Medicine, Italian Style

TODAY I LOOK LIKE A FISH! Yesterday I fell on some uneven pavement and landed flat on my face with what felt like a mouthful of broken teeth. No broken nose this time. This happened at an autostrada stop not far from home. What followed was five hours of waiting ending in trauma.
I was taken in an ambulance with an attendant smelling of beer who threw some used latex gloves on the ground before getting into the ambulance, and me telling him to tell David where he was taking me. The ride was rough, the smell of the vehicle's exhaust filling the space while I was hanging on, not wanting to roll off the guerney while trying to hold an ice bag on my mouth.

At the ER, I filled out a paper with my name, address and birth date and waited for David to arrive with my documenti. Then, four hours of waiting in a small packed room watching ambulance after ambulance pull up to the door, Looney Tunes on the television, no water fountain, I began to lose it. But the worst was yet to come.

I was led into a room. The nurse never looked back to see me struggling out of the wheelchair. David had gone out briefly at that time. She had her back to me in the room the whole time.
David, thank god, came back then.

The doctor rushed in while talking to someone in the other room, sat at a table across the room, looked at my papers and said, "You have to see an orthodontist tomorrow."
David- "But she needs stitches!"
Doctor, angrily- "I'll get to it."
I said something too and he responded angrily.
He looks at my lip, tells me to lay down. Never gives me his name, never tells me what he is doing, and proceeds to sew up my lip while talking in a loud voice to someone who could have been in the other room. I began to cry and it hurt.
Doctor- "Don't cry. It's not bad"
Then I think he begins to use some liquid topical anesthesia but is still talking loudly and non-stop to others. At that point I pounded my legs and arms on the guerney and yelled- Be quiet!
Doctor- "Calm down, signora"
David, sitting across the room, "Too much noise!"
Me,crying and yelling, "I've been waiting four hours. I am stressed. You are being insensitive." I don't think he liked that I used the familiar verb form with him. He became sarcastic. If I made any noise when he stuck in the needle, he said, "Is that bad, dear? It's nothing. It doesn't hurt."
When he finally finished, I was shaking all over. David said that I needed some Ativan. The nurse got me a dose. All I wanted to do was get the hell out of there.
We left shortly after.
My upper lip is grossly swollen and sutured. One of my front teeth is badly chipped and the gums are numb. I don't know if the chipped tooth has moved; it doesn't seem to be loose.
Next adventure, Italian Dentistry!