Personal Account | ZEM Health Clinic Altea, Spain
Part Two, two parts in total. Read part one: “What Hippocrates began, ZEM completed”
I arrived on Monday. I was sick that morning. No need to go to the doctor, just my bed and a few hours of uninterrupted sleep. But I got up and boarded the train to Alicante anyway, arrived without incident, and checked into the room I would stay in for the next six nights: a deluxe room with an outdoor terrace and views of the Mediterranean Sea, and an outdoor bathtub that I used four times before the week was over.
For dinner I ordered broth. I went to bed at eight o’clock.
By Sunday, I had done more for my health than I had in months. I know how this sounds. I also know this to be true.
I changed rooms when I checked in. I was assigned a room without a bathtub. I mentioned to the gentleman at the front desk (his name was Jacob) that I suffer from chronic pain and bathing before bed is sometimes the only thing that helps. He said: Stand. He came back with two options. I chose a room on the first floor with an outdoor terrace and a freestanding bathtub under the open sky.
The first night, I was too sick to use it. The second time, I painted it full and sat there with the sky still bright after nine o’clock.
Every day has a structure. Each appointment informs the next appointment. By Tuesday, I was being seen by a cardiologist, an integrative medicine doctor, a nutritionist, and a regenerative medicine specialist who is also trained as a geneticist and is the most honest doctor I have encountered in years. She told me what ozone therapy does and doesn’t do, which is why I knew I could trust her when she told me what ozone therapy does.
I’ve encountered ozone before – in March 2024 at Palazzo Merano, Italy, before going skiing for the first time in twenty-five years. I didn’t do it gradually or complete the beginner slopes first. I went skiing.
This was possible because something inside me changed. I looked for it again at SHA Wellness in Mexico. I pursued this approach for the third time at ZEM and attended two meetings.
Classes here also include ozone dream chambers, rectal insufflation and targeted injections of painful areas. I only opted for the injection, which produced a brief, sharp sensation that I can only then describe as pain when putting my luggage down.
Carlos, the osteopath, knew exactly where the injury was before I even spoke. After two treatments with the StimaWell diamagnetic pump, which works on the thoracic spine to stimulate the sympathetic nervous system, I felt like a release of things that hadn’t changed in years. I’m currently looking for this technology in Washington DC; no luck yet although he promised to help.
Then there’s Brain Gym (yes, that’s what they call it, and it’s accurate). On Thursday afternoon, I sat in the RLX Satory chair designed by Gharieni for 30 minutes, with a different frequency in each ear. I stood up and needed a second to remember what day it was. I’m still thinking.
Thursday morning, I’m pretty sure Diane Kruger checked in.
I’m sure I was writing the opening line – I was going to praise her for her great performance in The Bridge – but when we met near the spa, the shower hose nearly knocked me over and we both laughed. Her beauty lies in her calm and relaxed temperament, which is very European. She is also Anna from Denmark who is more interested in sympathizing with Trump. This wasn’t the conversation I planned, but it was a good conversation.
One morning I had breakfast with Claudia Martinez, the head of business development, whom we had met briefly in Madrid. She was warm and perceptive, and I liked her immediately. That afternoon I sat down and wrote an extensive feedback letter to her and the commercial director.
As the summer solstice approaches, the light continues, arriving before seven o’clock and continuing after nine o’clock. I work outdoors a lot, on my patio and one day by the pool. I felt like a kid again and went to bed before dark.
I went to the beach on Friday afternoon – two hours, a picnic, and the water was so warm I didn’t want to go out. ZEM organized the event effortlessly. I came back from floating in the Mediterranean, took a break and felt a little dizzy.
I bought dark chocolate from The Newt in Somerset and never resisted it once. By the end of the week, the weight was still off – food was good, no deprivation needed.
I also got my roots done, mostly because of convenience and cost.
During Tuesday’s cardiac exam, they did an echocardiogram.
My mother has had severe heart disease since she was 46 years old. Her first heart attack was when I was 18, two years later in Soviet Russia. She passed away 20 years ago, but I feel she is still with me every day.
Because of my blood work, weight, and family history, my doctor recommended that I be evaluated by a cardiologist.
As I lay in the dim room looking at the monitor, I heard more than just my heartbeat—it was the sound of my blood rushing through the four chambers of my heart. The rush of it. The concrete and tedious work of sustaining life. I started to feel emotional.
Maybe that’s because I read an article in The Atlantic by physicist Alan Lightman on the train from Madrid, titled “The Ordinary Miracles of Existence.”
Lightman calculated how unlikely it was that any of us would exist. Each human woman produces approximately 300,000 eggs in her lifetime. Each male ejaculate contains approximately 300 million sperm. The number of unique human beings that can be produced by any one act of conception reaches ten trillion trillion. And only one of those possibilities becomes you. Here’s what he said: If you took a ruler and stretched it from here to Pluto, that one-inch distance would represent you. The rest are all the people who could have existed but never did. He writes that each of us has won the lottery of the Ten Trillion Players.
I held back tears as I lay in that dim room in Altea, listening to my heart pumping blood through its four chambers, doing what it did for sixty years without me noticing or thanking me. Not out of fear, but out of something closer to awe, and something like hope.
My heart is in good condition.
I arrived in pain, weak, and didn’t know many things about my body that I probably should know now.
I left with a complete understanding of my current health status, a coherent plan of action, several new treatments that I was actively pursuing at home, and referrals that I would not have received otherwise. Most importantly, the peace that comes from being so thoroughly cared for.
I have been taken care of at ZEM and I intend to pass that on – I will send clients here and then I will come back myself.
If you want to explore accommodation, Reach out. I know how to have a productive week.