“It says there is an ER not far from here.” I was looking at my phone just after midnight, my husband laying next to me, ashen. My beloved had been vomiting for two days, and my trips to the Farmacia to purchase electroliti had seemed fruitless.
We were in our second night of tossing and turning, punctuated by mad dashes to the bathroom, when I finally put my foot down: we need to go to the ER. At the very least, I reasoned, there would be IV fluids. We threw some clothes on and this was how I found myself racing through the ancient city of Ragusa just after midnight, winding through the cobblestone streets which were clearly not designed for cars.
It all started two nights before, after staying in the World’s Most Charming Farm Stay (TM) in Agrigento. Every evening we drank dry red Sicilian wine, petting the farm cats and wandering through the gardens as the heavy yellow sun dropped behind the fields. This, we thought, was a holiday.
When we ate at a restaurant that promised true Sicilian Pizza, we were not let down. It was an Italian vision: beautiful local salami topped with farm fresh arugula, tomatoes so fresh they burst in your mouth, olives brined just down the street, salty and perfect, all atop a thin crisp crust, bubbled from the wood-fired oven.
We had so much left over it seemed a waste to leave it on the table, so we packed it up and threw it in the small fridge at our farm stay. The next morning we faced Questionable Choice Number One: What do we do with all this leftover pizza? My beloved determined that the pizza, barely cooled from our mildly functioning fridge, must come with. A snack for later, he reasoned, and I shrugged as he threw it on the floor of our small Fiat 500.
The next two hours we drove through the scorching hot countryside, when we approached Questionable Choice Number Two. Pulled on the side of the road to breathe in the rolling countryside, my beloved reached for the pizza.
I eyed it suspiciously, the arugula now badly wilted and the salami glistening with beads of meat sweat. “Hmm,” I said, standing on the side of the road as my husband lifted the piece to his mouth, “That looks…maybe…bad?” He shrugged me off and offered me a bite. I shook my head, reasoning that I was saving myself for more Arancini down the road.
These two questionable choices was what had led us here, to the grim healthcare system that is rural Sicily. Gurneys lined the waiting room, the rest of the space empty save for a handful of chairs, a low flickering neon light, and walls that appeared to be crumbling around us.
Hours passed and finally we felt our fate was about to change. Our name was called and we were led to a gurney, where a woman, who presumably was the doctor, began examining my beloved.
I had been studying Italian for the past two years, but here everything I knew slipped from my brain. I realized I was out of my league.
He has been vomiting for two days, I punched into Google translate.
The doctor took my phone, tapping her response, and so it went, back and forth, a stilted modern note passing.
Has he had Covid? She typed back to me. I shook my head. She stared at me for a beat.
Never? She seemed dumbfounded.
On that, she spun on her heels and we were led out the waiting room, outside to a portable building, where a nurse broke the news through our app: You are in quarantine until your Covid test comes back. We looked at each other confused – he had already been given a Covid test? I asked through Google translate, grateful the app could take the sting out of my delivery.
A different Covid test. We were shepherded to a new area, and, alone at last, we curled up on the gurney together and slept, our Italian holiday in first class accommodations.
Several hours later we discovered my beloved did not have Covid. There were no IVs, no fluids, no offers of food or nourishment. After another few hours of waiting to be dismissed, we left the ER to the warm Sicilian sun, my beloved willing himself better so we might continue our magical holiday.
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