In case you haven't all heard, I am not in fact home yet as was planned, for I was supposed to be home Friday night. Unfortunately, a small act that I'd call a combination of optimism and stupidity has landed me in an Italian hospital. I've been here since Monday and I'm hoping to be getting out of here sometime early next week. Let's just say I've been a little more than slightly bored...
So the grand story: a group of us all got on the train and went to Lucca, a quaint town about an hour and a half by train from Florence, to go bike-riding. Well, we never quite made it onto the bikes. About 10 minutes after our arrival, we found a creek that was actually more like a ditch, for the grass walls (or so I thought) surrounding the creek came up about 5 or so feet. Two of my guy friends were jumping across it, and I thought, what the heck! It's much too far of a jump for me to make, but why not go for it! Worse thing that happens, I fall in the creek and get a little wet, right? What a great idea! (This is where the optimism/stupidity comes in.) So I decide to go for it and turns out, it was too far for me. Yet it also turns out the walls of the ditch are not entirely made of grass--they've got bricks poking out from under the grass. So I jump, almost get across, but instead slam legs-first onto the brick and stagger backwards into the water. I don't really remember a whole lot after that, but my friends pulled me out and an ambulance was called to take me to the hospital to get stitches in my left leg, out of which the bricks had claimed a pretty large chunk.
After a nice round of morphine I was feeling much better and was all stitched up. They took x-rays and the good news was, nothing was broken. Seeing as all the doctors spoke Italian, my friends did the best they could translating everything and then carried me back to the train that night. I couldn't walk on my right foot either because falling backwards into the creek, I must have landed on a rock or something, because I got a nasty bruise and couldn't put any weight on it. We got home to Florence okay but I had a restless night that night, feeling a lot of pain in my left leg.
The next day I still couldn't walk and was in an abnormal amount of pain, so we called my program director, Chiara, who came over to my apartment. She arranged for me to be taken to the hospital in Florence, where I broke out in a fever. Turns out I had an infection in my leg, which was causing the fever and the pain. They told me I'd have to stay in the hospital overnight, and I wasn't exactly thrilled at the prospect. Let's just say I wasn't in one of my calmer states at the time. My leg was hurting pretty badly, so I didn't sleep very well Monday.
My friends came to visit Tuesday, which cheered me up a lot. My roommate was this elderly lady who asked me what my name was about four different times, forgetting each time that she had already asked me. I told her I was American and when her son came to visit she informed him I only spoke French. She'd talk and talk to me, and half the time I couldn't understand a word she was saying. I guess it was nice to have the company.
Tuesday night, miracle of miracles, my mom arrived. I'm so grateful to have her here. She's still my favorite nurse so far, seeing as she's the only one I can understand 100% of the time. She's been a champ, helping me take care of my leg, talking to the doctors with the help of Chiara's translation, and seeing to it that I don't have to eat solely hospital food. But most importantly, her presence has been incredibly comforting and has kept me sane this past week. I'm very, very lucky to have such a great mom.
So the news as of now is that after many rounds of antibiotics, the infection has gone down a lot. The doctors finally permitted me to get in a wheelchair yesterday so I'm not completely bed-ridden anymore. (Even though about 15 minutes of wheeling myself around in that thing exhausts me enough to take a 2-hour nap--what happened to the girl who could go on 10 mile runs without stopping for a break??) MRIs have shown that the infection hasn't spread to the muscles, so this is even better news. Tomorrow we get the lab results that tell us exactly what kind of bacteria is causing the infection, so we'll be able to use one specific antibiotic that will treat it better than a bunch of general ones than I've been taking. Oh, and the best news? Now that I'm in a wheelchair I get to wash my hair for the first time in a week!
So overall, it's been quite an experience and it's still not over yet. I am very ready to come home, but we have to wait until I'm absolutely cleared by the doctors. They really can't tell us when, but I'm hoping sometime early next week. I've definitely been exposed to a lot of Italian; seeing as very few of the doctors or nurses speak English, it's been a fast learning curve. I don't think I'm quite at the point where I can look back on all this and laugh, but I know the day will come soon; at least, that's what I keep telling myself. Plus, I did say I wanted to experience Italy, right? Maybe I should start a separate blog on life in an Italian hospital. I could call it: "La Vita in Ospedale..."
Okay folks, I'll try to keep you all updated when I can!
Love, Caity
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