As If I Didn’t Have Enough Blessings This Christmas …
My body decided to give me a heart attack
Fortunately, it was free.
I’m registered on ASST Lombardy, so my procedures are free — covered by a small monthly tax contribution. All they need is a signature and roughly 40k worth of medical bills are covered.
And after the first keyhole surgery, I’m ok. Sadly it was on the day my family arrived to spend a glorious 2 weeks with me in Italy.
As a result, I have been subjected to the Italian medical system for the first time. It is incredibly good. Caring, professional, conservative but excellent.
I felt chest constrictions and clamminess and went for a shit and a shower thinking that was the cure.
My pain and clamminess intensified post-defecation.
At 8:31 a.m. I called 122, the emergency number, explained my situation and by 8:50 I had an ambulance and medical doctor in a normal car at my farm.
Eight medical professionals invaded my bedroom and swarmed over my body. I hadn’t had this much bodily attention since the orgy of ‘91 when our float won the university RAG festival float competition.
An ECG was electronically dispatched to a cardiologist at the hospital who immediately said —
“Rush him in.”
By 9:30 I was on the operating tables. It should be noted my farm is in the sticks. There is precious little around me. The hospital is three towns away.
I needed three stents with a follow-up procedure arranged in a month to do two more stents.
After reviewing the electrocardiograph of my heart, it was decided one of the two arteries destined for repair in a month, needed urgent attention. It was 90% blocked.
I blame that one time I ate Velveeta in the USA.
I am going back to surgery on 27th December and cannot leave the hospital.
Shocked is not the word. I’m fit, strong and healthy. A tad overweight (smidgen), but it’s puppy fat. I’m not yet fully grown in my early 60s.
The best thing is that I can call my family and friends and say:-
“I had a heart attack.”
And they say,
“Are you serious?”
And then I can say:-
“As serious as a heart attack!”
And for the first and hopefully last time, that’s the absolute truth.
The worst part is that I’ve spent the past seven months renovating my farmhouse so that we can have a large family gathering for Christmas. This Christmas.
Everybody has arrived and I’m in a bloody hospital with tubes sticking out of every orifice I possess.
My wife comes to visit me often but pays little attention to me. Italy has an amazing number of male nurses. And my wife has taken a shine to Roberto. Yes, another Roberto.
Roberto the nurse. Roberto has guns. When he takes blood his guns bulge gloriously and his tanned skin gets tight.
My wife keeps asking him to check my bloods in case I’m deteriorating.
“When are you taking bloods again, Roberto?” she coos.
Staring at his shoulders that span the Golden Gate Bridge. He’s 6’4” in his socks and when he smiles a twinkle forms in his eyes and the sun comes out to play.
I can vouch he’s very good with his hands, which are surprisingly soft for a man.
And no, the raised sheet is not what you think. I wish! That’s my feet.
“Roberto,” my wife asks, smiling, “How big an injection can you muster? You know, just in case my frail hubby here cops it!”
She flippantly waves a hand in my general direction as she asks him.
Then she turns to me and says, “Tell Roberto how much life insurance you have and who the beneficiary is. Go on, tell him.”
The National medical system in Italy has a great deal to be proud of.
… and a lot of 30-year-old male nurses.
Uve down … but not out.
