June 26th: Sprained Ankle

No picture for this post... you wouldn't want to see it anyway.

For the last three days, I have been in a bandage and walking with a crutch, the result of a sprained left ankle. Starting from the day I skipped the trip to Siena, the pain and swelling had only gotten worse, so finally I decided to see the doctor. He said it was probably a sprain, but was also worried about a possible small fracture, so he told me to get x-rays. So on Thursday, I headed over to the city hospital (fortunately, right across the street from the university) to get it checked out.

I arrived with Danilo, the office worker employed with the Oberlin program, at about 9:15 a.m. Since Italian is his first language, he was able to help me through the initial checking-in process at the pronto soccorso (emergency room), which was a relief. After that though, he had to return to the office, so I was alone. I'll admit I was a little nervous, but there were people around who helped me out. While standing in line at about noon for x-ray results, one friendly 30-something man with a broken finger joked with me, saying that the wait "probably isn't making a very good impression on you during your vacation." "No," I assured him, "it's the same way in the U.S." ...Little did I know I would be there until 5:30 that afternoon, totaling about eight hours in the hospital that day: once I got x-rays done, I was forced to wait for a couple more hours until I could get results, and then several more until I could actually get in to see the doctor. The x-rays were fortunately negative for a fracture, but I did have a nasty sprain, probably aggravated by the huge amount of walking we students do every day. The doctor advised me in a mix of Italian and very bad English to keep the bandage on for 3-4 days and "no walk."

So, I took the bandage off today, and am feeling a lot better. Keeping weight off the ankle for the weekend has been good, and given it the time it needed to start actually healing. In the meantime, the other students haven't let me hear the end of it... nicknames this week included "Crutchy," "Hobbles," "Lamey," "Tiny Tim," and "Itzhak Perlman." Danilo, after finding out that I'm also recovering from a bad cold and an ear infection, promptly dubbed me "Disaster," and so far that one's stuck.

More soon,
-Al