Again, this morning, I wasn’t expected to check in until 09:00. My body had its own plan in mind, waking me up repeatedly throughout the night, and for good at a little after 06:00. By 06:30, as I laid in bed trying to ignore the pain, I could hear Dr. Rupp’s voice in the back of my head, “Don’t be a hero.” He has told me many times since my arrival that I must give up dealing with pain so stoically. I took his advise to heart and had my mom drive me over to the Klinik as early as possible to receive another Procaine infusion. I finished just in time for my “nose therapy” appointment. This treatment is administered via syringes of homeopathic remedies dripped into one nostril at a time. The nurse, then, carefully rubs the tincture into the surrounding area. Its general purpose is to act as a lavage for the sinuses and nasal pathways, ridding them of any chronic infection and inflammation.

I then returned to the super ebullient Dr. Rupp for my daily consultation. During our time together, much was accomplished. He diagnosed a fungal infection growing on my left quadricep, just inches away from my scar from a muscle biopsy performed this past fall to confirm our suspicion of mitochondrial damage and myopathy. Dr. Rupp also found this inflammation forming on my bottom. Thankfully, he has a cure for it. What a relief to finally hear of just one easy fix! He proceeded to inject my second round of stem cells, this time from the adrenal glands and liver, into either side of my rear end. Moving less than a foot up my spine, he injected a neural therapy shot into both adrenal glands.

By 10:00, I was rushing over to my dental appointment, so as not to be late, a doing that is highly frowned upon in Switzerland. Admittedly, I feel as if I was blindsided into what happened next. On the day I arrived, I had a 2D panoramic X-ray at the Paracelsus Biological Dental Center next door. Two days after that, I was asked to return for a 3D scan and a consultation, during which the dentist told me he had found Neuralgia-inducing cavitational osteonecrosis (NICO), cavitations in my jaw bone, which presents in conjunction with chronic facial neuralgia. He told me they would call me back into the office for a third look to talk to me about surgery. Little did I know, today was the day for the thirty second chat and the hour and a half long procedure. The scene seemed like it could’ve been out of a sci-fi horror film. Everything in sight was pure white except for the bright red chair and my dentists bright red splattered gloves, as he dug around, removing chucks of my jaw bone. Glad to report: the surgeon seemed adept in his trade and sent me home with chipmunk cheeks in exchange for the gross infected bone housed in my mouth, hiding beneath my gums. In the lobby I stood thoroughly enjoying the cool water in my half numb, very swollen mouth, until I suddenly felt a steady stream of liquid dropping down the front of my blouse, straight to my foot. Luckily, no one else was there to witness my dripping and drooling!

I skipped lunch, knowing that swallowing most anything would hurt, and unknowingly spitting up my food in front of strangers would be mortifying.

At 13:00, I went for my cupping session. I then had another inhalation therapy appointment, before I went to the infusion wing for ozone therapy and two nutritional IVs. I ended the day with a dreaded, and rightfully so, massage. Sadly, while it sounds like a luxurious treat, it is a nightmare for me. When I’m in the middle of a flare-up, anything touching my skin is unreasonably painful due to “allodynia”, a sensation of extreme pain due to a stimulus which should not normally provoke pain. The massage therapist was sweet enough to adjust her pressure level and to deviate from the normal procedure in order to spend time massaging my abdomen in a clockwise direction to promote natural peristalsis, aiding in digestion.

Finally, the last thing on the agenda for this cloudy Friday, was magnetic field therapy. All I can say is TGIF!