Two Year Update – World War III

It’s been a long time. I have been busy living life instead of writing about it but as the two year anniversary of moving here approached I was planning an update. Something along the lines of last year’s. I wanted to talk about how have settled more firmly into my life, into my place in this community (like it or not, they are stuck with me) and my knowledge that this is where I’m supposed to be.

And then, on the exact anniversary of the move, my world turn upside down. What started as a little stomach ache turned into a surreal series of events that felt like a play about my own death. The play was filled with characters who weren’t supposed to be there and they forgot their lines and everything went horribly awry but somehow I ended up alive and ok when it was over. For those of you who have heard the story, I apologize, but I need to tell it, I need to write it, I need process it as the details and bits of information are coming together and and starting to make sense in my mind.

The beginning was a bit of pain in my side that got worse through the night with nausea, vomiting, and a sneaking suspicion that something wasn’t right. Normally I give things a bit of time to percolate before seeking medical help but Doctor Google told me this could be appendicitis and that is not to be messed with. So first thing in the morning on the 8th of July I took myself to the Italian equivalent of urgent care and the doctor who saw me confirmed that yes indeed it did look very much like appendicitis and I’d better get my butt to the emergency room ASAP. Which is what I did, thanks to my friend L who had no idea what she was getting herself involved with when she dropped me off that morning.

I can’t go through every detail of this saga but I spent 10 hours in the emergency room, much of it on a gurney in the hallway with pain that was increasing by the minute. Emergency rooms everywhere are busy places, and the focus is on triage, not compassion, and this was an extreme example. I was ignored for hours, even when I was begging for help. I will say this, when they finally started to give attention to my situation I was given a very thorough workup. Bloodwork, EKG, two ultrasounds and a pelvic exam. I was given a number of abdominal exams, a couple of which made me question my faith in humanity. One way they test for appendicitis is by flicking the left side of your abdomen to see if it hurts on the right side. It did. Every time. Over and over. But one nurse thought she needed to test with more than a flick and slapped me so hard that it would have hurt even if nothing was wrong. She also told me to stop crying afterwards. I wish her every happiness in this life. Maybe it will melt her heart of ice.

Anyway, I was finally admitted to the surgery ward the evening after I arrived. Things were not improving. There are only two surgeons at this hospital and they were busy. The few days around my surgery are a bit of a blur, but I know I spiked a high fever and I know I waited 32 hours to be operated on. I was not told what happened during the surgery except that the infection was “molto caldo” which I decided to assume meant sexy. Joking aside, I knew that it had taken three times longer than they said and that I seemed to be in an extraordinary amount of pain but I was given no information. I knew that under normal circumstances an appendectomy should be relatively easy and require only a short stay in the hospital but mysteriously, things were not going according to my plan. I was given only Tylenol for pain and massive amounts of antibiotics and blood thinners. No food for four and a half days, no water for a day. I was confused and not in my right mind and I tried everything to prove I could leave like walking when I probably shouldn’t have, which impressed no one. The doctors were illusive and only came once a day. If you happened to be in the bathroom you missed them for that day. Two days after surgery, blinded by hope of being released, I was pacing the hall and saw the surgeon who did my operation. He was one of the only people I met during my stay who spoke English as well. I cornered him with my drain bag and greasy hair and said “I want to go home! When can I go home?!” And he finally took notice of my desperation and said “I need to tell you about your operation. It was very, very serious. Your appendix was ruptured, you had gangrene and there was so much inflammation in your abdomen that we couldn’t stitch you up in the normal way. The risk of reinfection is very high and you have to stay here. You are lucky.”

First of all, I thought gangrene was for pirates. I’m not a pirate. But second of all, what the actual fuck?!

In some ways it was probably good that I didn’t know the seriousness and I’m so glad my family, scattered all over the globe at the moment, didn’t know. But in other ways it would have helped me to know what was going on with my care and come to terms with a long stay. I ended up being in the hospital for a week, which was the correct amount of time, but acceptance was not easy to come by.

I understand a few things about my situation a little bit better as I piece together various things that were said to me during my stay (mostly in Italian) and things I have learned about Italian healthcare. The closest hospital is not always the one you should go to. Same as in the US. This hospital was too busy to attend to me in a timely manner and that made a bad situation into a “molto caldo” one. The medical care I received was good and thorough. The attentiveness and pain management were not. I have deduced that they were withholding pain drugs in an attempt to see if my pain level worsened, the first sign of reinfection. I can’t say that I agree with this because I have never experienced that level of pain in my entire life, but there was a reason.

So that is the long story. I’ve been home for three days now and I am doing so, so much better. I’m up and about, able to go out and sit in the cafe and do errands. I am healing well. And writing this is an attempt to attend to the emotional part of the trauma as well. I’ve been having nightmares about watching my house catch fire and my car fall off a cliff. Such obvious stuff, but I’m glad I don’t have to work too hard to understand the symbolism.

At one point while in the hospital I was on the phone with my daughter and we were laughing about how it was like World War III was happening on a small scale in my body. It was a good distraction to try to assign roles to all the various players. Who is the infection, touchy and prepped to kill? Who is the delayed surgery, making everything worse? Who are the atomic bomb style antibiotics, essential, but destroying everything in their path? Who is the pain? Iran? The US? Israel? Hamas? I’m not going to go into my reasoning on any of that but it was an interesting thought process. One thing I do know is that my white blood cells are the humanitarian aid and civilians, doing their absolute best in a horrible situation. And that the perimenopausal menstrual period that decided to arrive in the middle of it all, while the blood thinners are in full effect? That can only be Russia.

I want to pause here to acknowledge the friend who kept everything afloat while I fought through my days in the hospital. Saint L, who took care of all the things. She came everyday with clean clothes, tampons and charging cords and kept me from losing my mind. She cleaned up the messy part of my life when I couldn’t do it myself. There is another layer of this story that involves a psychic Spaniard, some strong hash and an anxiety disorder. Saint L took care of it. She is a Fixer as well as a saint. She took pictures to help me remember what happened, she made me pole dance with my IV pole and she made sure I organized the questions I had to ask the doctors. She kept people informed and up to date. She made sure my daughter was ok. She filled my fridge and she brought me home when it was finally time. There is no way to express the gratitude I feel to her except to say that when it’s your turn L, I got you.

And aside from L, to all the other people who made me feel their love through visits, texts, phone calls and voice messages: You saved me. Alone in a room with three ancient, moaning women in saggy diapers gets depressing really fast. Like immediately. One of them died and her slippers were left next to her bed for two days. I would have gone to a very dark place if not for all the love coming at me and the ability to laugh at whatever was available. We often feel that serious situations deserve serious demeanor but I have to disagree. I will not survive without the ability to laugh, at myself, at life, at dumb tv clips, at wildly inappropriate jokes, at the stupidity and beauty of being in a human body.

This is a picture L caught a few hours before surgery. It was a really bad day. One of my worst. But I love this picture. I’m far from glamorous but I am me. And I want to remember that this is the essence, this is the healing. I love being alive.