 lab staffers are in multilingual teams that "smoothly operate" in Norwegian, English, German, Italian, French, and yeah, Serbian! And, that's just what the website says! My own, private room, buffet meals, and medical treatment will cost me €78 per night! (I called and checked today.) That's less than any decent hotels in any major city in the States would charge! God, I can't use enough exclamation points all of a sudden!

!!!

I KNOW there was an episode of Hart to Hart early on in the series where Jonathan and Jennifer go undercover to a luxury spa to uncover the real reason for their good friend's supposed suicide. Maybe this is a similar spa! Maybe I can be Jennifer Hart, Darling!

So, fine, I guess I'm going to Igalo for a couple of weeks. Starting June 22, it would seem. I might even be spending my 33rd birthday there! Hmmm...

Now then, let's recap all the positive developments since last I whined:
1.) I'm going to a spa instead of getting back surgery (probably).
2.) The painkillers I'm taking are working just grand. I'm rarely in any sort of pain, and am getting up and around a lot more now. Though I probably shouldn't, just to avoid injuring myself further. These painkillers make you feel SO invincible, though!!! (Evil, deranged laughter here...)
3.) The radio show has taken off and is going pretty well. Week 2 was even better than week 1! I have all the time in the world to lie around on my stomach writing decent scripts and conducting interviews with professors from local Universities who serve on the faculty of Tourism Studies here.
4.) And, podcasts! I've discovered lots of new podcasts to listen to, which keeps my ears very busy.
5.) Oh, and did I mention? Marin and Brian are here for the week, and though they're going out doing all their sight-seeing with friends from the hostel and not with bed-ridden me, it's great to have them around at all. They brought peanut butter. (FINALLY! Toast-cover of the gods!)

It would seem that I'll live. And, if the spa is all it's cracked up to be, I will live without having any knives stuck in my back. Dare I dream?

Reports from the Field III: Laid Up in Budva

All right, fine. 3 weeks after the fall, I guess it's probably time to rehash everything about this whole back injury business, and tell the blog-reading population that cared enough about me to come here in the first place why I've been lying around on my stomach in a bed, irritable and blogging. Why so many hours of watching "The Office" on my laptop and why this still-life-in-pills? So, here, for your review, is the whole sordid tale.


D A T E L I N E : 26 May 2007; Budva, Montenegro

When last we left our hero, she was idling away her days in summertime fun. But, wait! Tragedy has struck! And now, a little more than a week later, I'm writing you from my recovery bed, the pull-out couch in the office of the Hippo Hostel...

I had a slip-and-fall incident last Friday evening, going down some marble stairs at the market across the street from the hostel in the rain. I was innocently running out for a tub of yogurt and took a false step to end up on my backside on the stairs after having hit the edge of some of the steps with my lower back and both elbows. I couldn't get up. Someone had to run back to the hostel and get my friends. I was carried home and deposited on the couch in the lounge, to lay out on my stomach for the rest of the night.

After a visit to the nearest hospital in Risan (a 45-minute drive from Budva), where I had a botched x-ray taken, it was speculated that I suffered a fracture in my spine somewhere. Though, how the fine doctors of that sad, socialist-era state hospital could know that from the blurry x-ray they were looking at is beyond me. I blame the 20-year-old girl posing as the x-ray technician in her official-looking blue jeans and polo shirt, the one with the disposition of a pissed-off orangutan, for the bad films. So, I paid my 17 Euros for their time and expertise and we left with some prescriptions for pain medication to head home and seek out another opinion.

Enter Dr. Lidija Ljubisa-Maslovar, a local doctor in Budva who practiced medicine in San Francisco for 10 years or something, and who's English is excellent. Since the country was closed down for the next 4 days due to a national holiday (Montenegro was celebrating it's 1-year anniversary as an independent nation!), Dr. Lidija could only consult with me over the phone from her vacation spot out of town, and she made an appointment for me to come see her on Wednesday. After my visit to Dr. Lidija's office on Wednesday, where I had an ultrasound to make sure that my internal organs weren't injured in the fall, it was arranged that I would go see specialists at a private hospital in Podgorica, the nation's capital, where I would need an MRI and another x-ray taken. And, in the meantime, I was to lie in bed immobile for at least the next 2-3 weeks.

A distraught and frantic phone call to John in San Francisco, where he was 4 hours away from leaving on a jet plane to come here for 2 weeks. We argued. I almost cried. We decided he shouldn't come and waste his only trip here to see me on this version of a vacation: watching me lie around in bed all day frustrated and worried that my 40's and 50's will be plagued with back issues. So, he canceled his flights here, to be rescheduled for late August sometime when I'd be better able to show him around town and even accompany him to Sarajevo, Rome, Florence, etc.

Then, Thursday brings with it a daytrip to Podgorica. David and I rent a car so that I could lay in *comfort* (and I use that term loosely) on my stomach in the reclined front passenger seat of the car while he drives the hour and 15 minutes to the hospital there. I don't get to see a thing of the countryside and mountains that connect the coast to the capital. We're met in Podgorica by a scorching-hot woman who doesn't LOOK like she works for an orthopedist, but who nonetheless leads us to the hospital and escorts us through the entire process, from radiology to the doctor's clinic that I'm to go to next.

I always thought that I was tough enough to handle an MRI, something that's usually depicted as a scary thing to people who are prone to claustrophobia, panic attacks, fear of loud noises, etc. But, I'm laid down in the MRI bed and have to immediately close my eyes and go to my happy place so as not to lose it completely. (Sidenote: My happy place is lunching on the patio of Jack's Bistro, sipping iced tea and eating calamari while looking out at the boats in the marina of Jack London.) The space inside that tube is pretty damn small, and I'm afraid that any moment now, the sharp, shooting, burning pain in my lower back will return, and oh, my God, can I just tell you about the noise??? Think: air raid sirens during WWII. The whole time, my good friend David is in the next room with the technician enjoying the tour of my internal organs that they're on. (He has all kinds of things to tell me about my insides afterwards.)

Anyway, I survive that process without ever screaming or pounding frantically on the MRI tube to make it stop. And, then I'm taken to another room for another x-ray by another pissed-off orangutan who's just trying to get the whole thing over with, no matter how much it hurts me to lay flat on my back on a straight, hard table top. From there, it's a short drive to the doctors' clinic nearby, where I'm given a comfortable examination table to nap on while I wait the 3+ hours for the doctors to arrive for our appointment that was supposed to take place at 2:00pm.

It's 7:30 in the evening when Dr. Aleksandar Juskovic, the good-looking, young orthopedist finally arrives to look at my MRI and examine me. He does a number of tests on my back and legs, rotating things every which way and asking me when it hurts. Then, he tells me that I've had a herniated disc in my back for quite some time now that must've never manifested symptoms until this recent fall in which I incurred a lot of trauma to the muscles in my lower back. I need to remain absolutely still on bedrest and take some really intense medication and then I can start physical therapy after I see him again next weekend. He might even do a housecall in Budva so that I don't have to fade the drive to Podgorica again.

And thus, I am here at this point: lying on my stomach, injecting pain-killers into my own thigh twice a day, and listening to A's games broadcast over the internet at all hours of the night. I will hopefully be back up and running, taking on visitors from home and hostel guests alike in glittering social repartee in the coming weeks. In the meantime, when my radio show begins it's bi-weekly broadcast on June 4th, I have plans to be horizontal on an air mattress on the studio floor with a mic.

It's all good vibes and pain-meds for me from this point forth! Yippee.

New to This

I write a lot. Mostly, it's journals and letters to friends and stuff. But, sometimes, when I travel, I send long email updates home to loved ones talking about my weird experiences that make them tell me I should be blogging. Usually, I just dismiss their suggestions as overly-supportive declarations of love or ways to get me off their backs inundating them with so much spam.

But, right now, since I've got a bunch of time on my hands while in a foreign country (fell down, went boom, while in the resort town of Budva, Montenegro and now must lie around on a bed recovering), I thought I'd try my hand at something new. Joining the digital revolution even in my journaling pursuits.

So, here, you'll find some of my various thoughts as I have any that are worth publishing online. And, maybe once in a while, I'll post something old that I've written in the near or distant past, just because it might be worth a good laugh. Who knows?

Let's see where this whole blogging thing takes us, shall we?