If you know me, you know that I love to write. Some of you have encouraged me to get serious about it for more than a few years while others are simply on the receiving end of my inconsistent emails. I suppose starting a writing project is a lot like quitting a nasty habit - the offender isn't going to take that first step until he or she is good and ready, and no amount of cajoling from those outside her or his head will make a whit of difference.
Thus ends my introduction.
D, my fabulous wife, and I have recently been in the midst of some of that Life Stuff and many of our loved ones have been asking for updates along the way. This means lots of emails that say pretty much the same thing are being sent to different people, and we can't just copy and paste them because (for example) my next door neighbor doesn't need to read an email that says something like "we miss you, we love you, please hug the llamas for us." We don't love nor miss our neighbors, and they probably don't know what a llama is.
Thus ends the rationale. Let the update commence:
A couple weeks ago, D and I arrived in Italy. The plan was to surprise D's mom for her 75th birthday - which we did, and the surprise was fabulous. What wasn't fabulous is that G (D's Mom) isn't enjoying the best of health. She's been living with crohn's for most of her adult life (and - based on her age and health otherwise - doing very well).
G has a fistula, which means she needs surgery, which isn't any fun. Over the last couple weeks we've been working on getting her into a hospital bed where there ought to be smart people with sharp instruments who can properly deal with this kind of thing. In the US, I think they'd make this happen in a matter of hours - but this is Italy, where this kind of thing happens in a matter of weeks. Not days. Certainly not hours.
We're here to support G, to ensure that she eats (she usually lives on cigarettes and Coke, with a little Grana Padana thrown in for good measure). It's not much work, really, and D and are very fortunate to be employed such that all we really need is access to the interweb thing.
All is well. Pretty much. G has had most of the preliminary tests, with the last round scheduled for Sept 8. Things are changing frequently - yesterday I was wondering if September 8 was soon enough for "the rest of the pre-surgery tests" and today the docs are trying to get G qualified as an "emergency," which will push her to the front of the line. I've been thinking this was an emergency for the last couple days, but have also thought the docs are better informed than myself to make that call.
G has a fistula, which I don't really want to get too detailed about. You can look it up if you want, but it's basically a big sore that's screwing with her innards and requires surgery. Most of the time it's open and draining, which is actually a good thing - far better that it drain OUT than find a way to drain IN (which would likely be into a kidney, which is all kinds of bad).
She doesn't need painkillers very often, but we have some very hardcore pills on hand. Bless the pharmacists over here - we didn't have a prescription, but when D explained the situation, they sold us the pills anyway. Nice bit of humanity, especially given that it could easily cost the pharmacist her job and license. We're giving G antidepressants (and she doesn't know that), and these have helped a huge amount with her appetite and also her frame of mind. All kinds of feisty, that woman. Very cool.
It's important that the docs get her bumped up to "emergency" status for two reasons: one is that they'll move her directly to the hospital and fast forward everything, and she'd probably get surgery in a couple days. Second, there's a big medical worker strike coming up, and the only things that won't be directly affected by the strike will be emercency procedures. We kind of really need this to happen. If she dies for lack of surgery because of a strike, we will be a very different kind of unhappy than if she dies despite everyone's best efforts. Were this America, we could then own the hospital. But this is Italy. Health care is not a for-profit, competitive private enterprise over here (but they're changing the Italian model to mimic the American. I have mixed opinions on this - ask me sometime about the zealous US docs who insisted on a double mastectomy for D that she had no need for. Story for another day.)
D is really stressed - she told her boss that she'd continue on at 100% even after he asked if she wanted to continue at 50 or 70%. So now she's trying to perform fully at her work stuff, keep her mom eating, change dressings, keep the kids (niece and nephew) entertained, and get enough sleep for herself. This isn't quite working. She's doing well, but struggling. She's losing weight, and has a recurring pain in her abdomen that we're all sure is stress related. It's gone away for the last couple days, but if it returns we'll be taking her to the doctor as well.
Our nephew turned 5 on Wednesday, his Mom turned 40 yesterday, and her husband arrived last night. So now we're 2 adults plus one kid in each of thetwo guest beds - which is fine, though kids squirm a lot when you're trying to sleep. To add to the fun, today one of them was complaining about bug bites and being itchy, and we found that both kids have head lice. Some (but not all) of the adults have them (which doesn't make any sense at all, given that we're in very close quarters, sharing pillows and such), but we're now starting a monumental advance against all of our laundry, all of the cushions and pillows and bedding and couches and chairs; plus the use of some Italian shampoo product that they should probably call "Agent Arrancia." It's probably made by "MonsantoNovella" or "ExxonAmente" or something.
There's some poetic justice here, I guess - one of the sisters had lice a few times as a kid, and the other never had them. Now it's the other way around. I don't know why I didn't get them, but I'm totally not complaining. I'm also not going to try on any hats when we go to the market.
That's it for now. More to come. Getting this blog thing off the ground is a bit shaky, as I'm way behind and have missed a lot of stuff that I'd wanted to cover before bringing it up to the current moment. I'll be filling in old news with new as we progress - provided I do my job well (and you don't get bored along the way) hopefully we can look forward to a reading experience that bounces from the present to the past and back again without losing momentum (or your interest, or my flailing off on some irrelevant tangent).
Thanks all -
Cameron
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