This Too Shall Pass

If as a kid, your mother told you to wear clean underwear in case you should end up in the hospital, know she was right (but that goes without saying; mothers –I love them- are right).

On a morning that started out similar to many others, I found myself in the emergency room with an Italian doctor uttering the universally understood “AhhUgh” when noticing the ‘V’ shaped opening on my right shin. (Then again, she could have been commenting on the filth I was bringing in to her hospital as it flaked off from the outer layer of my work clothes.)

I’m told that most accidents happen doing common things and this too was my case. I slipped on the cement edge of a fountain going up to the chicken coop - on a stair I had successfully ascended numerous times a day for over a month.

Now I was lying on a gurney next to six ready medics and one Jesus Christ on a wall crucifix. This was fine by me. In a state of emergency, I’m of the opinion – the more aid the better! The competent ER doctor was apparently also a competent data entry specialist; doctor Detta tended to my injury and entered my passport information in the computer.

Meanwhile, another staff member brought out a too familiar blue plastic disposable Gillette shaver; this was beyond humiliating. My long-underwear was thankfully only two days old but the growth on my legs was over a month; I had been certain no one would see either. (But I am certain our departed pigs are having the last laugh).

For some reason, the doctor was extremely concerned about the possibility of an infection. Since I don’t speak Italian, I’m curious how she concluded I have been immersed in mouse poop, pig poop, chicken poop, cow poop, pig blood and cow blood. I was sent home with 12 vials of antibiotics I am to concoct and a bag full of Siringa Sterile I am to regularly poke into my buttocks.

Sitting in a wheelchair pushed by Elena my nurse and translator, she repeats the doctor’s instructions: Complete bed rest for 48 hours; no movement what-so-ever with the injured limb.

We take a turn and my extended leg bumps a wall.

“SCUSI!” she gasps in horror. “Oh no! This is just like I drive.”