Day 14 - Jungle Treatment

Screw the NHS, I have Chiki and botanists.

I'm told that certain leaflets and sap from a special tree has healing properties. Pedro, who studies trees and plants, went out along with Hayley and Derio (an ex hunter, and jungle expert who is visiting Pie) to find some. 

Their efforts were a success and they brought back a few different plants that apparently help to reduce swelling and have some healing properties for the bone too. Chiki, one of the locals who work here also does a little Doctroring on the side, apparently. He attended to my foot and reassured me it wasn’t broken or dislocated, it was likely to be muscular; torn ligament, ripped tendon, or something of that sort. The tree sap that he had brought might not be as appropriate as it's meant to heal joints, but it will still help with the healing and swelling, he told me, so it's worth a shot. 

He brought out a large leaf and a torn up old t shirt with some powder on it, after massaging my foot for a while and trying to locate where the pain/damage was he then started to mix in the sap of a tree in with the powder before then evenly spreading it onto the rag. He then put it on my foot and instructed me to not move for 20 minutes while it dries; this stuff was seriously sticky, we didn't want to spread it all around the room, so I remained as still as I could. I will keep this on my foot until it eventually falls off, I cannot get it wet (No showers!), and I just have to leave it alone and do its thing. 

Pat seems to be enjoying me in pain. 

The treatment is almost ready to be put on.

The final steps of moulding the treatment onto the ankle

It was great to experience a treatment that has been part of the amazons history and heritage for centuries. It's also great to have the experience and knowledge of the locals to attend to my injury, they are very caring here - I cannot be more grateful to Chiki and the rest of the team here for being so wonderful. It’ll be interesting to see if it actually helps my ankle at all, the jungle is so majestic and magical that I’d love to say that it helped heal me in my time of need. 

Even though I feel very useless and disconnected to the jungle right now, I do hope that in some way this will not only help me with my recovery but also make me feel part of my surroundings again... Here's to hope.

Fx