Painkiller-induced reflections

Alright, so I've been a little derelict in my blogging duties. Here's why:

1) Cederberg Mountains
This past weekend I went to the Cederberg Mountains, this jumble of rock formations four hours from Stellenbosch, with my group of 60 other Americans. We were staying in cabins in the foothills of the mountain with cute, well-stocked kitchens and portable showerheads (basically the Ritz). At first I thought we were going on this three-day hike up the mountain and got a little intimidated but turns out we stayed in this really peaceful resort by a river. After polishing off half a bottle of St. Celine wine Friday night, I woke up bright and early Saturday to begin our hike to the top of the mountains. My thoughts on hiking (you knew it was coming): Hiking is something that, in theory, should be amazing, but in practice I get winded really quickly and feel like dying. The fun quickly wears off and usually I end my hiking trips swearing never to hike again. This time was no different -- however, I got to the top of the mountain! The very top. I also climbed the "adventure trail" (another stupid idea made on some sort of adrenaline rush that left my decision-making skills somewhat impaired; more on that later), which was a series of intense rock climbing episodes where I more or less allowed the big strong guys in our group to pull me up because I suck at rock climbing. I scraped up my knees, I reapplied sunscreen like a million times, I took pictures. It was exhausting. After an hour and a half descent, I was again on solid ground, and I felt good. Completely exhausted, but good.

In the van on the way back, all of us were clearly too tired to form complete sentences and basically communicated via grunts and eyebrow motions, but I think we all were thinking about jumping in the river to cool off. When the group of us got back to our cabin, we got into our swimsuits and were on our way to heavenly bliss when one of the van drivers offered us a lift to the river (our next destination that day). There was no hike, he assured us. We jumped in the car, dreaming of icy water and cleanliness.

I don't know if people here are just less truthful, or perhaps Americans are just lazy, but apparently "there's not a hike to get to the river" means that there's a 15-minute hike to the river. In flip flops. Of course, we did veer off the path a few times, but it was a long walk to the river, all the while our sunscreen melting off. When we did get there, the view was spectacular, two cliffs about the equivalent of 4-5 stories above the water's surface that people were jumping off to enter the water. It looked a little like heaven, I think. Or maybe I was just so mentally and physically exhausted by that point, Waco would've even looked nice to me. In fact, from this point on, let's just attribute my bad decision-making to the fact that I was so fatigued.

The water was deep enough that people were jumping off the cliffs (even the really, really high one) and, despite complaining about a mammoth wedgie after falling at such a distance into the water, most people seemed thrilled at falling so far. No pain, no gain? I stayed in the shade, wondering if my SPF 50 sunblock had run out yet, wishing I could be one of the brave souls to jump off the tall cliff. One by one, almost everyone I knew jumped off either the high cliff or the three-story cliff and I wished I weren't such a pansy. I always play it safe. Maybe that's what made me get up and climb to the high cliff. Why not? One of the guys who leads the program saw how nervous I was. "Why don't you try from this height?" he asked me, motioning to the smaller cliff. "It's an easier jump." Having an incredible fear of heights, I figured that I just needed to gather the courage to jump off the cliff and that, at this point, 15-20 feet wasn't going to make too much of a difference (oh, the irony). I was trying to not think too much, and maybe that should've set off a few metaphorical alarms in my head. Whenever I tell myself not to think, I always do stupid things. The view from the top was absolutely terrifying. If the cliff looked far up from the water, the water looked miles away up there. I had butterflies in my stomach. This is not what I should be doing, I thought (voice of reason?). "I need to just go now, before I start second-guessing myself," I heard myself say to the ten or so other Americans who stood on the plateau. They stood back, letting me pass. "Go ahead," one of them said. I gulped. "How many people have died today?" I asked. They reassured me that I could literally step off the cliff and fall safely into the water. Running out of courage and questions, I breathed deeply, Pilates-style, and stepped off.

When everyone else jumped, it was a few seconds in the air and splash! Over with. Not so when I jumped. I fell through the air for what felt like ten minutes. My stomach isn't so great with falling. On the roller coasters, I always feel like, enough, enough, hit the bottom already. The same feeling here -- the water just wasn't coming fast enough. My stomach had flown up somewhere near my ears (perhaps I'd completely lost my stomach?). Like someone later told me, it was literally a leap of faith. Rationally, you know the water has to be deep enough, but your body's telling you not to jump, that you're about to kill yourself. After this incident, I think I'm a bit more inclined to listen to what my body's telling me.

Another challenge of jumping off a cliff: having good form jumping that distance is really difficult. By the time I hit the water, my feet were straight out in front of me, my back in a reclining position. If I'd been sitting on a couch, watching Jack Bauer vampire-style biting Russian villains, it would have been perfect. Too bad I was falling from over 10 meters at a speed of -9.8m/s/s...

The second I hit the water, I felt my back pop, and immediately I forgot about the atomic wedgie so many had complained about. "I broke my back," I thought for a second, then I thought something along the lines of "so I guess I'm going to drown." I saw the murky green of the water and thought I was going the wrong way (perhaps I'd made a mistake and was going toward the bottom of the lake?), then realized I was surfacing. And surface I did. Jumping-off-cliff etiquette, as someone recently informed me, is all about surfacing quickly and letting people know you're okay. By those standards, I was a little rude. First, I didn't surface for awhile, and when I did surface, my back was killing me and I realized I was crying. As I attempted some version of gimpy-back breaststroke, the shouts of "Are you okay? Are you okay?" were overwhelming. I think I managed a "I'm ok" while crying, which somehow didn't come off as too convincing. After realizing my back pain wasn't going away, I lay down on a nearby rock while the program director, Mike, offered me painkillers. I accepted.

"The bruising should go away soon," he said, trying to be helpful.

"WHAT BRUISING?" I attemped through my tears. It hadn't occurred to me that I could get terrible backpains AND bruises all down my back and legs. In almost a week's time since the incident, the bruises have gone through practically all the colors of the rainbow (minus orange), but they are pretty disgusting, still.

In the midst of my pain, I looked up a few times and saw that I'd become the equivalent of an I-20 car wreck during rush hour. People were rubbernecking everywhere. People I'd never spoken to before, the cool kids from the Northeast who never sweat and always look glamorous even while hiking, stopped and asked if I was doing alright (I said yes, hoping my bravery might impress them so much they'd beg for my friendship. Perhaps they might teach me the secrets of no-sweat and always looking picture perfect?). I wasn't doing alright, though. My back was not happy, which made the 15-minute hike back to the van pretty difficult. A procession of onlookers followed, and I thought how unfortunate it was that I'd once again become Tragedy Girl.

"I'll sleep on it and maybe it'll feel better tomorrow," I kept thinking, in between praying to God and promising to stop being mean to people if he'd make the back thing just a minor couple of muscle spasms and bruises. My bargaining didn't really work; I woke up Sunday with a back even more sore and Mike promising to take me to the doctor the next day.

2) The "Doctor's"

After sleeping in two- and three-hour increments Sunday night, I was ready to visit the doctor and take however many painkillers I needed to sleep through the night. It's a terrible feeling to be tired but be unable to sleep. Monday morning, I went to class (sitting on a chair can be painful) and another Mike, this one a sk8er-esque version, took me to a pharmacy/clinic. He dropped me off in the parking lot, I walked in to the pharmacy and saw a "clinic" sign to the left and a small waiting room. I'd had an 11:45 appointment which Other Mike had been vigilant about honoring, but this waiting room was 6 ft x 6 ft, with no receptionist in sight. "Maybe this is how they do things in South Africa," I thought. "No receptionist? Okay. Maybe this is part of the whole laid-back atmosphere?" Another strange thing: the doctor kept emerging from the exam room and saying "okay, who's next?" which also seemed a little backward. Still, the pain in my back seemed to trump whatever weird medical customs they celebrated in Stellenbosch. So when the doctor looked at my back for all of 20 seconds and promised me it was probably fine, that I just shouldn't do any heavy lifting and went to the pharmacy to grab me a package of homeopathic "muscle strain" pills, I didn't find it strange. Perhaps it's my innate trust of old ladies. This one was adorable and made me feel like I was going to be alright. Also, I wasn't charged for the doctor's visit, which was weird but maybe they do things differently. Maybe it's included in the medication costs? And homeopathic medicine? They do new-age stuff like that here? Hope it works.

They didn't. And having Schlossman here, who's quick to use the internet to research any and every drug, I learned that, in such a diluted form, the drug had never been scientifically proven to have any effect.

I called Original Mike the next day, after another almost-sleepness night.

"I can't take it anymore," I told him. "I sleep for only a couple of hours each night, the doctor prescribed me homeopathic shit that hasn't even been proven to have any effect. Can I see another doctor, please? I just want a doctor who's going to give me good drugs."

"Can I ask a quick question?" he started. "Um... when you got to the pharmacy, you walked up a set of stairs, right?"

"...the set of steps to the building?"

"No. You walked inside, there was a set of stairs on your right and then the waiting room with a reception area?"

And that's how I realized I had wandered into the Free Clinic that prescribes homeopathic medicine instead of real painkillers. And that I had just seen a nurse, which is why no x-rays were taken.

Schlossman and Mike found it hilarious. I just wanted drugs. So the next day, I went to the actual doctor's office, where I basically spent the day in the waiting room and took a zillion x-rays. I did, however, get a conclusive idea of what was wrong with me. After explaining how I'd injured myself to the doctor -- "Well, I went to the Cederberg Mountains this weekend and jumped off a cliff about four or five stories into the water and landed badly" -- and hearing her response -- "Well, that wasn't too clever, was it?" -- and leafing through countless Afrikaans-language fashion magazines, the verdict was in.

Compression fracture in my T12 and L1 vertebrae. I've lost 20 percent of the bone mass in my L1; however, this loss is classified as "stable" since I can stand up. With physio-therapy to speed up the recovery process, my back should be just fine in six to eight weeks, provided I take it easy.

"Maybe you need a corset," Dr. Number Two said, looking at the chart.

I immediately thought of Victorian times, which did nothing to stop my already working-overtime waterworks. For some reason, his declaration of "well, I guess you now have back problems, eh?" had really sent me over the edge, much to the discomfort of Original Mike, who'd gone in with me, citing insurance coverage reasons. Just to make sure everything should be claimable when I get back to the States, he said.

"I... I... I have to wear a backbrace?" I blubbered, my voice shaking. Mike attempted to pat me awkwardly on the shoulder. "It'll... be okay, Sarah," he said. "I mean, this ... really could be a lot worse." The "you're actually lucky, even though this seems really tragic" argument isn't really the kind of logic one wants to hear when they're being told they're going to be strapped into an antiquated garment for six weeks. Cue the tears. I had joked about how I hoped I'd get a backbrace to relive awkward high school-esque moments, but this was just too much.

After calling for a second opinion (in Afrikaans), the doctor said that actually there wouldn't be a corset. I would, however, have to bend with my knees, sleep on my back with a pillow under my knees to take off pressure from my spine, not bend over or do heavy lifting for six to eight weeks. The mention of physiotherapy was also a little problematic. My mother was in physiotherapy for a back problem, and I didn't want to have to do those silly exercises. Schlossman assures me this isn't the sad kind of physical therapy, the kind for people missing limbs and sides of their brain, that this is more to speed up the recovery process, but we'll see.

In the meantime, I'm taking it easy. It would be nice to have someone wash my clothes for me, but I had just started to get my legs toned. No joke. For the first time in my life, I have legit leg muscles. I'm determined to keep them. And a word of warning (if nothing else, I guess I could be a cautionary tale?): don't do things your body's obviously telling you not to. Unless you're a real badass and can get away with everything, unlike me.

In the meantime, here's a list of things that, due to the limitations of spinal movement and medications I'm taking, are no longer kosher:

1) Clubbing
2) Drinking alcohol (this one's really going to hurt)
3) Any activity that involves bending over (including but not limited to intense make-out sessions with hot foreign boys, washing laundry, cleaning my room quickly)
4) Standing for long periods of time
5) Sitting for long periods of time

As well as, of course, jumping off five-story cliffs into the water. Though I'd really like to think that stage of my life is over.