How I learned Italian medical terms...or .. More fun and games with the Italian medical system AGAIN!

One of my favorite lions in Venice, on  the Scuola Grande di San Marco, has nothing to do with the contents of my blog today, but since he graces the front of our wonderful hospital, I thought I ought to use it. I am writing about something medically related, after all.

In a recent blog, I wrote about having to make several trips to the hospital on the Lido, and that my orthopedic surgeon there was retiring at the end of June.  Since then, I've had to have a series of injections in my other knee. As there is no one replacing my dear Dott. F at Lido, I had to see a different doctor at the Giustinian building in Dorsoduro.  If you are a long-time follower of my blog, you may recall one of my wonderful adventures being lost in the basement of the Giustinian building. I have avoided this particular building ever since!  Unfortunately, I had no choice this time, so back to Giustinian I went.

The first injection went off without a hitch. I felt a little better about having to go to Giustinian.  The second visit was a complete bust. I went at my appointed time, sat in the waiting room, and waited, and waited, and waited. Finally I tracked down a nurse. She looked at my appointment papers, motioned for me to sit, and ran off. When she returned, she asked me to follow her. Down a maze of halls we went, I had no idea what was going on. We finally got to an office where another woman was behind the desk. She looked up at me and said " We called you but you never answered. The doctor (Dott. D.) isn't here today."  We went back and forth, it turns out she called but never left a message. She wanted to know why I didn't pick up the phone. I was busy at the time, I told her. I wanted to know why she didn't leave a message.  Her response?  "No one here in Venice ever listens to voice mail, so we don't bother doing it."  Seriously.  Bottom line, we had to reschedule the visit.

The second injection- when it actually happened- also went smoothly. While I was there, I asked the doctor to take a look at my hand, which had a lump at one of the joints on my fingers.  I asked him if there was something I could do for the arthritis in my hand, which seemed to be getting worse lately.  Dott. D. took one look and said, "Signora, this isn't arthritis. You have a tumor. " Next he asked, "You are American, yes? "  Yes.  He instructed  me to stay on the examining  table. He went  to his desk, did something on the computer and  told me to come have a look.  I thought he was going to show me information about this tumor, maybe some photos so I could have a better understanding of what it was.  Instead, he had a document displayed on his screen, written in English and asked me to translate it for him.

I wanted to laugh out loud.  He's asked me to translate a Letter of Recognition, sent to him by the US Army in recognition of his service in Afghanistan assisting an American medical team. It was filled with medical terms. I study Italian,  I'm  at  upper Intermediate level but  I'm certainly no translator. Oh, what the heck, I  took a crack at it.  As I translated line by line from English to Italian, he typed my words on the computer. Every once in awhile he'd look up and say "Hmmm.. I don't like this word here. Do you have another instead of that ?"  I got out my phone which has a dictionary on it and looked up the word.  I'd give him a choice of one or two synonyms and he'd choose the one he liked, and off we'd go again until we got to the end of the letter.  Dott D.  was happy with the result, and I'd had one more weird medical experience to write about.

But we're not done yet. I asked him about Afghanistan. He said it was the worst 3 months he'd ever spent in his life. He was doing surgery on casualties there along with an American team of doctors.  Next, he got on the phone and scheduled an appointment for me to have this tumor removed. He said he had connections at Mestre and could get me in right away, but he couldn't do that at the hospital in Venice, so I should go to Mestre.  I said, "I hate going to Mestre. " He said, "Go to Mestre, we'll do it there." I think my translating got me a little connection.  He wrote out the appointment and off I went. Thanks, Dott. D.

Today was my apppointment at Mestre.  Honestly, I hate to go to Mestre. I had to take a boat to Piazzale Roma, then the 24 H bus to the new hospital out there. I was thankful to actually have arrived at the right place. Anything else that might happen would be gravy. The only other time I'd been to that hospital was in an ambulance through the emergency entrance, so I was totally unfamiliar with what the rest of the place looks like. This hospital is enormous!  After much hunting and pecking my way through the place, I located a secretary who took a look at the letter Dott. D. had given me and pointed me to an office.

Trying my hardest to remain optimistic, I just had a sinking feeling that the day was going to turn south. I waited my turn in the waiting room.   When my name was called, I was surprised to discover that my doctor was NOT the doctor in the room with me.  I fully expected Dott.D. had scheduled the appointment on a day he was working at that hospital. Surprise, surprise.  This new doctor took a look at my letter, looked up at me and said, "Dott D.  Of course."  That should have tipped me off right there.  He asked for the x-rays.  I told him Dott D. hadn't send me for any x-rays.  He reached for my hand, took a closer look, then looked up and said, "No, I'm not cutting without x-rays".  Then he asks, "Why are you here? Why didn't you just go to the hospital in Venice? "  Hmmm. "Well, Dott. D sent me here."
He responds, " Mestrini come here. Venetians stay in Venice.  Doesn't make sense for you to come here.  You can come back here if you want, but I think you should just go to Venice for the x-rays and see the surgeon there."

Coming out of the hospital I discovered there is a train that goes  right to the Venice Santa Lucia station. You could call that the fun part of my day. I bought a ticket for 1.25 Euro ( had to use my credit card since the ticket machine wouldn't take cash), hopped on the train, and got back to Santa Lucia in under 20 minutes. Sweet.  Since I'm not going back to the Mestre hospital I won't be using this handy route, but it seemed like something I ought to know about.

The train ride gave me a little time to ponder my situation. Makes a lot of sense to have x-rays. But my Dottore D. didn't need them. No, he'd been to Afghanistan. He can probably do heart surgery without x-rays.

Tomorrow I am making the x-ray appointment. In Venice. Even if I get sent back to Dott. D for the actual surgery, I'll feel a little more at ease I have them.  You never know,  someone might even look at them.

And why is it some of my best adventures involve the Italian medical system?  I'd like an answer to that.

A boat, a bus and a schlep on foot.

For those of you unfamiliar with the word "schlep",  let me give you some examples. If it's really hot and you have a long way to walk, you are schlepping.  If you have a lot of things to carry and you have to go up several flights of stairs, you have to schlep the stuff up.  If it's hot, you have a lot to carry, and a long way to walk, you are really schlepping. Ok, so now you can imagine me schlepping.

My Monday involved a 40 + minute boat ride from my end of Venice (way down in the tail part of the fish) to Piazzale Roma, a 10 minute wait for the 24H bus, a 35 minute bus ride out to the hinterlands of Mestre, and then a walk to several shops.  And it was hot. I avoid taking the bus to Mestre like it was the plague. For me it's like going to another planet. I have no idea where I am and  there are tons of cars, buses, motorcycles.  I am afraid I will get killed crossing streets, I always forget to stop and look.  I've gotten so used to not doing that in Venice, and I go to the mainland so infrequently  I just plain forget.

My laptop died over the weekend. Well, that's a slight exaggeration. It didn't quite die, but it would not boot up Windows Vista, the operating system on my laptop.  Mike tried using a restore disk, that didn't work. Nothing worked. I was very tempted to throw the darned thing in the canal. It was 5 years old, and had been giving me problems for quite a while already- it fried power cords 3 times a year. With what I've spent on replacement power cords I could have had a new computer 3 years ago.  My now dead laptop is the reason I had to make a trek to the mainland.

I went online and checked a few of the shops my friend Cat recommended.  Having  found a model laptop with all the features I needed and also in my price range at the Marco Polo Express, I set off Monday to buy it. First on boat, then bus, then a walk.  I figured this should be a piece of cake. Wrong.  I just should have known this was going to be difficult.

Inside the shop, I checked out all the laptops they had on display. The model I wanted was not there. I flagged down a store employee, who explained that the model I wanted could only be purchased online. It could be shipped to the store, or shipped to my home. I decided I wanted this particular model so much that I would do as he suggested, so I called Mike at home and asked him to go online to make the transaction.

Since I was out in the hinterlands and there were other large shops in the vicinity, I spent some time perusing a few other stores. I even purchased 2 pink tank tops!  Yes, I went where Karen had never gone before-- pink clothing.

Feeling good about my adventure (another opportunity to speak only in Italian), I waited for the next 24H bus back to Venice. At least finding a bus stop wasn't too difficult. Once back in Venice, I boarded a boat for the almost 45 minute ride to Sant'Elena, then the schlep to the apartment.

Once I got in the apartment, the nightmare part 2 began.  Mike had been unable to make the computer purchase online because the website wouldn't accept our US credit card.  We've been using this card all over Europe for years now, and this website wouldn't accept it.  I tried also, no luck. I called their customer assistance. Shockingly, they actually answered the phone without having to go through a ridiculously complex phone menu system.  Again, I had a great exercise in speaking Italian with the customer support rep. She also could not make the transaction over the phone, but advised me to go to the Rimini shop, where they had one of the computers I wanted in inventory. I thanked her and hung up.  I was NOT going to Rimini on the train to buy a computer.  I needed a Plan B.

Plan B involved another boat, bus and schlep to Marghera (another city on the mainland not far from Mestre) on Wednesday morning, to a different store.  My mission this time was to come home with a computer in my hand, no matter what. Mission accomplished- after another boat, bus and schlep.

My new laptop, an ASUS, runs Windows 8. It's foreign to me.  Everything is in Italian. Not good. First task was to attempt to switch the language to English, which thankfully was done fairly easily.  Mike was able to load all of my files and photos onto the new machine, and I am still reloading several programs I use. The keyboard (Italian style) is kicking my ass big time. Between figuring out how to navigate Windows 8 and locating keys on the keyboard, it's going to take some getting used to.

Nothing is easy here. I had moments when I was daydreaming I hopped in my car, drove to Best Buy and had the whole thing accomplished in 30 minutes.  But, it's the price you pay for living where we do. I'm not complaining, just laughing with myself over another one of my silly adventures.

I'm past this bump in the road, my new laptop is up and running, and I'm back online.  Life is good, aside from  the boat ride, the bus ride and the schlep.

Life in Venice - new experiences - the bus strike!

I had heard about how strikes happen suddenly in Italy, but I must admit that until you experience one for yourself, you just don't seem to "get" its full impact. I now understand. I “got” the complete whammy recently!

Here's my whole sorry little tale:

I had finally gotten brave, found my sea legs, and ventured out of Venice for my first shopping adventure to Panorama. Panorama, by the way, is in Mestre ( on the main land, as the locals say), and is about as close to a Wal-mart as we're ever going to get over here in Venice. We'd been told by our friends Marco and Alice that Panorama was worth finding, it had good prices on food and other items, and they would deliver your purchases to your door in a day or two. That last little feature is a big incentive for those of us who are without a decent means of hauling packages. Without a car, we are limited by what our little Italian grocery cart can hold and what we can reasonably push/pull behind us in that cart.

Buses to Panorama run frequently from Piazzale Roma, which is fairly convenient to get to from our apartment. I did my research, knew which bus to take, got up and out early, purchased my bus tickets, and was on the bus headed to Panorama at 8am. I wanted to be there when they opened the doors at 8:30 am. Great plan. The bus ride out of Venice happened without a hitch. I was so proud of myself for navigating this on my own. What an adventure! I spent about an hour and a half in Panorama, and also took a few minutes to check out the nearby Benetton shop. Having completed my tasks, I wheeled my little grocery cart over to the waiting area for the bus back to Venice.

The bus is scheduled to run every 15- 20 minutes, or there abouts. I waited, the first scheduled bus didn't arrive. More waiting.. the next two buses I would have expected didn't arrive either. At this point, it is apparent that something is not right. There is one bus in the lot, however. I approach the bus driver of that bus, and in my broken English-Italian I attempt to ask him if he knows when the next bus to Venice will be coming. He understood me. "No bus to Venice today", he says. What??? "No, no bus to Venice today. Strike in Venice. "

How in the world did they let me get OUT of Venice and then go on strike so I couldn't get back??? Just perfect. Now I had to figure out what my options were for finding a way back home. I'm running through some possible solutions in my head when the bus driver tells me that if I get on his bus, he will take me close to the train station in Mestre, and from there I can take the train. That sounded complex, but it could work. I went for it. This bus driver was a god-send. When he got to the point where he was as close to the train station as his route went, he stopped the bus, motioned for me that this was the exit for me, then he got off the bus and pointed out the route to the train station. I love this man! I made the left, then right, then right again that he had shown me, and there, sure enough, was the train station. For about one more Euro, I had a seat on the next train from Mestre to Santa Lucia station in Venice.

Back in Venice, with my grocery cart behind me, I decided not to walk the 10 minutes and several bridges back to our apartment. Instead I got on the vaporetto to Piazzale Roma and would walk from there. At Piazzale Roma, the entire parking lot, which is normally packed full of buses coming and going all day long, was completely empty. Not one bus. Yup, there really was a bus strike going on in Venice. This was so out of the ordinary-- it was surreal to see. How would all the people who arrived in Venice for work by bus this morning find their way home tonight?

I am just thankful that I found a way home . And now i have another Italian experience under my belt. Strikes are common, I had better get used to them.