I spent my free weekend bedridden. Okay so maybe bedridden is a little dramatic, but I was certainly ill. Ill enough that after three days of being unable to eat because it hurt so bad to chew and swallow, I had to go see a doctor.
It started on Thursday. I had planned to go on a hike of La Rocca with a few other classmates who were staying in Spoleto and one of our professors. When I woke up, I found that my gums were a dark purple shade and inflamed to the point it hurt to brush. I chalked up to being my wisdom teeth, an issue that I should have resolved two years ago but was too lazy to follow through with. Regardless, I hiked and slowed down our group. I can’t attribute that to the pain that was starting to worsen in my mouth though. I’m just out of shape.
When we reached the top, we were able to walk through an old monastery. There is something so beautiful about getting to walk the same halls as someone centuries ago. I can’t say that I felt connected to anything when peering into the rooms, but I certainly appreciated breathing in the history that lived inside the walls. After, we went to the café where I ordered a caprese sandwich that I had to gum on like an infant or old person who forgot their dentures. It was a little humiliating.
The next day, I woke up with not just painful gums, but the inability to swallow without feeling like I drank a cup of glass. Even water hurt going down, creating a burning sensation as if I had just thrown back a shot of whiskey. Still, I didn’t think much of it. Maybe I just needed to rest. So, rest I did. I laid in bed the entire day.
Saturday was brutal. My gums were so swollen they were bleeding, my tongue had turned an alarming shade of white, and blisters were littered in various places of my mouth. I had a leaky stye on my right eye and an open sore on my lower lip. I have several pictures, but I will spare you the image. I slept the entire day.
On Sunday, I was supposed to go Orvieto with my suitemates. I was excited because the town is famous for their ceramics, something I am quite fond of as I get a ceramic art piece from every country I visit. But instead of waking up feeling better, I woke up feeling worse. I decided to stay home and rest some more. I laid in bed the entire day.
A teary-eyed phone call to my mother, who is a nurse practitioner, laid into me that it was time to go see a doctor. My suitemates did the same when they got home. So, with a lot of guilt and reluctance, I messaged my professors and our lovely Spoleto consultant Christiana set up an appointment with a local general practitioner for the next day.
Healthcare is free in Italy, and I had no idea what to expect. If I were home, I would make an appointment with my local CVS MinuteClinic and call it a day. Here, I was out of my element. Walking into the building, there was nowhere to check in. We just had to rely on an honor system of who was there first to be called into the room where the practitioner was at.
When it was my turn, I was ushered into the room with Christiana in tow. The room was dark and set up like an office with a desk, a red chair, and a small table where a medical bag rested on. Not the set up I was used to. Christiana and the GP spoke in Italian for a few minutes a little heatedly before the GP agreed to exam me. I sat down and I opened my mouth which she examined with an iPhone flashlight. My tongue was in the way she put on some hand sanitizer before grabbing a popsicle stick and shoving it in my mouth sans gloves, annoyed that my tongue was not cooperating. After what felt like five minutes but was really only maybe forty-five seconds of wrestling my tongue, she told us to go to the pharmacy to get a test for strep throat because of the white spots on the back of my throat.
The pharmacy was strange. We waited for a while before I was directed to the salon area where they shoved the test down my throat, promoting an awful gag reflex out of me that had the pharmacy apologizing to me. The test came back negative, of course, and I felt hopeless. All I wanted was some relief.
The relief started to come on Tuesday and by Wednesday, I was ready to re-enter society. I missed out on a lot in Italy. I missed out on exploring the neighboring towns and the truffle hunt which was the one thing I was most looking forward to, but I gained a new found sense of appreciation for my health which made the last week of my trip in Italy even the more worth it because I was able to appreciate every moment just a bit more.
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