Dave & Meredith's Travel Blog

I’ll keep it short.

It turns out that one of the most famous/best orthopedic institutes in the world is in Bologna (Rizzoli Institute).  We learned that the best thing to do would be to go to the emergency room there, take a number, and wait for a doctor to see me – we were told to expect a long wait.  I think we waited about 5 minutes before they called me, and we were in and out of the hospital in about an hour – so much different than the last experience.

The doctor told me that my ankle was dislocated but I probably didn’t tear my ligament (that mystery is solved!).  When he took the cast off and tested my ankle, it hurt a lot less than it had before, so that’s encouraging, but it was all shades of black and purple! They didn’t let Dave in the room with me or else I’d surely have a picture to show you.  Unfortunately, the doctor wants me to stay off of my ankle for at least another 8 days, so after he looked at it, he put the cast back on with new gauze, and told me to see another orthopedic doctor in about a week.  I’ll be in Merano then in the Dolomites – he said there is a great orthopedic center there too.  I still have to keep injecting the anti-coagulant as well.  On the upside, I do have new, clean cotton and gauze on my cast, so, that’s obviously a plus. 🙂

I had prepared myself to be told that I needed a cast for the next month, so I wasn’t too disappointed with the news.  But when I told Dave what the doctor said, he looked crestfallen.  I think he had really hoped that I would get a walking cast and be a bit more mobile.  He’s done the lion’s share of lifting, carrying, wheeling, helping, looking to see what’s around the next corner to see if it’s worth me hobbling over there, and generally seeing less than he would have seen if he was on his own, or if I was more mobile, etc. since the incident, so it would have been great for both of us if the cast had come off.  Maybe next week – stay tuned.

– Meredith