Hitting Reset: breaking my leg and putting it back together again.

Facing up to time anxiety.

One day you’re running on the beach barefoot, swimming at sunrise. The next you’re lying in a hospital room, peeing down a tube with a busted up leg, praying they take you to surgery soon, confused, in a foreign land.

A dust storm in Mongolia, and the yurt I lived in. Just wait, it will make sense.

The first two months of my travels for were going well, at a relaxed pace. After spending time volunteering at farms in Montenegro and Croatia, I came to Albania to buckle down and finish some writing. I was ready to jump into full swing adventure mode, getting back to the roots of milk trekking; visiting pastoralists who make cheese in mountainous regions where they bring livestock to graze for the summer. Low budget, minimal planning, sleeping outdoors, following my instincts. I would fly to Pakistan in two days to visit the far north, despite the recent threat of the ongoing conflict there boiling into another bloody war. Then I planned to visit Romania, a country that has been on the top of my list for years now. Walking, that was what I felt called to do.

Kind of like what I did in Georgia in 2022, seen in this video.

After 2 weeks spent holed up in an apartment in the coastal city of Vlore, I was ready to explore a bit on my last day here. I made arrangements to rent a moto-scooter, agreeing to pick it up at 8:30 am. I sat outside the office for an hour, texting the guy who never showed up, and started getting into one of my anxiety frustration time frenzies where I pace back and forth and talk to myself, cursing and muttering things like “what the fuck happened to 8:30? You’re wasting my time dude. Why do you have to fuck me around?”

I take time too seriously, tend to be excessively punctual, and have a hard time forgiving tardiness.

Holding Dusty as Oka bites her neck near a mountain top Ovoo shrine.

My neurotic sense of time being of absolute importance has led to disaster before. In Mongolia, I lived in a yurt with two dogs. I was late to catch the bus into the city for dinner with friends, so locked the dogs up and started running towards the main road. My furry friends found a way out, and acted like we were just going for a jog, tongues wagging, smiling from ear to ear. I was angry, and kept going, figuring they would return home after I caught the bus. I waited impatiently on the main road, which wasn’t too busy, but the pups kept running into the road and getting honked at.

I could have turned back, walked them home, and canceled my plans. But I was worked up, stuck in time frenzy tunnel vision.

A huge dump truck with six beefy tires built speed as it came through town. Little Oka, my best friend and companion, ran right in front of it and was knocked down, tumbling between the tires as the truck’s momentum carried on. She got up and ran off yelping and bloodied, and I ran after her as people stared. She got away from me, and I gave up searching after half an hour, walking towards home with Dusty the pup, who was scared as I cried and raged at myself and the world around me. Getting back to the yurt we found Oka lying in the dirt, breathing but barely conscious.

Oka, in the midst of recovery from the accident.

I tried picking her up but she snarled and bit me. So I left her, with a bowl of water. The next day I slid her slowly onto a sheet of cardboard and moved her inside. I was crushed. This animal was probably going to die, slowly, in pain, because I took time too seriously. It was a wake up call. She slowly recovered, and after 3 weeks was back to normal. It was awe-inspiring to see this, the way a body can repair itself, the way life recuperates after disaster, and keeps going.

Now it’s my turn. I gave up on the flaky scooter guy, realizing there was another company around the corner that was open. They gave me a shiny, cream-colored Vespa and new helmet. I signed the papers, paid in cash, and was out the door in 20 minutes. I was cruising out to a famous monastery on an island in a lagoon. Some traffic slowed me, which pissed me off. I was late. I was supposed to get there early, before anyone else. I hit the gas, delighting in going top speed.

I saw the speed bump at the last second. I must have hit just the front brakes, because I felt myself lose control, and then I was on the ground, the scooter ten feet in front of me.

Some men at a shop were immediately at my side, stopping traffic and asking if I was ok to stand, telling me to move slow. I saw my left foot was detached at the ankle, the leg bones broken and pushing against my skin.

There was no pain, I was in shock, and they got me seated and pulled the scooter over. I was freaking out, cursing at myself “what the fuck did you just do?! How could you be so fucking stupid?!” The speed bump was small and worn. “I could have just gone right over it!” A young man brought me water and told me in a very straight forward manner “you need to stop saying these things. Mistakes happen, so just breathe. The ambulance is on its way.” He was right. I breathed, and nearly passed out.

The ambulance hauled me in and my scraped knees and elbows were cleaned up in the emergency room, my ankle and calf wrapped in temporary cast to immobilize it. The pain had set in as the shock wore off, but it was bearable. What was more difficult was thinking about what this meant for my summer plans, and the future of my ability to walk and run. I would need surgery, so I was placed in a room with 3 other bed bound patients in an orthopedic ward. I was just glad to be sitting still.

Riding in the ambulance, grinning like a fool.

In the bed next to mine was a young man who had been in a car accident. He had stitches inside his lips, and appeared to be heavily sedated. His mother and father were there taking care of him. They weren’t simply visiting, they stayed the night, sleeping in chairs and on the floor. We talked through google translate, and they gave me juice and fruit. Such sweet people, expressing the sincere hospitality that is still standard in this country, and those parts of the world where innate human decency hasn’t been fully eroded by “progress”.

Aslan

The hospital staff was busy, and there seemed to be an expectation that a friend or family member would come to bring you food and water. We all became like a family in that room, they called me AmeriKhan. An old man named Aslan was admitted, for his second heart surgery in two years. He was strong willed, with white hair and twinkling eyes, constantly joking. He had an entourage of family members taking shifts at his side, who were always laughing at things he said that I couldn’t understand, but I grasped that he was an old whipper snapper with a sharp sense of humor. Bad jokes, the kind people tried not to laugh at, but couldn’t help it. So I laughed along, letting myself ride with the group energetic field in the room. They let me into the circle, and this eased my pain.

Aslan napping in the hospital room full of bottles, snacks, and helpful strangers.

Visitors keep coming in to see Aslan, shake his hand, talking with him and leaving cash. He had at least 50 visitors. They would be there until late at night, sometimes ten or more people, and I would get kind of annoyed, as I was trying to sleep. “Why are all these people being allowed in here at all hours?” I thought as I huddled under the covers. “Isn’t this a health risk, to just let all these people come in off the street, using the bathroom and bringing in all this food?” I checked myself. No, this is the opposite of unhealthy. Having friends and family at your side for support is part of healing. The supportive vibes were extended to me, a stranger who didn’t speak their language. People kept asking if I was traveling alone, shocked when I said yes. I could tell they felt sorry for me. They kept bringing me water and take-out food. They treated me with so much humanity that I was moved, and decided to write this piece about it. About hitting reset on my travels, being slapped around by a wake-up call to slow my ass down.

Surgery

My surgery happened 3 days after the crash, as they had a lot of patients to deal with. Going in, I was in a pretty bad place emotionally. When a male nurse asked me If I was ok I said “no, my leg is broken and they are about to cut me open”. He said “a man must be strong”. I rolled my eyes and thought “bullshit, that’s some repressive hypermasculine nonsense”. In the surgery room, before they anesthetized me, they treated me like a piece of furniture, moving my arms and legs while chatting. This must be what a corpse feels like, I thought.

As they gave me the gas, I transported myself to a hot spring I had hiked to with some friends in the outback of Arizona, and mentally sunk my body into the warm, healing waters.

Waking up, I didn’t realize what had happened. I thought they hadn’t given me enough gas, that the surgery had not began. They wheeled me back to my room, and my consciousness slowly reassembled. This was not pleasant, it felt like my brain didn’t work, and my body was nonresponsive. I fell asleep feeling dreadful and empty, more lonely than I’ve felt in years as I was confronted with the fact that I was helpless, in a distant land, not really knowing what was going on around me, my life feeling out of my control.

That’s going to be an epic scar.

The surgery was done, so I felt some relief the next day. Now I could begin the path to recovery, and I read about what this would look like online. It would likely be 6 weeks before I could start putting weight on my left foot, and begin phsyiotherapy. I had to prepare for being bedridden for over a month. I knew my mental and spiritual health would be an important factor in this healing, and that this was where I could start.

The hardware that is now inside my leg. I count 21 screws. You’ll never guess what my lucky number is.

The male nurse who had upset me with his comment on entering surgery kept checking on me, asking if I was ok. It was our inside joke. “I’m better than I was yesterday” I would say, lackadaisically. On the day I checked out, he asked me a final time. I thought about it, looked around for an excuse, then looked back at him. “Yes, I’m ok”. He smiled, looking satisfied. I modified what he had said in my head so that I could gain from it. “A Human must be strong.”

Our strength and ability to preservere and heal is vast. But it requires our participation, our effort, our will.

In the end my injury is a minor annoyance, compared to the perpetual daily pain and sorrow that many others endure, no end in site. We must be strong, while realizing our weaknesses, and the strength of weakness. At times strong, at others weak, at times building strength, at others losing it. Through the strange and horrific flow of highs and lows as we enter the second quarter of this century, we must persevere. Walk forward. Keep our heads up. Remain.

Lesson learned

It’s been three weeks since the crash. I’m ok. I feared I would get depressed, bored out of my mind, restless, and distraught over not being able to go walk and run. But I’m ok. I’m trying to view this not as a loss, but as an opportunity. As a retreat, to reorganize, reassess my life, build strength so that I can hit the trail again, with an altered perspective, a different pace. There are lessons to be learned. The main one seems to be to stop taking time so seriously. Mistakes and accidents happen when I lose balance and slip into negative thoughts, frustration, and anger. I crashed the scooter because I was coming off a morning of such emotions, riding their shockwaves, moving too fast, forgetting to be present, to keep my eyes on the road, to keep breathing.

The trek will go on. It’s on hold for now, for a few months at least. It may never be the same as it was. I’m trying to be open to what the path in front of me may look like, and embrace that there is always uncertainty and chaos underlying existence, that our plans and visions must be regularly altered or moved to the back burner. It’s in this uncertainty that the blessings of life have room to take shape.

The fortunes and blessings I’ve experienced while traveling are unquantifiable, astounding. Things have unfolded with such serendipitous beauty, like I have solid team of guardian angels watching over me. I got that road magic. It’s likely that in 10 years I’ll look back at this so called misfortunate time and see it was actually exactly what was needed to get me pointed in the right direction. My mind still works, my body is repairing itself. This is no disaster. It’s another slow, painstaking, humbling, one-legged hop on the path that leads to unseen meadows, peaks, and valleys. The path without an end. The path forward.