Friday, July 5, 2013

Some everyday stuff...

Just your average trip to the eye doctor...well, maybe not!

 I was kinda hoping our first trip to a doctor would happen later, when we were in a house and settled. Well, if I'm being honest what I was hoping is that we'd both make it through the next two years not having to go to any doctors here and just maintaining our medical visits on our trips home. So much for that idea!

 Some of you may know that Mark only wears one contact lens. He had lasik in his left eye several years ago and unfortunately it didn't go as well as planned. He was so near-sighted and the surgeon had to remove so much corneal tissue that when the "flap" was replaced it didn't smooth out as hoped. The result is that his outer corneal flap has "wrinkles" for lack of a better description. In certain light and up close he actually sees fairly well out of that eye but if it's darker he sees "ghost" images. After hearing him describe these ghost images to one of our regular optomitrist's assistants her response was, "You see dead people??"...Anyway, he wears a contact in his right eye and about once a year give or take, that eye gets an infection. Well wouldn't you know it waited until we got to Italy to act up?

 This has happened often enough that he knows not to put his contact in and to get in touch with the eye doctor as soon as possible. First things first, where do you go to find an English speaking eye doctor in Italy? Fortunately there is a woman here working with all the LM people as a liaison to help with their needs. She called and scheduled an appointment with an "occulist" for this past Wednesday at 7:45...PM. Yes, PM.

 Mark went to Google maps and found the place and it's fairly close to the Airport. (Fairly close in this area of Italy means about 20-25 minutes) We put the address in our GPS and actually got there pretty easily. We found a parking lot in the back of the building and proceeded to walk to the entrance. Keep in mind that this in no way resembled what we've come to know as a "medical building". It was a 3 story building with brown siding that has a small grocery store attached at the back. There was a locking mechanism on the door, the kind where someone has to buzz you in. There was someone coming out as we were entering so we didn't need to push the button. Once inside we noticed the building was very dimly lit. There was a tiny, and I mean 2 person maximum tiny, elevator in the middle of the building and doors with doormats and no signs all around the perimeter. We decided to go up and see if we could find the place. On the second floor, more doors. No signs. We went up another floor, more doors. No signs. Dead calm. Dim building. Not a sound. Beginning to feel like lambs lead to a slaughter we nervously got back in the elevator and went down to where we had come in. There was a man coming out of one of the doors heading for the exit. In our best Italian, which isn't great and with the help of my phone's translator we asked him where to find the occulist. His face lit up (I guess we asked correctly) and he waved his hand and said, "Vieni" or "come"! The three of us got back on the two person elevator and he took us back up to the 3rd floor, got off the elevator and walked around to the back where there was a door with a sign! We thanked him and went inside.

 There was a woman, I guess the receptionist leaving as we came in and the doctor was behind the counter eating a sandwich. He got up, went in the back and from his office yelled, "Mark Porter?" We said yes and he came out and guided us to the examination room. First time in my life I was ever in an eye doctor's office that had a window! (For those of you not lucky enough to have vision problems, eye doctors need exam rooms without windows so they can turn out the lights and see through their equipment properly.) He was speaking Italian and Mark said, "Parli inglesi?" His response? "Little." (Oh, this should be fun.) Mark explained as slowly and clearly as possible what the problem was and while the doctor's English wasn't perfect, it really wasn't that bad. He did his exam and said, "I prescribe drop, anti-biotic, cortizone, yes?" We said yes and he wrote the prescription out and asked if we could come back on the 12th at the same time. We agreed and left, at least knowing what to expect when we come back.

 I went to the airport pharmacy the next day to try to get the prescription filled and was told, "non ce l'ho" or I don't have. I called Mark and he arranged to come pick me up so we could find a pharmacy to fill it. (The good thing there was I got to leave the hotel and have lunch with my husband!) After lunch we found the nearest pharmacy on my GPS and drove there. Only problem was we forgot most places close up in the early afternoon for their "siesta" time. We drove back to the airport to drop me off and Mark went back to work and gave the prescription to the liaison so she could call around to find a pharmacy that had the drops in stock. She found one (around the corner from the one we had tried to go to after lunch) and told Mark to go pick it up after 6:30. After work he came back to the hotel and picked me up and we went to the pharmacy. Just a side note here, I've never seen a country so bent on keeping people from parking near their businesses! It's like they purposefully make access to street parking and parking lots impossible to find! We drove around the pharmacy and back again and finally found a place to park. When we went inside the girl at the counter of course spoke almost no English! I think we must look like chimps to these poor people who are trying to figure out our broken Italian and best charades moves! Once again with the help of my translator we finally got our point across. She went in back and came out with a few boxes of the drops and said, "Open one and no more use". These are basically single use containers so we understood what she meant. What's odd is that there was no prescription bottle, no prescription label, just the boxes with drops in them. They do things so differently here but we've had our first medical incident and survived!

 As strange as this whole thing seemed, once again I'm pleasantly surprised at how nice (and patient) people are. We have learned that our at least attempting to speak their language softens them immediately. They are so willing to try and help when they can. 

 This is just one more reason I'm glad I came along for the ride! Until next time...

Arrivederci!



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