When my sciatica pain wouldn’t let up, the good doctor decided to send me to the hospital. Being picked up by two good-looking guys and traveling in an ambulance for the first time in my life, was so much fun, I nearly forgot all about the pain. Ruthie joined me for the trip and it was good to have her although I had difficulty trying to send her home later.
“I want to see what they do to you!” she insisted.
“Ruthie, don’t worry! They won’t kill me!”
“You’ll be surprised!” came a comforting voice from the bed right next to mine.
Waiting time in an emergency room is pure misery. I was blood pressure measured, temperature measured and served a sandwich.
“What’s in there?” I asked.
“It’s egg and cheese!” said the friendly girl.
Then it turned out to be a tuna sandwich, and why doesn’t the girl know what kind of sandwich the hospital is feeding me?
There was high and noisy activity all around me while I was waiting for the orthopedist.
Sick people were arriving and leaving and I was interested in the case right in front of me, a man surrounded by policemen. It seems that he was beaten up by his wife and he came to the hospital all blooded and battered.
Made me think that I never heard of a battered husbands home, they only talk about the battered wives.
The hours passing were long and tedious and when I asked about the orthopedist, I was told by a nurse:
“This is going to be a long wait, he has many broken bones this morning, and he is terribly, terribly busy!”
The bed I was lying on was far from comfortable and I was cold.
“Can you get me a blanket?” I asked one of the attending girls.
She brought me a very thin sheet, I got my legs entangled in it, it wouldn’t even warm a small bird, so I finally tossed it to the floor.
A young man was wheeled in by a protesting mother:
“This is the last time I bring you in here, she shouted, two broken legs, one broken arm and you are again and again on a soccer field. Why can’t you go to school just like other nice young men do? Next time it will be your father who brings you here, I won’t anymore!”
“My father is in America” the young man said quietly.
“Oh yes, that jerk was the one who brought you to the soccer field in first place! And after he caused the damage to your brain, he got up and left! I’ll call him and ask him to come home and take you to all future visits to the hospital!”
Finally the doctor came. He flipped my toes a little bit, he asked me to raise one arm and then the other, and then he sent me up, again with a good-looking guy, to X-Rays. The X-Ray bed was ferociously cold and I had to turn to the left, to the right, on my back and whatever else. I was photographed again and again and then back to the emergency room.
Again a long, long wait on an uncomfortable bed without a blanket. If it wouldn’t have been for the lively action around me, I would have died of boredom.
A young and very pretty woman was brought in. She seemed to be in a faint. Looking at her 12 cm. high- heeled shoes which she was wearing, I was not surprised that she had fainted.
The poor overworked orthopedist came back to me. It seemed that he could hardly stand on his feet.
“I saw your x-rays”, he said and whatever he said next was not quite clear to me:
“A muscle is pressing on a nerve” he informed me, or was it the other way around? A nerve is pressing on a muscle? Whatever else he added after that was pure “doctorish” and I was not alert enough to understand All I could think of was how much the poor doctor and I myself needed a rest.
“I’ll write you a letter of release, said the doctor, you are free to go home!”
“Will I get an ambulance again?”
“No you can take a taxi!”
So I am home. And with me the sciatica.
Lucca