Eight, nine weeks ago, I had the most enormous surgery of my life. It lasted four entire hours. The doctors put my insides back together.
Prior to that, I had had pneumonia (also life threatening) and gall bladder surgery. Prior to that, I had had a hospital stay of a week, where surgery was daily dangled as a possibility but never happened.
Slowly......slowly....I am getting better. It is frustrating for someone who was always very independent. It makes me sad.
But, after all these weeks, I get dressed everyday. I take showers. I now feed the clowns (cats) every morning once again. Sometimes I clean something I can manage, like the stove, or a window.
I have started to abandon the "surgical belt" they had me use in the hospital, it is no longer necessary.
I try to "get out" twice a week...soon to be more....to walk to a cafe for a glass of wine, some bread and cheese.
So! I searched for a dentist and found one online here in town. I knew there was a man around the corner, but I was not keen on seeing him....because he is a male Italian (sorry) and because he is older and I have seen him hanging around town with other "power" males.....no, sorry....not for me.
I found a female dentista..her website was encouraging and I made an appointment. I will add, I was not 100% at this point, not by any means. My husband...who can be spotty.....decided he knew exactly where the office was. It was not. We walked to where he thought it was. It was not. We called her. Turns out, she speaks English! That was the good news. The bad news was, there was no way in hell I could walk to where her office actually was. There are TWO....TWO streets in town with basically the same name and hubby didn't check the fine details.
That was in June. About a week later, I was unable to move and was taken by my sweet neighbor, to Chieti hospital, where they did an emergency laparotomy and kept me for two weeks.
So, in mid-July, weak, tired...scared...I got home. *Also about 35 pounds lighter than I was when this odyssey began.
Finally feeling a bit stronger....slowly...I knew it was time to take care of this tooth, whatever that meant. Pull it? Cap it? What?
We had a friend with a car take us there...she is up a ways from the veterinarian...but it is all uphill and no way I could manage it on foot.
The office is on a street a ways from the center of town. The building is 5 stories and rather modern but the elevator didn't work and her office was on the fourth floor. Oy. Ugh. Here we go. One step at a time...thank goodness I had my knee brace on and these Italian steps were not as deep as regular US steps are.
Finalmente! Floor Four...and her office! And the office was immaculate. A tech came out of a door and asked immediately if I was "June." Yep. Ok, I sat in the waiting room, a sun filled, marble floored, shiny gem of a room that, honestly, needs more chairs. A nice gentleman got up for me to sit down.
In about 10 minutes I was called in. I apologized profusely for what had happened, and she waved it away...what happened??? So, I filled her in...and she agreed that the hospital here, in this town, is a nightmare and needs to shut down.
Turned out, all I needed was a replacement filling and voila! we were done in less than an hour from start to finish!
The differences here and the US? They do not lock you into a full set of x-rays, nor into a thorough cleaning afterwards. So, no x-ray fees at the start if not necessary. She fixed the problem and I was done. I can, if I choose, schedule a cleaning. Otherwise, a completely professional, gorgeous office with state of the art equipment, staff and a totally competent and capable dottoressa.
My tooth is fixed and we have a dentist.
Next stop......the rheumatologist.
