\u201cI think I need to go to a doctor, there\u2019s something weird happening to my stomach when I do a sit-up. Look at this,\u201d says Ronan lying on the bed beside me and does a sit up. A pointy ridge rises down the centre of his belly as his stomach muscles tighten. \u201cRonan what the hell is that? It looks like an alien baby is about to burst through your skin.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHa ha Rosemary\u2019s baby! Get it?!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSeriously, that looks serious.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah I googled it, I think it\u2019s a herniated aorta.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t be ridiculous your aorta goes to your heart.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt also goes down the centre of your stomach, do you not know anything?\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019m immediately on my phone googling \u201cWhere is Aorta?\u201d and I get a small town in the Netherlands. So I cut to the chase and google Aorta abdominal hernia. \u2018For God\u2019s sake Ronan that\u2019s life threatening, when did you notice this?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAbout a week ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd you are only mentioning it now?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought it would go away.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018What? You thought your aorta would go away?\u201d I\u2019m already texting our Italian friend and neighbour Anna to ask her to help us make an appointment with the doctor and I explain why. She is on it immediately and has an appointment made for later that morning.<\/p>\n
As we are not yet full residents in Italy we have not been assigned a doctor and thankfully we have had no cause to go to one up until now, other than me with my frozen shoulder. She\u2019s an older no bullshit doctor, who doesn\u2019t speak english so Anna has to come with us to our medical appointments until we get better at Italian. When I asked payment on my last visit, via Anna, the doctor said \u201cYou can owe me lunch at your family\u2019s restaurant\u201d, to Anna. Seems like a fair deal, I drag my Italian neighbour to be an unpaid translator and she then in turn gets to pay for my treatment by giving the doctor a free lunch.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe is a very good doctor,\u201d Anna had explained on the way for my shoulder visit. \u201cI have gone to her all my life\u201d.<\/p>\n
I did previously question Anna\u2019s judgement of the doctor\u2019s worthiness when she told me the three-choice prescription she gave to Anna for stress. \u201cYou need to take up meditation or get a strong man to help you with the farm or take up smoking.\u201d<\/p>\n
So Ronan goes to the doctor and illustrates the problem by doing a sit-up. Her first reaction, \u201cWhy you do sit-ups? You are too old to be caring about a six pack.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause I want to stay fit?\u201d<\/p>\n
She tuts. \u201cIt is not your aorta, it is your stomach muscles, they have detached and separated. You need to stop doing sit-ups, you will never have a flat stomach because of this. But I will send you for a scan anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat causes it?\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>asks Ronan. \u201cOften pregnancy\u2026 but in your case probably lifting heavy objects.\u201d<\/p>\n A penny drops for me. \u201cOh my God\u2026 could that have happened to me during pregnancy? Does that explain why I haven\u2019t been able to get a flat stomach for the last 24 years no matter how hard I try?\u201d<\/p>\n She looks at me. \u201cyes probably\u2026 It is too late now for you.\u201d<\/p>\n We leave the surgery both written off as wrecks doomed for Tellytubby Land for all of eternity and with another promise of a free lunch from Anna. She still hasn\u2019t taken advantage of the last one, I\u2019m expecting her to arrive someday at the restaurant with a list of guests and the dates of our medical appointments beside each one she is owed dinner for.<\/p>\n At least we know that Ronan isn\u2019t going to explode.<\/p>\n The private medical clinic for Ronan\u2019s scan is just down the road. It\u2019s a fantastic facility, modern, clean, no waiting. His scan confirms the doctors prognosis, no more sit-ups are prescribed and no heavy lifting, which I know Ronan will ignore. The technician has time so he offers to scan Ronan\u2019s kidneys, liver and whatever else he finds \u2013 it\u2019s like when we go to the vet, she gives the pets a full checkup while there for no extra fee. And like our pets, Ronan has a clean bill of health. So we buy a gelato on the way home to celebrate Ronan not being pregnant with an alien baby and both of us never having to do sit ups again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cI think I need to go to a doctor, there\u2019s something weird happening to my stomach when I do a sit-up. Look at this,\u201d says Ronan lying on the bed beside me and does a sit up. A pointy ridge rises down the centre of his belly as his stomach muscles tighten. \u201cJezuz Christ Ronan what the hell is that? It looks like an alien baby is about to burst through your skin.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2488,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[235],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-how-much-does-it-cost-to-live-in-italy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosiemeleady.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosiemeleady.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosiemeleady.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosiemeleady.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosiemeleady.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2487"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/rosiemeleady.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2487\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2491,"href":"https:\/\/rosiemeleady.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2487\/revisions\/2491"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosiemeleady.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosiemeleady.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosiemeleady.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosiemeleady.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}