A hospital trip

Fortunately, I've managed to stay out of the hospital in almost every country I've been to.  Almost.  But not in Italy.  I've been in the hospital twice in Italy.

The first time was in May 2010 when I was bitten by a dog.  I was running in the fields of Veneto which is one of my favorite things to do.  Rumor has it, there is a little stretch of land between the crops that is public and it's okay for me to run there.  I'm still not sure I totally get it, but that's what someone tried to explain to me, I think, so I ran with it.  

It was a beautiful evening and I was running through the fields of red poppies, along a stream, past big rolls of hay with church bells ringing in the background.  It seemed to me to be perfect.  Then I was attacked by a dozen little dogs.  Okay.  I wasn't really attacked.  You can hardly use the word "attacked" with "little dogs", but I was surrounded by them and I couldn't get away.  And then one bit me and the next thing you know I was in the emergency room because everyone was afraid that I might have rabies.  I got a couple of shots and a prescription for antibiotics (in case I had rabies??  I don't really know.)  And then later, when I was at the pharmacy filling my prescription I got a phone call from the Rabies Control Center.  How do you think I handled that call all in Italian?  In the end, I didn't have rabies and I made a few new friends and it didn't make getting bit by the little dog so bad after all.

The next trip to an Italian hospital was my choice.  It was last week.  I had a friend that had to have surgery and since I didn't have anything to do and I love hospitals, I decided to volunteer for nurse duty. What a trip.  I mean, really.  What a trip.  This trip to Italy.  This trip to France.  If I was writing a guidebook I'd include a trip to the hospital.  And since I've never been to a hospital in France, this story can only compare an Italian hospital to an American one.

It was like walking onto a movie set from the 1950's.  Or the 40's?  Or a war movie?  The corridors were filled with echoes and for some reason reminded me of an elementary school without the art work.  I was shown the bathroom on our way by which is the same bathroom the patients use for the toilet, for taking a shower and for brushing their teeth.  Then we got to the room.  It was quite big and had originally been equipped with 6 beds.  But, I was told that they think a law was passed some time ago (a few weeks ago for all I know) that a room could only be occupied by 3 patients.  

There were three beds in a big white room with three desk chairs and two desks.  The chairs were hard and upright and really seemed like they came from an office.  This is compared to the sofas and LazyBoys offered at hospitals in the States.  Mamma mia!  And the desks were really like school desks and this is where the patients ate.  

There were no curtains separating the patients from one another.  Which meant there was also nothing separating the patients from the other patient's visitors.  So, I made some new Italian friends.  You hear what they are suffering from.  You hear what time their surgery is.  You hear the results of their surgery when they come back to the room.   If they can't make it down the hall to the public restroom, you hear them (and if you choose to you see them) go to the bathroom in their papagallo.   It's a plastic thing shaped like a bird (hence the name) that the men used.

The windows were big and bright and....open!  Are hospital windows ever open?  It seemed really strange to me, but maybe I'm imagining that you can never open hospital windows.  It seemed a little unsanitary with the pigeons on the railing outside and without screens I kind of thought one might fly in to meet the papagallo.

One bed had a 16 year-old kid that had tonsilitis, but he had a fever and couldn't have the surgery.  He had been there hanging out for four days playing video games and texting and was finally sent home.  My favorite (pictured above) spent the whole first day in his pajamas to have one test done.  He slept there and had his surgery in the afternoon the next day.  Would we ever have someone admitted to have their x-rays taken and blood drawn?  Isn't that outpatient and then you come back the day of the surgery?  I told him that women in Chicago give birth and go home in the amount of time he was there waiting around. He played with everyone.  Laughed all the time.  And had a brilliant twinkle in his eye.  A hospital patient?  Hardly.  I liked his wife, too.

My job, in addition to being the entertaining American in a small Italian town, was to take care of my friend and make phone calls when he came out of surgery.  Phone calls in Italian.  Phone calls that I'm glad didn't have to deliver any bad news.  I was fine when he was wheeled back into the room and waking up from the anesthesia.  Then the doctors came in to talk to him.  I wasn't sure he was awake enough to understand everything, so I asked my new friend (who had nothing to do but wait around in his pajamas) to listen and then translate it for me.  Mind you, he'd be translating Italian into Italian.  But somehow, once you're my friend, I can understand you a little better.  I tried to listen anyway and what I gathered was that my patient was blind in one eye and deaf in the opposite ear.  That's when I freaked out.  The doctors left and I had a little panic attack.  My friend asked pajama man to call the nurse for me.  The nurse came quite quickly to the aid of my friend, and still groggy from anesthesia he said, "We called you for her."  She left the room again and came back with a comfy chair that reclined and told me to rest.

Once I regained myself I heard the news that my friend wasn't really deaf and blind.  I'd really only heard the words 'eye' and 'ear' but since the surgery was on his nose, it didn't make a lot of sense to me.  So, in normal Tenley style, I invented the problem.

I returned the next day to find another young boy in bed number 8 and pajama man still waiting in bed number 11.  My patient, in bed number 9, was fine.  By lunchtime he was up and eating at his school desk.  Number 8's mom was there, number 11's wife was there and the whole room was kind of united.  I decided I needed a nap and since bed number 9 was empty during the lunch break, I laid down.  I was awakened by loud voices and some arguing.  I had no idea for the first few minutes that it was all about me.  That's the beauty of Italian.  In the first place, you don't know if they are really arguing because that is kind of how they talk. And in the second place, I wasn't quick enough to figure out that I was the subject.  Until I saw the nurse pointing at me.  I wasn't supposed to be on the bed if I wasn't the patient and she was yelling about it from the hall.  Which means lots of other people were disturbed by the actions of the unknowing-American.  I jumped up and left for lunch.  

That afternoon, pajama man had his surgery.  It was on his vocal chords.  The last few hours we spent together I could only enjoy his twinkling eyes.  Number 8 had his surgery and checked out that night.  My patient was recovering well and checked out that night, too.  

I was sad to leave pajama man.  I wrote him a note (in Italian) and gave it to him as we walked out of the room.  It's really strange to share one of the most intimate and perhaps most difficult times in a person's life and then say goodbye knowing you will never see them again.  Do you exchange email addresses with someone you meet in the hospital as though you met them on a train while traveling?   I don't think so.  I'll always feel a little sad when I think of pajama man and how quickly he came into and out of my life.  Or should I feel happy that at least our paths crossed for a moment?