Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
***
We're coming toward the end of my antibiotics therapy, and it's time to consider next steps.
Dr. Furiozzi tries to persuade me not to delay and to schedule my surgery immediately. I
tell him that I want to wait a while. He tells me I'm taking a risk if I wait at all, one that I
could avoid if I just did the surgery now. We negotiate.
We're in the middle of our tour season, and dozens of people are arriving over the course
of the next month. I explain that my wife is capable of many things, but being a vivacious
hostess while I'm having open-heart surgery, well, that's just more than she can handle. He
understands my predicament.
I push him to do a risk assessment with me. If we can put this off for just one month, we'll
have a long window of time with no scheduled activity and I'll be ready then. Assuming
that I left for a month, what could I do to make the time away from the hospital less risky?
He says that at a minimum I would need to continue with antibiotics to prevent re-infec-
tion. If I could arrange for a daily injection that would be ideal, nearly as good as a daily
intravenous drip. He asks me if that's something I could arrange?
I turn it over in my head that evening. It occurs to me that our friend, Sheryl, will be arriv-
ing in Rome within the next few days. She is coming to live in our village with a man she
fell in love with when she visited us last year. She has worked as nurse at the Mayo Clinic
for more than twenty years, and she has decided to give it all up for the pleasures of living
in Tuscany. I have my connection for my daily injection. I tell Dr. Furiozzi the good news,
and I can see that it gives him some peace of mind.
***
Today is my last day in the Cardiology ward, at least for this round. I start to say my
farewells to some of the nurses with whom I've established friendships as well as with fel-
low patients. After nearly a month in the ward I've certainly become a fixture, even a bit of
a character, and some of the nurses and I have started to engage playfully when our paths
cross. Roberta, from Basilicata, is able to insert IVs and make “withdrawals” almost pain-
lessly. I tell her that when the other nurses come around, I send them away and tell them
I'm waiting for Roberta. Christina, a young woman from Naples, greets me every day now
with her hand held high, “
Hilt, batte mi cinque!”
(Hilt, gimme five!) I want to tell her that
if there were a Miss Cardiology Ward Pageant, she would get my vote, but I behave my-
self. With Marzia, an extremely good-natured nursing assistant, I cut myself some slack.
One evening after she has wheeled the Orzo cart into the room and asked who wants a cup
of the vile substance, I follow her out of the room and take her aside. I tell her that for me
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