Monday the 27th of Apr –Your call is important to us

At 9am sharp we show up at the day hospital for Mar’s bone marrow puncture and biopsy. There are 13 patients ahead of Mar...It’s almost call center like: “Your call is important to us. Please hold the line. You are our 14th caller. Please hold the line”. I wish there were another option: “If you want instantaneous remission please dial 1 now.” Wouldn’t that be something! Since it’s very busy only Mar goes into the waiting room. Dad decides to run some more errands and I check my email back at the Chianelli main building. Around 10.30, Dad calls me. They are urgently looking for me. Unfortunately they can’t dial International numbers so they contact Dad instead. Only they won’t tell him what’s going on. They will only speak to me. OMG. Is everything ok? My heart is pounding. I race back to the hospital thinking of more doomsday scenarios. All my positive thinking shamefully tossed out of the window. I nervously present myself at the front desk and am quickly brought to Michela, one of the nurses. She tells me they made an appointment for me at a different hospital for a cardiogram. There’s a driver waiting downstairs for me and I must hurry before he leaves in 5 minutes. Relief washes over me. I call Dad to meet me downstairs. He’s lost in the hospital labyrinth and only 5 minutes later do we find each other. 20 minutes later and we still haven’t left…The driver is waiting for another package (I am after all quite a piece!). Another 10 minutes and we’re finally off….Such commotion in the morning can’t be good for my heart…Thank god I’m seeing a Cardiologist.

In the meantime, Mara and I stay in touch via sms. We’re now speaking in Italian medical terms…If you’d told me this same time last year…I would’ve laughed…Mar just finished her “radiopanoramica” (Xray) and is still waiting for her “Aspirato” (puncture). Me, I’m waiting for my “ecografia” and “eletrocardiografia”.

I enter an unlit room. There are 3 doctors discussing in medical gibberish for all I know. They ignore me. Half naked, I lie on my side and a friendly lady doctor, does the cardiogram. I may be eating for two but I hear only one heartbeat. This is a first for me so I giggle nervously while listening to the beat!

It’s 1pm by the time both Mar and I are done. She’s waiting for us at the hospital bar. Dad and I hitch a ride in an ambulance back to the hospital. On the way, we witness an accident. A motorcyclist is hit by a car. Our ambulance driver stops to assist. I’m not sure why, but he has no authority to do anything and 5 minutes later we hear the siren of another ambulance approaching.

The faint of heart may want to skip this next part. Mar’s nerves are still unhappily twitching from the invasive biopsy. They extracted quite a little chunk of bone from her hip. Mar dismisses the experience as nothing more then unpleasant but tolerable. My beautiful strong funny sister. This she can handle! Even chemo, she bore without so much as a complaint. But ask her to swallow any kind of pill, even the smallest and watch her face instantly drain of all color. It’s a trauma she suffered years ago when she almost choked on one. Since then, as irrational as it may seem, nothing and nobody can tempt her. End of story. Non negotiable. The nurses in the Netherlands understood very quickly to take this phobia seriously and so Mara received pills in either crushed or liquid form. We’ll soon find out how Italian nurses take to it. If not kindly, they’ll soon find out just how stubborn Mar can be!

We’re expected back at the hospital tomorrow morning at 8.30am. Not sure yet what to expect. May it be another good day.