In the early hours of today I had to call an ambulance.
John woke up with intense pain in his right arm, something that had been there for couple of days but was by now considerably worse. A tennis elbow, for sure? We thought that couple of painkillers would take care of the problem, but this was a case for something far stronger than paracetamol. So much worse that around 3.30 am I woke up with John screaming in pain. He had some kind of a muscle spasm, we realised later. Then he passed out. Came back to this world again, but only just. It was pretty frightening. John's face was totally white, he looked very sick. John barely responded to my frantic attempts to get him to answer me when I called his name. I decided that it was time to get the professionals in as it was obvious that this was beyond my thin internet based knowledge of the science of medicine and way past the "best before" date of the first aid course I took years ago.
It is so funny what you remember and what you don't remember in a situation like this. Such as: what is the emergency number....
I called 112 and got quickly transferred to the right people and talked to a lady who had clearly dealt with panicky people before, possibly one every 5 minutes. She reassured me in Italian that an ambulance was coming, trying to assess the situation at the same time. Is this a heart attack? The pain was on the right side, so no. But it was still a very serious pain. The Genoa ambulance service got there pretty quickly, just 20 minutes or so. By the time they arrived, John was concious again and was able to walk to the ambulance where he was put on a stretcher.
Believe me, in a real emergency things are suddenly happening like in a slow motion movie. The ambulance men said that John may need his trousers, for example. And did I think I might be coming in the same ambulance to accompany John to the hospital. Oh yes, I should get dressed too. It is amazing what kind of a combo you can think of when you have exactly 3 minutes, definitely not one of those fashion moments worthy of a selfie. In John's case, he got the trousers but still had his heavy woollen night socks on his feet plus shoes. At least I knew how to behave in the ambulance: watching all those episodes of "Casualty" were not in vain.
We were taken to San Martino hospital's accident and emergency department. Within half an hour John had been processed, had his first medication and was waiting for a cardiogram, which he had very quickly. We were lucky, there were not very many other patients. Then we waited for the morning shift to come in and a doctor saw him couple of hours later. We were reassured at every turn that we had not been forgotten in the corridor and people were unfailingly friendly. John got medication and even though this particular problem will need a long time to go away totally, he is fine and now recovering at home.
The ambulance service is run by trained volunteers, if I have understood correctly. They depend on donations and the goodwill of the community. Never have I had such a good reason to be grateful for this service. Next time I see them asking for a donation, there is no need for speeches.
They deserve every single euro they get.
San Martino hospital is a very large establishment in Genoa and they take care of thousands of patients every year. It is easy to be critical about hospitals, but perhaps "thank you" are the words we should be saying more often. And today there was a good reason to do so.
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