Wine can be dangerous to you health

I have never had a problem with wine. What beverage is better with food? However a few days ago I stopped at an enoteca to buy a bottle of wine. The person there wrapped the bottle in paper and since I had a little backpack with me I needn’t need a bag to carry it. As I started to put the bottle in the backpack the bottle slipped out of the paper and fell toward the floor. I was pleased and amazed that the bottle didn’t break but a few seconds later I realized why. Instead of falling on the floor it landed on my right foot. It was damned painful and I had to wait a couple of minutes before attempting to walk. So, after awhile it wasn’t to bad so I took the bottle home and went about my business for the day.

But that evening when I was ready to go to bed the pain became more severe. The next morning a friend (thank you Gianluca) bought some of the medical tape used for such things and brought it to my home so that I could wrap the injured toe to the one next to it (the toe with the pain was the middle toe) and I iced the toe during during the day and never left the house. The next morning I went to my doctor. He said that he didn’t think that it was broken but advised me that I should get an x-ray right away. He wrote me a prescription and I went to what is called a “poliambulatorio”, (outpatient clinic) closest to me. They do blood tests and x-rays there but only if reserved well ahead of time and my prescription was marked urgent, meaning that it should be done within 24 hours. So the information guy said to go to the room where they handle a variety of things, take a number and wait for an hour to get directions for an x-ray elsewhere. Well, he didn’t exactly say “wait an hour” but that’s what it took for them to call my number and they gave me a reservation and directions to a hospital not too far away. Since the radiology department at that hospital closes at noon (it was already 11) and would not be open the next day I had to hurry. If I didn’t get the x-ray within 24 hours the prescription would expire and I would have to start the whole process over again. Not far from the poliambulatorio there was a taxi stand so I took one to the hospital. At the information desk there they directed me to the radiology department and said to wait there for 45 minutes to get the x-ray. Of course they didn’t say “wait 45 minutes” but that’s what it took to get the x-ray. After that the radiologist said to wait for 30 minutes to get the written opinion of the radiologist and a CD with the images of my foot. Of course he didn’t say “wait 30 minutes” but that’s what it took. Fortunately the toe was not broken.

A broken toe takes a long time to heal and one should not walk much for a month to six weeks which would have been a real disaster. The system is different from the U.S. but the result was much the same. For a non-critical x-ray in California there is quite a bit of waiting involved as well, but as I now know, in Italy there is always a line and it’s usually pretty long. I have also learned that if you need to interact with any sort of bureaucracy, take a book to read.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 12th, 2019 at 2:24 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.