Ospidale

Do you know how to say hospital in Italian? I do no. I had an experience that is what I would rank as one of the worst vacation experiences that could happen to a person outside of losing one's passport, ATM card, all one's money, etc.

After visiting the Castro and having a boring lunch of pasta and pizza in a cafe near our hotel, we took a little siesta because it was really hot. An hour or so later we were preparing the head out again. I was exiting the bathroom in my sock feet when BOOM! I hit the floor. In an idiotic move I attempted to cushion my landing with my arms, and as soon as I hit, I knew something had gone horribly wrong with my left wrist. Jimmy wanted to lift me up but I wouldn't let him touch my arm. I got myself up after sitting there crying a minute or two, and my wrist was twisted oddly and swelling quickly.

We went out to the front desk where Mr. Luciano was working and showed it to him, and he immediately started giving us directions for the hospital. We had to walk several blocks toward the Lagoon, catch the Vaporetti towards the hospital, and get off at the stop called Ospidale. He said it would take about 55 minutes.

By this time, rush hour was approaching, and the water taxi stand was packed. We couldn't figure out where to buy tickets because the kiosk was closed and I was in ever-increasing pain, so we just climbed on and figured we'd deal with tickets later. Oddly enough, that never came up. The vaporetti was packed. More and more people kept cramming themselves on, and I was trying to hold my wrist by it was getting smashed and knocked about. The pain was excruciating. I am NOT one to rush to the ER, so trust me, if I was going to the ER in VENICE of all places, DURING RUSH HOUR, I was in dire need of medical attention!

The ride to the hospital would have been interesting and beautiful if not for the pain and the dreadful anticipation of what would ensue. And it turns out my dread was well timed, because it was not a trip for the faint hearted. We pretty much rode all the way around the outside perimeter of the pain island, and got to see all kinds of buildings and side streets and docks and neighborhoods, then we hit the wide open water and got to see little islands and other boats.

When we arrived at the hospital a kind Italian doctor checked me in. She noted that I was in extreme pain, and rushed me off to the x-ray department. After sitting for over an hour in x-ray, a very kind x-ray technologist took me into the x-ray room and took some shots of my arm. She was very gentle and kind and kept exclaiming how badly my wrist was broken and how she knew it was extremely painful. She told me the wrist was broken in three places, and she thought they would give me something for pain and they would definitely have to set it.

From there, I was pushed in a wheelchair down to the orthopedic unit where the real nightmare began. Another lady and I sat there for two solid hours, in a darkened room, waiting for someone to come and open up the unit. She had sprained her ankle and was also in a wheelchair. She kept looking at me and smiling and shrugging, as if so say, "I wonder what the hell is going on?" I would smile back and shrug back at her, and we would continue to wait.

By this time my arm was throbbing uncontrollably and it was all I could do not to start sobbing. I was gritting my teeth, firm in my assumption that being a hospital, someone will administer some pain medication and help mend my arm immediately. This was the first in a long string of episodes where I made grossly inaccurate assumptions about European health care.

After we had sat in that dark empty room for over two hours, someone finally rushed in, turned a light on, and whisked the woman next to me away to another room. In no less than about three minutes they whisked her back out again with her ankle wrapped and she smiled at me in encouragement as they wheeled her away.

I was then whisked back into a back room, and it was glaringly apparent that the staff member assigned to take care of me was extremely mad about having to be at work, after what seemed like inordinately early closing hours for a hospital. It was probably 8 PM at this point. I was helped onto a table and someone yanked my arm out to the side of me and smashed my mangled wrist down flat, then started to slap a cast onto it. In the process, they actually forced my wrist back into the bent position it had been in. Before putting the cast on me they took my shirt off and left it dangling around my neck.

In less than 5 minutes they heaved me up off the table and pushed me toward the wheelchair. By this time the cast was dry and I attempted to pull my shirt back over my arms but the attendant told me not to. As an afterthought, they tore a thin strip of material and tied it around my neck and arm, and then pushed me towards the exit.

Once in the entry way, another attendant approached me and I said, "What next?" He said, "Get out." I'm willing to allow for differences in language, but it seemed an appropriately rude and to-the-point command after the slipshod way they had handled my case.

The second I was out of the wheelchair I ran towards the nearest restroom, with my bra and gut hanging out of my shirt, which was still only around my neck, and wedged my giant cast back into my shirt sleeve. No way I was going out in the city of Venice, to ride 55 minutes on a vaporetti, without a shirt on. Jesus! The cast on my arm was HUGE. It went up to my shoulder, all the way down to my fingertips, and my wrist was bent at almost a right angle inside of it.

They had not even given me ibuprofen. By this time I was tired and starving. I told Jimmy to let's just immediately head to the restaurant where we had eaten the night before since we knew it was good and inexpensive, and then we could head home.

It's sad when you're only comfort is a good meal. Lucky for me I also had the comfort of a smiling face across the table from me and someone to button my pants for me. Yes, I had to exit the restroom of the restaurant and ask Jimmy to come inside the door and button my pants for me, that's how badly my arm was damaged.

Supper was actually good despite all the mess, or maybe because of it. They had another octopus appetizer special which I simply had to try. It was a sauteed octopus and tomato mixture served on polenta. Jimmy shared it with me. We also had those fried olives, at Jimmy's insistence. He became a confirmed olive man after those fried ones! For an entree Jimmy had pizza, and I had oven baked sea bass served with roasted potatoes and olives. It was absolutely divine, of course. I wish I could supply pictures but the day was a little too hectic and the evening a little too unpleasant for me to remember to take photographs of our supper.

After supper we went home and fell into bed. I think Jimmy was up awhile but I collapsed immediately from the pain and fatigue of the day. Venice was so wonderful the broken arm and trip to the ospidale did not ruin it, although it did put a damper on the next few weeks.

The next day was completely uneventful. Mr. Luciano asked Jimmy how I was doing early in the morning, and when Jimmy told him I was in a lot of pain, he offered to get us some medicine from the farmacia and he brought it to us shortly after breakfast. He said the pharmacist insisted that I eat something extra to cushion my stomach. Jimmy and I set out for our cafe, and in addition to coffee I ordered a doughnut like the ones I'd been watching everybody eat all week. Here's a picture. Mr. Luciano had said to come back and hour or two later. I later found out that what I had taken was tylenol, but at the time I didn't know that. I waited and waited, and still the pain was extreme. We went back to the room so I could lay down, and Mr. Luciano gave us the other type of medicine he had gotten, which turned out to be ibuprofen. I took some of that and lay down. Poor Jimmy. He had to go out walking without me. I lay there in horrible pain and finally dozed off.

I woke up later when Jimmy came back to the room. He was sad at having to mill around Venice without me, and I was sad because I had wanted to go to the San Giorgio Maggiore, but I was feeling so horrible I could barely get down the street, let alone take a ferry across the Lagoon.

I had emailed my sister and she had written back to say at first there would be some deep pain but that it should start to subside before too long. I know I can be a baby, but usually I know in my own heart if I'm whining a lot or if I'm really suffering, and I felt like I was really suffering and that either she had it wrong or something was wrong with me.

We ended up eating supper in the same place we'd eaten the nights before, because it was very reasonably priced yet delicious. For the life of me I have no idea what I ate except that it was seafood, and that when we left the restaurant I was so nauseated from pain I ended up not being able to keep it down. And for you skeptics out there, no, I had not been drinking! Back at the hotel I stumbled into bed wishing the night were three times as long because the next morning we left for Padova, but all I wanted to do was rest in complete oblivion. For the continuing saga of the broken arm, read on.

Arrivederce!