An unscheduled hospital visit

Recently, I did a huge update on this website. It was major, even if it doesn’t look so different. It took weeks. Maybe you noticed.

One of the suggestions an expert gave me was to publish articles, or blogs, more regularly. I used to call them “articles” but just changed to calling them “blogs”, but the advice is to write them far more often than once a year!

It got me thinking about subjects, things that you might be interested in reading. I made a list and plan to get them done so you know more about buying a house and have a better insight into life in this great country.

Any suggestions are welcome!

Then something happened this weekend, and I still can’t get it all clear in my mind, so my thinking is this article might help you as much as it helps me!

Italian Healthcare System

I want to focus on the healthcare system in Italy. I have to; the reason why will become very clear.

I’d already written something about it — a hernia op I had a year or two ago. I received great care then. This article is another personal experience, and you’ll get to know some very personal things about me.

To explain what happened this weekend, I need to go back several years. It’s not a short story.

A few years ago, five maybe, I had some odd occurrences. The first, I 'remember', was during a ride up in the Alps. We had a gorgeous Mercedes CLK, with our dog in the back we shot up for a ride in mountain passes. My wife, Ula (Urszula), said she noticed that I became unusually quiet and withdrawn. I looked exhausted, said a few strange things and generally wasn’t myself. I remember nothing of it. At the time, we simply assumed I had been working too hard.

It started to happen regularly, every few months. I’d wake up with no memory, feeling tired. I would sleep for two days and slowly, eventually, recover. After two weeks or so I’d be back to normal. Sometimes I even needed GPS to get to places I knew inside out, I forgot people I knew well or how I knew them.

A brain scan revealed nothing. Empty space! I tried to learn to live with it, but then it was a monthly occurrence. My work was badly affected and it was tough on Ula. I had irregular memory, but I looked normal, friends thought I was exaggerating if I took time out. Clients were walking away.

My last brain scan in Asti again showed nothing was wrong. My lovely neurologist, Federicca Trotta, told me my brain was perfect. What a nice compliment! Another department wanted me on a CPAP machine (forces you to breath during sleep), but I wasn’t looking for something that simply managed the symptoms. I wanted to understand the cause. Dr. Trotta agreed and suggested I lose weight. It seemed this issue was because of a lack of oxygen to my brain caused by Sleep Apnea. If I put on weight, it sits in two places — my belly and neck. I went on a diet that day. We cut out all processed foods — nothing from supermarkets, only fresh fruit and vegetables, and cooking in a good way.

This is one of the great things about Italy, it’s possible to get good food easily. Friends in the UK and US, they tell me it’s impossible, but maybe they’re also full of excuses.

We had given up alcohol a year or two before. I know! We live in one of the greatest wine areas in the world and we don’t drink. We did, but we saw it was getting to be too often, and the older I got, the more of a clear head I needed. I’d also reached the limit driving sometimes. The permissible legal alcohol limit is very low here in Italy.

Then there was a terrible accident locally. Two couples from Germany had been wine tasting and the driver, in his high-powered Audi, took it too far. The car launched off a large concrete storm pipe and landed in a private garden, taking down a tree. The two women in the back died. One had been the driver’s wife for only two weeks. We heard the story, visited the site and never drank again. We had different reasons, but this sealed the deal.

The driver is facing 10 years in an Italian prison for killing his wife. If he does get put away, I will visit him. I can’t begin to imagine the burden he now carries.

I never drank much, but I stopped that day.

Please let me put a footnote here with a bit more about my feelings on this subject connected to my work — Click Here

And back to eating. We stopped eating breakfast, but do occasionally have a natural fruit salad with good yoghurt, hazelnuts and figs. Lunch is never before 12.00 and we never eat after 6pm. This is a big one. Not easy, but it makes a huge difference, especially the effect on our sleep. I’d never go back.

I lost weight, 10kg (22lbs)! I felt so much better but was still getting apnea, less but still there. Hmm, what’s next? I got put on a blood thinner medication and this helped. ‘Episodes’, as Ula calls them, were far less severe, but still there.

I’m 80kg at the moment but want to get down to 76kg. I started around 90kg.

This last weekend was our wedding anniversary — 34 years since we wed in Poland on the 4th of July. I thought of a surprise — a weekend on Lake Maggiore. Ula loves the coast, but I’m not a fan… too many people. We have the Cinque Terre, Santa Margherita and Portofino an easy drive away, but give me the lakes or the Alps any day. Ula loves the lakes too, so I decided on Arona. We had passed through it but had never spent any time there. It looked good, and it was. We much preferred it over the town further north, Stresa.

It was in a car park in Stresa I got talking to a Russian woman standing by a Swiss-registered Mercedes SL AMG V8 twin turbo. Wow! A €200k car — I had to ask questions. She was waiting for her Swiss boyfriend and Ula wasn’t too happy I was talking to her. Now, I talk to everyone and anyone. I’ve made friends with famous businessmen, politicians and musicians, and I credit three people for this ability — my mother (she talks to anyone), my Mexican friend Elena (the same), and Mikhail Gorbachev. I’m not joking. In this regard they are the most important people in my life — were… we lost Mikhail.

Ula’s of the Polish generation that finds it hard to trust Russians - too many James Bond movies! I gave the Russian woman my business card as my thinking was: I just took on a lovely €3.5m palace in the Langhe that people with a car like this can afford and would love. Ula wasn’t too impressed, thoughts of Russian mafia and what not. We had a rough evening, but we got it clear. She is the absolute love of my life, cannot be replaced and never will be. I have to die first. I just never rest from work, and I did admit I loved the car.

Stress isn’t good for me. It makes this condition far more likely. I was sure I’d wake with memory loss and confusion. I was OK, but not 100%. My neck was super stiff — this is high blood pressure. I was on the way downward, but we did have a good morning in Arona.

I love shopping for women’s clothes. Not for me — for my wife. It’s more that I hate her wearing what I consider to be the wrong things. With my invaluable help she bought a few nice things, we went for lunch. We were heading home that day but decided to drive up the east side of the lake before heading south.

The Accident

Ten minutes into the journey my head felt strange. I saw things I can’t remember or explain, and I must have blacked out — all within a few seconds. Ula said my body was upright, in some control, but I was talking more rubbish than normal. I hit the car in front. Ula grabbed the steering wheel, so we hit the kerb and a low wall. We stopped. In hindsight she realised that pulling on the handbrake may have caused less damage, but no one was hurt and cars can be fixed, so all good. We were only doing 30km/h. This was the first time it happened to me during the day, it usually happened while I slept.

The only thing I remember is waking up in the back of an ambulance. Ula tells me cyclists came to help. The owner of the car I hit, Roberto, was very kind and understanding. He later wrote to me to say beautiful things about Ula. He told me exactly this: “Your wife was truly incredible at handling the situation even though she was in shock. Women really have that extra edge, and you’re very lucky to have Ula by your side”.

The police and an ambulance came. They were all great. The car wasn’t too easy to open as the front wings had pushed onto the doors. I’m not sure how they got me out and I was, again, talking more rubbish than normal. I remember none of it.

I got taken off to hospital. I was awake at that point — as though nothing had happened. I can’t explain it. I had a super nice conversation with the paramedic, a wonderful, amazing woman — Elisa. I think we might take these people for granted. I asked, “You must see some terrible things.” Her face said all I needed to know, she said “yes”.

She explained she was training to be a helicopter paramedic. What?! How incredible is that? And her husband is also a paramedic. She was kind, comforting and fascinating.

Elisa, I’m determined to find you when I’m back on my feet so I can properly thank you.

I felt so sick and was sweating profusely, but she made it bearable and deserves so much praise. Whatever she’s paid, it’s not enough. Thank you!

The driver was nice too. I said, “I drive next time!” as I was getting out.

I got taken into Pronto Soccorso — emergency. My first time in an ambulance and into this part of a hospital. I hope my last.

Elisa had assured me Ula would be coming in a taxi. It turned out the police tried, but every driver was busy, so they brought her. Again, they were incredible — Massimo and Antonella of the Dormelletto police station. Thank you! And I was a little jealous she got to ride in an Alfa Romeo squad car and I got the ambulance, but whatever. We’ll go find them too.

Come si chiama?

The hospital was fantastic. I got a room within 10 minutes and all the staff were amazing. I find the best thing to do is ask people their names. It lets them know you’re interested in them, and I truly am. I love to share stories and I constantly want to be learning. They’re always impressed you asked. Italians love titles, it’s the Catholic base, but get on first-name terms ASAP and I promise you will be made comfortable. I was stunned I remembered them all, but then they were all so memorable.

I want to mention the two Elenas, Fabio the Roman, who took me down for the brain scan, Alessandro, who scanned me, the wonderful nurses Elena and Emiliana (in header photo). Elena was so much fun and treated me like a brother. Then there was our head dottoressa, Tiziana. I loved her within seconds. Maybe it was her smiles and the reassuring winks that said to me, “I’m working here because I care about you, and love you.” And she showed she did. I was deeply moved.

This was Borgomanero Hospital.

Then there was my neurologist. I’m not sure what struck us first, even Ula said the same — her clear brilliance or her beauty, and it turned out her mother was from Alba.

Her assistant nurse, Federica, took me down for a different scan to what Alessandro had done the day before. A mesh was put on my head and I was told to close my eyes, open them, breathe deeply, breathe normally. Then Irene came and there was an incredible moment — my mind went. Every time before I had a scan my mind was normal, fine. This time they saw the problem.

Fabio took me back up to my room and Irene came in. She asked, with a big grin, if I recognised her, even though we’d just been together 10 minutes before. I never forget someone that beautiful and, even though under the scan I didn’t know what day it was, I was fine again. I could see she had something important to tell us. I thought I was off grid for 4-5 seconds. It was 45 seconds.

My life flashed before me. I’d already outlived my father by seven years. Had my time come? What was she going to tell me?

She said I had a thing, sort of similar to epilepsy, but nothing as severe, described this way: Slow and epileptiform anomalies in the left frontotemporal region with recording of a focal-onset electroclinical seizure in the left frontotemporal region.

My brain can randomly send unrequested electrical pulses and that’s what causes the confusion. The good news was it’s treatable — one year of drugs, and free. The bad news? I couldn’t drive for a year. It was hard to hear, but it could have been so much worse and I have an absolutely drop-dead gorgeous chauffeur — Ula.

I have nothing to complain about. As long as I can still keep working on cars, I can live with it. Irene explained that sometimes this is hard to take, for example if the guy she’s telling is a bus driver. I get that. For me it’s not the worst possible news. I’m old, a year goes quickly.

They don’t know what causes it. I had been in a car accident when I was around 18 months old - that was in 1967. On my mum’s lap on the front seat — no seat belts then. Someone run the lights as we were travelling along the East London road called the A13. We crashed and my head hit the steel dashboard. It’s amazing anyone survived the 1960s! It could have been the cause. No one knows at the moment. More brain scans coming.

Tiziana came. I was so happy. She instantly by her presence made everything so easy. Her warmth, hugs, air kisses and that look. She gave us all the paperwork we needed and wished us well. I promised I would write about how marvellous they all were. She was so happy but, really, I don’t know enough words to express my gratitude for their amazing personalities and their professional care. I don’t ever want to be sick again but, if I am, I want to be rushed to Borgomanero Hospital.

And that’s the point — Italy, Italians. We complain about the disorder, the broken roads and taxes, but who cares? When we really need them, they are the best. I’m proud that a big part of my DNA is Italian and I understand perfectly why I live here. A Scottish car guy on YouTube was recently telling the story of how he found a woman bleeding on the pavement but the ambulance? “At least two hours,” he was told. Here, the service was way beyond what I could have expected. I’ll be returning as soon as my energy is back to take them my “thank yous”.

What I Learned

There are so many things I learned from this experience.

First, look after your health, listen to warnings and take them seriously.

Second, value our health staff. I would never do what they do, but they do it brilliantly and with love. We are created in God’s image. God excels in love, wisdom, justice and power, but the Bible only says that “God is Love”. We need to love, then we will be loved. It’s how we were designed. Let people know you value them and they will value you. And there’s so much love despite the cruel, unjust world we live in. My experience proved this. There is hope, we just need to search, ask questions and listen to the right sources.

It could have gone so differently. One hour later we would have been doing 130km/h on the autostrada. No one was hurt and I can’t express how grateful I am for that.

Ula proved again that she is a perfect wife. She excels in competence and beauty. I know I’m a genius for marrying her. What can I say?!

I’m also starting to understand things about myself. I did horribly in school, I can find learning new things difficult without ever understanding why. An accident 60 years ago could be all the excuse I need. It’s feasible.

My car arrived locally this morning in a few extra pieces but my local friend and Carrozzeria will fix it. I was just genuinely falling in love with this car. It’s not fast but drives so well and I hate modern cars. I wouldn’t take one for free. I’d just had the wheels repainted and some small paint touchups, now it’s back with the same guy that did those jobs. Oh well, it could have been so much worse. I’ll keep you updated. I’m in no rush as I can’t drive it for a year anyway.

That’s it. I don’t need to “sell” Italy to you. You decide. This is my experience and I know where I’m staying. And I’m going to take my recovery time to assess everything, so I might be asking you for advice. I promise to keep writing articles. It’s what I love.

All the best. Stay healthy!