Sunday, November 26, 2006

Hot baby boys' urine

I want to tell you just one of the five-hour's worth of stories recounted at the judge's party. It should illustrate why I have to count this party among the top 5 social gatherings I've ever been to.

My friend Lucy, a criminal offense lawyer who was one of the invitees, came to Bosnia after an assignment in Uzbekistan. While there she sprained her ankle badly. Her local colleagues urged her to consult with a bone healer they knew of, the best bone healer in the country.

She laughed at first, demurred, but finally, as they persisted, agreed and the long trip over bad roads was arranged. The bone healer who practices on few Americans was so honored she prepared an elaborate meal and Lucy arrived to find pots and pots in preparation for her dinner.

The healer took her leg and kneaded and massaged and felt the tender area gently. Lucy, fresh from a Western doctor who walked into the examination room, glanced at her and said, "eh eh, you sprained it." was entranced. The healer finally told her, "You have stretched it, but not torn it and I will tell you what you must do to heal."

Her awed assistant at her shoulder said to Lucy, "You will never hear better advice," and Lucy, convinced she was in the hands of a master, a medical wonder, strained forward to hear the prescription.

And the healer told her, "You must wrap your ankle in a cloth soaked in hot baby boys' urine."

What?

"If you do not have baby boys' urine, you can use your own, but baby boys'urine is the best."

The awed assistant assured her, "You have eaten so well today you will have very good urine."

We howled at this and then asked the inevitable question. "Did you do it."

Well, as it turns out, Lucy at the time was with a slacker bartender of a boyfriend who had followed her to central Asia and shouldn't have. So she gets home and is telling him the story and he is disgusted and nauseated. |"You aren't going to really do it are you," he demanded and at that very moment, of course, she knew she was going to do it.

"It's my house. It's my ankle. It's my urine," she remembers screaming at him.

(This is my favorite part of the story. Defiance in strong women is so appealing. Like when my father announced that the deteriorating above-ground pool in our backyard was not going to be replaced and my mother instantly decided that it would be replaced. Which it was.)

Lucy heated up her medicine in the microwave, went out in the backyard and soaked her ankle.

In the end, the boyfriend went away; the pain in her ankle did not.


Footnote: as it turns out urine has long been used in traditional and eastern medicine as a cure. In Thailand some sick people drink their own pee as a therapy for diseases. That is worse than filling out medical insurance forms I think. The internet is full of information on the therapies and the dispute efficacy of this treatment.

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