24 Jan 2009

AN ITALIAN IN HOSPITAL



Mr. Gattino should have surgery at his carotide on thursday morning 8 am. At 11.30 I called the intensive care unit to ask if everything went OK. A friendly voice informed me that they had no Mr. Gattino in their unit. I hang up and asked myself where could he be ? Did he escape from the hospital ? I was in my painting class and one of my classmates told me in a recomforting voice that her husband too had disappeared and they had found him in the parc sitting on a bank. But he had had a brain tumor and mine had disappeared with a brain in function. At least I supposed so. The girls told me not to worry and that probably he is still in the surgery room.

When I called the intensive care an hour later he was there and everything had gone well, the friendly voice even gave me a direct phone nr. I was a little puzzled that he had a phone at his disposal, in my imagination he was laying on a bed fully cabled from top to bottom. I called this nr in the afternoon and to my surprise he answered himself with a completely normal voice and told me that he was feeling well and that he had to stay there for 24 h.

When I called the next day he still was in intensive care. I couldn't even start to worry when he started to complain and pester against the whole medical world that he was still there after 24 h and that it was sooo boring ! He wanted to go up to his room. I told him to be patient and calm down. Never say that to somebody who has never been patient in his life ! He even suspected that somebody else had taken his room and that's why he couldn't leave intensive care ! After this conversation I knew that he was feeling very well !

An hour later I went to the hospital to be there when they brought him up to the 4th floor to his room. While I was reading a magazine in a little waiting room, I suddenly heard noices and then voices or rather only one voice, the opera voice of Mr. Gattino ! and then out of the elevator came the King or rather the Godfather sitting like a pasha in a wheelchair, connected with cables to a support with bottles and surrounded by 3 laughing nurses. The one who pushed the wheelchair pointed on him and said that he had complained that much that finally they gave up and were happy to get rid of him.

He looked better than before surgery and his only wish was to get settled in his room. I should have taken pictures. 2 nurses made the bed, the 3rd brought his personal belongings and all this while he was talking and laughing and making jokes. As he always talks with his hands, I anxiously watched the bottle and the cables but surprisingly they didn't get mingled up. If I had had fears to find a half dead husband, it really wasn't the case. When the nurses had left, he stood up and wanted to put his things himself in the closet, to know exactly where each thing was (instead of telling me where to put it) until I got angry because the bottles wiggled and the cables waggled and I was afraid that the whole thing would fall down.

Finally he was in his bed and waited eagerly that I leave, he wanted to watch Indiana Jones n° X on his portable DVD player.

I left exhausted ! Italians have the marvellous talent to make a comedy out of a tragedy !

10 comments:

  1. I hope your Italian continues to make great progress, Gattina.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I hope you can tkae him home soon, because that's going to be the next step!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Glad to hear he's doing well! How are you?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Well, Gattina, I'm glad you've survived the whole experience so far and obviously Mr Gattino is getting better by the second.

    I think Italians can also make a comedy into a tragedy too...sometimes the drama is quite funny in itself.

    Anyway, it sounds like the Gattino family will all be together again soon. The cats will be pleased.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Gday Gattina. Im glad to hear your Italian Mr G didnt upset any of his tubes and bottles waving his hands around. and is well on the road to recovery... try to relax and have a good weekend...

    ReplyDelete
  6. I'm glad the surgery is over and that all went well. I think it's wonderful that he has such a positive spirit! The real fun will be when he gets home! lol! Then he will make you crazy!

    ReplyDelete
  7. No darling, it's not Italians... it's MEN! Any nationality! But I'm glad to hear that YOUR Italian Man is doing sooooooo well as to be troublesome! That is a GOOD sign!

    ReplyDelete
  8. reminds me of when my children were small. When they were sick i would be so worried.
    Then they got cranky and irritable and I knew they were on the mend.

    ha ha.

    Happy that everything looks good for Mr. Gattino

    ReplyDelete
  9. Happy to hear everything went well, and that they didn't accidentally remove his sense of humor!

    ReplyDelete
  10. But the good news in all of that is that he is doing well.

    ReplyDelete

Dear Anonymous,
Please do not be shy and leave your name, otherwise you will end up in the bin !