Well, that was scary (Traveling is not for the faint-hearted, part 2)

Getting through the Rome airport was remarkably easy and the hotel’s driver was waiting for us as promised. I’ve been through this airport several times, and it can often be a madhouse, so I was happily surprised. Within 90 minutes we were in our hotel.

We went out for a bit of a lunch and then walked for an hour or so; didn’t see anything particularly noteworthy, but enjoyed the time to stretch our legs after the miserable coach experience.

Back in the hotel I had just taken a shower and was getting dressed when I reached for my shoe and noticed a liquid dripping to the floor. “Shit, I thought, some toiletry broke and was all over my shoe.” But my shoe was dry and it took me a moment to realize the liquid was blood and it was coming from my leg! My sock was drenched and when I removed it; blood gushed out of a tiny wound just above my ankle.

Ransom gave me some toilet paper and I tried to stop the blood, but it was a serious gusher. Pretty soon several wads of toilet paper were drenched. More frightening, at times the gushing became a very thin stream shooting straight out in the air!

Ransom ran down the hall to reception and they called 911, or whatever the Italian equivalent is. In the time it took for the responders to arrive the hotel guy and I fashioned a towel tourniquet and kept steady pressure on the wound.

Then things got really odd. Two paramedics arrived, followed in a separate group by three more! And what they saw was – nothing! The bleeding had stopped and there was virtually no sign of a problem, except for all the bloody tissues and towels lying about.

They took my vitals and everything was pretty normal, though my blood pressure was a bit low (100/80). After much discussion – with Ransom interpreting some of it – they told me to go about my day but perhaps add a bit more salt to my diet.

And that was it. Through the whole event I felt fine and so we went out for dinner, came back to the hotel and watched a movie on the laptop before going to bed. This morning I still feel normal. I tried, and failed, to get advice by phone from the Yale Health Plan last night; I’ll try again today. The most perplexing thing is that the blood at times shot out in a way I’ve only seen in movies. And of course I’m concerned that tomorrow we’re getting on a ship that is crossing the Atlantic – with little chance for land-based 911 service.

And a shout-out to my Republican friends who rail against the President’s so-called move toward socialized medicine: the caring Italians who showed up to help me asked me to sign a form. That was it. No proof of insurance demanded, no co-payment, no address to send bills to. I was in distress, they came to my response, they saw that I was all right. Isn’t that what government is supposed to do for its citizens? And the Italians even do it for their guests!