Hospitalization - Turning Tuscan: A Step-by-Step Guide to Going Native - page 175

The doctors look at each other and shuffle a bit until one of them says, “Perhaps ten days,
quite possibly longer.” In retrospect I realize that neither of them wanted to drop the full
weight of the situation on me in one pass. They were trying to avoid having to scrape me
up off the floor.
“But my wife has just left for Paris for a week, and my younger daughter will be getting off
the schoolbus at 5pm this afternoon.”
“Well, what options do you have to arrange for her care while you are here?”
At this point I realize that they are not about to give me any slack. It occurs to me that Pam
and Siena may not have boarded the plane yet. It's worth a try.
Pam answers her cellphone. I explain the situation. She and Siena are still on the train, only
a couple stops from the Pisa airport. Five minutes later, they get off the train, carry their
luggage through the underpass, and get back on the train headed in the opposite direction.
By early evening they have found my hospital room, gotten the car keys, driven back to
San Cosimo and returned with pajamas, toothbrush and all the rest. Ten years after bringing
my daughter here after falling off a swing, I'm now a patient at the hospital in Siena.
***
Our local hospital in Petaluma, California, feels like a cozy bed and breakfast compared
to this sprawling structure with its ten floors, multiple wings and endless connecting cor-
ridors. The new Siena hospital, known as Le Scotte is about twenty years old. It is the
successor to Siena's earlier hospital, Santa Maria della Scala , which was built across the
square from the Cathedral and served the populace right there for nearly a thousand years.
In spite of the new hospital's intimidating size, the Cardiology wing where I've landed be-
gins to feels homey after a very short time.
We are four in a room, as in the other dozen rooms along the hallway. At the very end of
the corridor is a special care ward for those who've come out of intensive care but are not
yet ready for the lower level of monitoring that occurs in the quad rooms. My roommates
have each had some type of surgery in the last couple of weeks; they are in the final stages
of recovery, only a few days away from being released. They're all around 75 years of age,
give or take a couple years. The majority of the faces I see as I walk up and down the halls
seem to fit into this age demographic. Like car engines after 200K miles, heart breakdowns
and repairs seem to accompany this phase of life. Unlike autos, trade-ins are not an option.