Last Days in Italy 2 of 4: The People
Overall, spending a week in an Italian hospital and having to come home early was not the greatest experience, but if there was any good part, it was the people, so here are the most important five. Disclaimer: Ignore how I look in all of these pictures.
1. Anna- Anna was one of my four roommates at the second hospital and the only one who was there the whole time. She was a really cute old Italian woman with no teeth, which made her nearly impossible to understand. The fact that I had no idea what she was saying most of the time didn’t dissuade her from talking to me. She (to the best of my knowledge) told me all about the war and Mussolini and when…someone (possibly us) bombed Padova. She was very spunky and cute, and I hope she’s not still in the hospital. Also, her daughter brought me cute little fake flowers .
These are my other two roommates. I didn’t really get to know the one on the right, but the one on the left is Luciana. She really liked my stuffed mouse and was constantly making the italian hand gesture for “you’re breakin’ my balls.”
2. Dr. Bruttomesso (Left)- Dr. Bruttomesso was not even my attending, but for some reason (because she’s really nice), she took a special interest in me. She came to check up on me a ton, and talked to me a lot even though she doesn’t speak any english. The best thing she did was call her two english-speaking patients and ask them to come meet with me, which ended up being really helpful and interesting. She went way above and beyond the call of duty and was so nice it made my mom cry (a lot).
3. Valentina (Right)- Valentina was one of the residents assigned to me and one of the first people I met at the second hospital. She spoke some english, but not a lot, and she made a huge effort to talk to me and always smile at me and explain things in either the best english she could or slow Italian. She was just very cute and nice and looks like she should be on Grey’s Anatomy.
4. Marc- Unfortunately, I don’t have a picture of Marc. He was one of the people Dr. Bruttomesso called. She said he was American, but he was actually French-Canadian, which was funny. I guess english speaker was close enough to American to the Italians, even though English wasn’t even his first language. He’s a 24 year-old math grad student studying at the University of Padova. I was expecting it to be super awkward, but it really wasn’t at all. He was really nice and answered all of my (my mom’s) questions and just kind of explained things completely in english. It was helpful to talk to him and also nice to see a non-doctor younger than 70, which was rare.
5. Elisa- Last but not least is Elisa. She’s a resident, but wasn’t one of my residents, and she’s diabetic. She came the same time Marc did and helped answer my questions and stuff, but then she came back the next day during her day off and hung out with me for a couple hours. She speaks pretty fluent english, so we were able to talk about healthcare, italian college and med school, italian politics, etc. It was really nice of her to come keep me company, and she was just a really intelligent, interesting person. We’re facebook friends, and I’ve been talking to her some since I got back.
