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I was returning back to my accommodation late on May 25 evening, driving with my scooter down the small, dark alley. After parking the bike I was walking down the stairs to my room happily and unsuspiciously.

We had spent a very nice evening out with friends to celebrate Elnie’s birthday and later, Elnie, Jason and myself decided to still go for a chat and a drink in Olala bistro. Over a glass of wine, our conversation started circling around the still strongly existing belief in black magic in Bali. I was telling about a number of conversations I had had with perfectly sane locals, who had told me of relatives or friends, who  ‘suddenly’ fell severely ill, because someone had put a spell on them. Stories of people dying at the age of 40 or younger, just like that. Horrible.

I don´t believe in this. These kinds of belief do a lot of harm to people around the world, and it often hinders a proper and evidence-based approach to diagnosis and treatment of illnesses. Belief in negative spirits also leads to many horrible accusations and confinement of suspectedly bewitched individuals (mainly in Africa). It was therefore even more surprising and partly shocking for me to repeatedly hear these stories  in comparatively well-developed and partly quite wealthy Bali.

2 foreigners and 1 Indonesian woman from Java discussing and joking, but still decently. Elnie was a bit sceptical, throwing in, that Bali’s magic is believed to be the most powerful in all Indonesia, more powerful than in Kalimantan or elsewhere, and she said she hoped that it would never happen to her. In his unique dry rationalist way, Jason replied: Don’t worry. It will not happen, because it does not exist. We were laughing and exploring further.

Back home after midnight, I opened my front door, turned on the light in my room, and started my evening routine. As usual I was swishing from one corner to another, packing and organizing stuff for the next day. This has been the last time I was able to walk easy and without pain.

In the morning I felt a strange tension in the toe and bale area of my left foot, which resembled the feeling when you have a cramp during the night and there was still residual pain from it. It was uncomfortable, but – alas! – I could still walk and drive to the immigration office in Denpasar with my scooter, to get my visa extended. Later that day I was driving back to my AirBnB in Ubud. The pain had gotten worse, but it did not prevent me from still going shopping from groceries. At this time, I was already limping quite notably.

As things got worse this evening, I decided to go see a doctor. There are numerous care clinics around Ubud, whose activities range from dressing wounds after scooter accidents over treatment of gastrointestinal infections to the normal range of issues people usually visit a general practitioner for. A first consultation costs around 500.000 Rupiah, around 35 Euro, and travel insurances usually pay for it. After excluding an accident, a trauma and some other options, the doctor was as clueless as me, suspected a fasciitis and put me on anti-inflammatory medication.

When I tried to make my way to the kitchen the next morning (a distance of around 5 meters), I nearly collapsed because of the pain. I somehow managed to still reach the table and sit down on one of the chairs, sweating like crazy, trying to breath and avoid vomiting on the kitchen floor. Balinese mornings in the middle of rice paddies….

Fortunately, things got better during the next 2 days, so that I was even able to go to the market for some fruits and veggies. Happiness! I was still limping, but the swelling in my foot had decreased markedly. Just my right knee felt sore, the poor joint had to compensate for my hobbling and my other leg.

This is where things started to get really bad. A second visit in the care clinic and a laboratory test confirmed a massive inflammation, and the suspected diagnosis was changed to “arthritis”. Meanwhile the issue in my toes had disappeared completely, but I couldn’t walk at all anymore because of my knee, lying in my sleeping bag with fever and chills. I had crutches delivered to my home to be at least able to go to the bathroom.

I had been working in health and pharmaceutical industry for too long, that I didn’t know what this diagnosis would mean. Please no, please no! I tried to stay strong and composed and refused to consciously worry about things, I could do nothing about here and now. Only when I talked to Vivi via WhatsApp call and heard her say ‘No, no, I read the literature, only because your uric acid is low during an episode, does not mean it is not goat (Gicht, encok)’ I started to cry. Oh yes, please, let it be goat! I was hoping for practically any alternative explanation. I knew I was tense – mentally, emotionally and all my muscles.

For the first time in my life, I have been immobile for a longer period. After two hip surgeries I had to undergo as a child, I had never had a broker leg or similar. I was in Bali and I was on my own. Going home was not an option, as I had registered to write to exams in Denpasar in June, 2 exams for which I have learned and worked for the past months. Let’s stay positive – at least my immobility gave me a good reason to stay at home and learn and not drive around, go out or go hunting for photos or distract myself with any other outdoor procrastination.

Joking aside: Never in my life before, had I experienced these levels of pain. On a pain scale (VAS) from 0 (no pain) to 10 (worst imaginable pain) I recorded 7-8 on some days. Pain in activity is still bearable, because it gets better as soon as you stop the activity. But pain in resting is the real drag. In my previous company I had been responsible for our pain therapy portfolio for many years, and we have always been distinguishing between benign and malign pain, the latter one caused by cancer and similar diseases. It was only now that I realized, how CYNICAL it was to speak about benign pain in the other cases. This pain was not benign, it was highly malicious.

Glück im Unglück, the upper floor of our villa was occupied by Marli and Tom, two other long-term travellers, who took a bit of a break from roaming around after a scooter accident resulting in a broken hand. So, we established our rice paddy disabled clinic and the two were ever so patient and nice, and helped me with everything – from bringing breakfast, sharing their vegan meals, going shopping for me or just helping me to refill my water supplies from the big bumble in the kitchen. I don’t want to imagine how the past days would have been without them! Also, my hosts, Bolang and his wife Wayang, were taking care of me in their very special way. Wayang was checking by every morning to do the ceremonies around the house – assembling small baskets of leaves with flowers, incense sticks and other small offerings. And every day she was bringing something to cheer me up – mainly very sweet treats, Balinese cake, but also fresh fruits or a small container with red-orange capsules containing herbal medicine.

I was not well, but I was in best company. Elnie decided to come all the way from Canggu, driving 1,5 hours through crazy traffic, just to cheer me up a little. And one of my remote study colleagues, who I have only been learning together via Skype until then, was in Ubud by chance as well, and it was just great to see Jara and her boyfriend for an evening. Talking with Vivi and a few of my closest friends via WhatsApp calls helped me to get through some of the darkest moments.

The days and nights went by without major improvements. I was practically lying in bed most of the time, trying to learn, which is hard enough, when so much in pain. Chatting with friends and playing some stupid games on the iPad.

I decided that there was no point in staying in Ubud, but that I would rather move closer to Denpasar and the hospital. I wanted to move after my exam on June 6. The day before Elnie and Jason came to help me with packing.

The next day I went to Denpasar by taxi, with all my luggage, but without my indispensable crutches, which I had had to return to the clinic in Ubud. I arrived at the exam center, but it appeared to be closed because of the end of Ramadan. Oooommm, stay calm, Tina…. It was 2 ½ hours before and I was still hoping for a miracle. I asked the taxi driver to drop me off at a small warung on the busy road. He and the lady from the restaurant were practically carrying me to the next small plastic stool and arranged all my belongings around me, including my 25kg backpack. OK, this is how it feels to be disabled and alone. Of course, we all have our ideas about these conditions, but going through a day like this, shows you everything you never wanted to know. Going to the toilet in this setup? I’d rather drink nothing for hours. I have been learning a lot about many severe diseases and how they impact people’s lives, but now I was on the other side.

Again, it was the angel in person, Elnie, who came from Canggu to pick me up from the street restaurant. She transferred me to the exam center, which still appeared to be closed, but after some conversation with the security in Bahasa, it turned out that international students may enter and write their examinations – puuuh!  She then ran off with my credit card to get some money from an ATM, and to pick up new crutches. The exam had already started, when she quietly slid into the room, put everything in the back, whispered good luck and silently disappeared. Honestly, this woman deserves all the blessings and luck that you can have in life!

The exam went OK as far as I can suspect, and after 5 hours of sitting I decided to rather go to my new accommodation (meaning now also becoming Jason’s neighbour) and not to the hospital anymore, because I was just deadly tired and – guess what, yes –  again in severe pain. I have consciously deleted the night that followed from my memory.

Under any other circumstances, this would have been the time to change my ticket to the earliest possible return date. Haha, wait, probably easier said than done, but I suppose there would be a way of getting me somehow back to Vienna.

Instead, I went to Siloam hospital the next morning and spent many hours there, being pushed around in a wheelchair between internist, x-ray and orthopaedist. I am not an expert, but the x-ray did not look good, the suspect diagnosis now was “osteo-arthritis”. Dr. Made Bhawana Wijaya and the consulting room equipment appeared trustworthy enough, so that I consented to having some fluid taken out of my knee. For diagnosis they told me. Despite his warning, that this procedure would hurt a bit, I didn’t feel anything (which was followed by the now official diagnosis ‘you are a strong woman’ ). In the end the doctor and his two assistants extracted 60ml of fluid from my knee, which felt much better immediatly. My medication was adapted slightly and I went home, exhaused from another day.

This is practically where I am now. The inflammation is ongoing, causing further swelling. Bali should feel different. Travelling has felt and should feel different. People passing by look at me and smilingly ask ‘Surfing accident?‘ and I reply ‘I wish it was.’

For long I was hesitating, if I should write and post something about it. I would have rather preferred coming home after some more weeks of diving and visting friends here, with sea-salt wild hair and an inner smile that would shine through my profoundly healthy tan. Pushing my bags as relaxed as always through the exit at the airport, falling into the arms of my loved ones. This is how stories like the one of my last year should end.

But life is not Instagram, (fortunately!!) and this is my reality here and now.

What I suffer from right now, does not seem to be induced by my travels, it could have happened anywhere any time. It only tells me, that it is maybe better to pack your stuff and go out into this wonderful world early. Turn your dreams into reality, as long as you are too healthy to consciously appreciate what every single cell in your body does for you every single day. Don’t wait.

I have no clue how the next 2 weeks will go and how this all will end. I don’t know if I will ever be able to go diving or travelling on my own again. I am still so hungry for life and these things, but I am grateful that I had a big, wonderful, magic share of it during the past 10 months.

And I still believe in wonders.