LJ Idol Week 6 - Solvitur ambulando
That week in 1970, when my life was about to end, is still very present in my memory to this day.
I was six years old, about to start elementary school.
My father was working on the Transalpine Pipeline, the system transporting crude oil from the Mediterranean to Germany. He always spent a few weeks in the different pumping stations, supervising repairs and safety controls, then he’d return home to Munich for some time.
In the spring of 1970, my mother and I travelled with him to Italy, planning to stay with him for two months, not far from the coastal town of Trieste, in the trailer camp of the pipeline workers.
At first, I had the time of my life - there were a lot of families from all over Europe living there, temporarily or permanently - and with a few boys my own age, I soon went on adventurous and sometimes dangerous trips every day.
But then, I fell ill. It began with a piercing headache, so strong I could not stay upright. Then came the fever, higher than anything I’d ever had before, and it did not go down with the usual home remedies, such as cold leg compresses, peppermint tea and baby aspirin. Instead, it continued to climb, with the headache getting worse and my nose bleeding so often and so much, that my parents, not anxious people at all, finally started to worry and look for a doctor.
There were none in the camp, but Ljubica, one of the women staying in a trailer near ours, was a trained nurse, who, after one look at me, told my parents in a mixture of Croatian and Italian, to bring me to the hospital in Trieste immediately.
And so I was loaded into our elderly Fiat and we travelled for about an hour over windy roads to the nearest ER. There, we settled in for a long wait in an uncomfortable, dirty room, me burning with fever and crying from the pain in my head. When I was finally seen by a doctor, the verdict arrived immediately and without any doubt. “Morbillo” - the measles. He wrote a prescription for Paracetamol and a vitamin juice and told my parents to keep me hydrated and confined to my bed for at least a week.
Back in the trailer, I continued to feel miserable, even if the pills were damping down the headache, but in the meantime I had developed the typical, itching red rash all over my body.
I remember looking at the blue sky from the window of my corner of the trailer and feeling very sorry for myself, knowing that the other kids were having fun outside.
After a week, I still had not improved. Now a deep, racking cough had joined the party too. One morning, my parents were afraid I was going to choke and so back it was in the car and to the ER. Where, after a set of x-rays, I was diagnosed with a massive case of pneumonia, which often turns up as a complication of an infection with the measles.
There was talk about keeping me in the hospital but, sick and weak as I was, I threw such an impressive tantrum, that my parents decided to take me back with them, together with a set of antibiotic injections to be given by Ljubica twice a day.
Alas, the pneumonia evidently was of the viral type and the only thing the antibiotics did, was working havoc on my intestines. Still, I was so afraid that I would be brought to the hospital and left there on my own, that I activated all my energies to seem more healthy than I actually was. And for a day or two I managed, but then, late one night, my mother woke up from a gurgling sound and found me semiconscious, my lips a shimmering blue in the light of the bedside lamp, nearly suffocated by the fluid in my lungs.
There were no telephones to call a doctor, as the only one hung in the little bar and restaurant that served the trailer camp, and that had closed after dinner. My mother ran to Ljubica’s trailer, imploring her to help me, and the experienced nurse immediately realised, that it was a question of life or death and that putting me into the car to bring me anywhere would have been be fatal.
She told my father to drive to the next telephone at the highway entrance and call for an ambulance. The earliest help would arrive in more than an hour though, and it was very obvious, that I would probably not survive that long in the state I was in. My mother was crying, helplessly, while I was barely wheezing in my bed, propped up half upright by cushions, too weak even to snap for air any more.
“Take arm” the nurse told my mother and grabbed my other side herself. Together, they dragged me outside and to my feet, but I was not strong enough to stand.
“You must walk” she ordered me, sternly.
I had no energy to protest, my legs were like rubber. I tried, but they gave in under me.
Ljubica showed my mother how to guide and support me, so my arms and legs would move my whole body, and they half carried, half walked me along a small path.
I just wanted to lie down, even the panic of not being able to breathe had no power to animate me any more. But the two women did not allow me to give up. They moved along, desperately pushing my left shoulder forward, then my right, again and again, with my feet dragging behind.
Breathing did not get easier and probably I had stopped trying by then, but the fluid movement of my shoulders and ribs was pushing a thin stream of air in and out of my lungs. Not enough though, I could feel myself slipping farther and farther away from my guardians, towards a cloudy tunnel full of strange colours and lights.
Only those hands forcing me upright and forward kept me anchored, and Ljubica’s constant, hoarse “walk! Walk! Must WALK, please” in my ear.
After what seemed an eternity, a siren whooped in the distance, coming nearer fast. My father had waited along the main road and showed them to where I was still being moved back and forth by the two women.
Immediately, a young doctor took over and I collapsed in his arms. I was intubated, given oxygen, and then raced to the hospital I so had tried to avoid.
For a few days, my lungs did not want to work on their own. There were tubes in and out of me with loud machines pumping air. My mother and Ljubica took turns at my bed, not leaving me alone for a single moment.
And after a while, the infection finally lost its grip and my young body began to recover. Only when I was about to leave, I fully started to realise, how close I had come to drowning - when the pulmonologist looked at my final x-ray and told my parents, that my lungs had been permanently scarred and I would have to pay attention to every and any infection in the future.
But also, that I had been incredibly lucky, because so much fluid had accumulated in my pulmonary tissue, that I was going into respiratory failure and, without the constant, forced motion of my chest while being walked, certainly would not have lived long enough for the ambulance to arrive.
We are still friends with Ljubica and I’ll be forever grateful to her for my life.
Walking, from then on, has always been my first aid of choice. For physical ailments, as well as those of the mind.
I was six years old, about to start elementary school.
My father was working on the Transalpine Pipeline, the system transporting crude oil from the Mediterranean to Germany. He always spent a few weeks in the different pumping stations, supervising repairs and safety controls, then he’d return home to Munich for some time.
In the spring of 1970, my mother and I travelled with him to Italy, planning to stay with him for two months, not far from the coastal town of Trieste, in the trailer camp of the pipeline workers.
At first, I had the time of my life - there were a lot of families from all over Europe living there, temporarily or permanently - and with a few boys my own age, I soon went on adventurous and sometimes dangerous trips every day.
But then, I fell ill. It began with a piercing headache, so strong I could not stay upright. Then came the fever, higher than anything I’d ever had before, and it did not go down with the usual home remedies, such as cold leg compresses, peppermint tea and baby aspirin. Instead, it continued to climb, with the headache getting worse and my nose bleeding so often and so much, that my parents, not anxious people at all, finally started to worry and look for a doctor.
There were none in the camp, but Ljubica, one of the women staying in a trailer near ours, was a trained nurse, who, after one look at me, told my parents in a mixture of Croatian and Italian, to bring me to the hospital in Trieste immediately.
And so I was loaded into our elderly Fiat and we travelled for about an hour over windy roads to the nearest ER. There, we settled in for a long wait in an uncomfortable, dirty room, me burning with fever and crying from the pain in my head. When I was finally seen by a doctor, the verdict arrived immediately and without any doubt. “Morbillo” - the measles. He wrote a prescription for Paracetamol and a vitamin juice and told my parents to keep me hydrated and confined to my bed for at least a week.
Back in the trailer, I continued to feel miserable, even if the pills were damping down the headache, but in the meantime I had developed the typical, itching red rash all over my body.
I remember looking at the blue sky from the window of my corner of the trailer and feeling very sorry for myself, knowing that the other kids were having fun outside.
After a week, I still had not improved. Now a deep, racking cough had joined the party too. One morning, my parents were afraid I was going to choke and so back it was in the car and to the ER. Where, after a set of x-rays, I was diagnosed with a massive case of pneumonia, which often turns up as a complication of an infection with the measles.
There was talk about keeping me in the hospital but, sick and weak as I was, I threw such an impressive tantrum, that my parents decided to take me back with them, together with a set of antibiotic injections to be given by Ljubica twice a day.
Alas, the pneumonia evidently was of the viral type and the only thing the antibiotics did, was working havoc on my intestines. Still, I was so afraid that I would be brought to the hospital and left there on my own, that I activated all my energies to seem more healthy than I actually was. And for a day or two I managed, but then, late one night, my mother woke up from a gurgling sound and found me semiconscious, my lips a shimmering blue in the light of the bedside lamp, nearly suffocated by the fluid in my lungs.
There were no telephones to call a doctor, as the only one hung in the little bar and restaurant that served the trailer camp, and that had closed after dinner. My mother ran to Ljubica’s trailer, imploring her to help me, and the experienced nurse immediately realised, that it was a question of life or death and that putting me into the car to bring me anywhere would have been be fatal.
She told my father to drive to the next telephone at the highway entrance and call for an ambulance. The earliest help would arrive in more than an hour though, and it was very obvious, that I would probably not survive that long in the state I was in. My mother was crying, helplessly, while I was barely wheezing in my bed, propped up half upright by cushions, too weak even to snap for air any more.
“Take arm” the nurse told my mother and grabbed my other side herself. Together, they dragged me outside and to my feet, but I was not strong enough to stand.
“You must walk” she ordered me, sternly.
I had no energy to protest, my legs were like rubber. I tried, but they gave in under me.
Ljubica showed my mother how to guide and support me, so my arms and legs would move my whole body, and they half carried, half walked me along a small path.
I just wanted to lie down, even the panic of not being able to breathe had no power to animate me any more. But the two women did not allow me to give up. They moved along, desperately pushing my left shoulder forward, then my right, again and again, with my feet dragging behind.
Breathing did not get easier and probably I had stopped trying by then, but the fluid movement of my shoulders and ribs was pushing a thin stream of air in and out of my lungs. Not enough though, I could feel myself slipping farther and farther away from my guardians, towards a cloudy tunnel full of strange colours and lights.
Only those hands forcing me upright and forward kept me anchored, and Ljubica’s constant, hoarse “walk! Walk! Must WALK, please” in my ear.
After what seemed an eternity, a siren whooped in the distance, coming nearer fast. My father had waited along the main road and showed them to where I was still being moved back and forth by the two women.
Immediately, a young doctor took over and I collapsed in his arms. I was intubated, given oxygen, and then raced to the hospital I so had tried to avoid.
For a few days, my lungs did not want to work on their own. There were tubes in and out of me with loud machines pumping air. My mother and Ljubica took turns at my bed, not leaving me alone for a single moment.
And after a while, the infection finally lost its grip and my young body began to recover. Only when I was about to leave, I fully started to realise, how close I had come to drowning - when the pulmonologist looked at my final x-ray and told my parents, that my lungs had been permanently scarred and I would have to pay attention to every and any infection in the future.
But also, that I had been incredibly lucky, because so much fluid had accumulated in my pulmonary tissue, that I was going into respiratory failure and, without the constant, forced motion of my chest while being walked, certainly would not have lived long enough for the ambulance to arrive.
We are still friends with Ljubica and I’ll be forever grateful to her for my life.
Walking, from then on, has always been my first aid of choice. For physical ailments, as well as those of the mind.