Back with the living

(Sorry, my writing seems off today)

Good lord, it's so hard to believe that we have only been here a week, being sick has really dragged time along.

Yesterday ended with a trip to the hospital for antibiotics so I am starting to feel a bit better today.

Maybe I should have named this "Diana's Wild ride to the hospital!"

Yesterday morning I was so sick that I knew I had better get into a dr, so we went down tothe school and asked where we could go. Turns out the school has a clinic you can go to. The woman whips out thenow very well know photocopied map of Perugia and points to a spot that to me looks far away, especially when I have a raging fever. I ask her if there is a bus that goes there. "Oh no, no, maybe a 5 minute walk."

Looking back on it now, I'm wondering if she does this sort of thing for kicks! (j\k)
So we start up the hill and walk... and walk... and walk... about 15 minutes after, we get to a spot that we can place on the map. Ok, 1/3 there. Augh. So we keep walking and keep walking, finally we get to the spot where we have to differenciate between 4 different buildings as point of reference. All on a hill. We went up, we went down, we went from building to building and found every other one but the one we were looking for. Even the people who worked in these buildings has no clue.

By this time my fever has gone wild and I am just disgustingly "glowing" (so I not put people off too much)

Jess says "Come'on, let's just go down one level more" She's starting to walk down another set of steps. That's it, I'm now kid and she's mom. "No way! I'm not moving from this spot until I know where we are going!"

Then a man comes up the steps asking if he can help. IN ENGLISH! We tell him what's going on and he says to wait, he will get his driver to come take me to the hospital. Yeah!

The lovely man was our godsend, he worked at a large art museam on the east coast and was there lecturing. The whole time he's telling us this, i'm in sort of a fog by then, so all i seem to focus on is "HEY, I want a driver!"

So he gets his driver to come down, we all pile in the car, i even get the front seat and off we go.Giovonni was the driver, a very kind man, and a TRUE Italian driver.

Ok, busses and taxis go around turns like crazy in this town, but Giovonni was a man with a mission, get this woman to the hospital quickly!

I kid you not, I am not faint of heart, but there were at least two times where I had to close my eyes. One of the times was when he was blindly going around a corner and there was another car coming, and I know for a FACT there was not enough room to get by. I can still picture the color and the corner of the brick as it as flew right against my face outside the window. I expected to become a mangled statistic. But no, he made it without even touching the brakes! Bravissimo! (hope I spelled that right)


Anywayt, it turns out the hospital we were going to only accepted certain illnesses, so we had to go to one across town, and there was very bad traffic egoing there, so Giovonni I THINK actually took us through another town to get us there faster.

ok sorry, I am dragging this out too long i think.

We get to the hospital with our "ontourage" sp?? of 5 people spilling out of this tiny car, and they all drag me in talking loudly. Everyone int he waiting room was looking at us, and if you know me at ALL, this is my worst nightmare. Luckily I was so out of it I didnt really care. Well all that yelling and waving and saying i was really ill didn't get my anywhere, because we ended up waiting over 2 hours to be seen. with cases they though more important, like psained ankles, went before us.

FINALLY after Jess goes up several times and reads them the riot act and everyone stares at us again. (I am proud of jess for doing that though) we get seen.

Just a note here that very few people that we have met in Perugia have little more that a spattering of English.

They sent us with the only nurse who spoke a little English, and told Jessica it was patient only. well, one of us must have looked panicked because the nurse said something to the other people and then said she could some in.

The examinations room was a different experience thatàs for sure. There was a man behind a desk putting things into the computer, the nurse, the dr, at some point someone who I though was a paramedic ?????? and maybe even one other person.

The dr must have thought I was an idiot. (No remarks Nick) because he addresses everything to my daughter, which I though was hilarious. It could also have been the fact that every time he asked me a question, I was answering in Spanish! At that point I was so sick, I lost the Italian part of my brain.

After checking things out, he wrote prescriptions for amoxicillon (which I hope works on the bugs over here), and a pain killer.

Ok, I have to stop right now, jess is getting antsy. anyway, I am starting to feel better, we are going to start taking some day trips by the end of the week.

BYE!! I love you all!