Week Thirty Four

Lads now I thought this week was going to be great what with starting my new job and everything falling into place, but you know what they say - he giveth, and he taketh the fuck away.

Monday 7th June

Who gives a flying fionnuala.

Tuesday 8th June

Pales in comparison to the upcoming horror.

Wednesday 9th June

Ooh I'm all excited! Today I get to start my new job in Milan. Got up, did meself up to the nines, headed off on the train. Had some stomach cramps but put it down to being over excited.

Had a great first day, rocked that shit and was going home all smug after my shift. By now the cramps were really strong, but shur I only have to stick it out for 30 minutes on the train and then BBB is waiting for me at the station in Pavia.

One stop. Crampy crampy cramp cramp. Hang in there Jennie girl, only a few more stops to go.

Second stop. Grit the teeth. Grit them!

Third stop. Oh Christ, oh Jesus!

Whump!

That's the sound of my skull cracking off the ground.

Draaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag.

That's the sound of me being dragged off the train onto the platform.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzip!

That's the sound of my trousers being unzipped by one of fifty thousand crowder arounders.

Mee maw mee maw mee maw!

That's the sound of the ambulance coming along.

"Christ look at the colour of her!"

That's the sound of the first thing the ambulance man said.

Lads I was terrified. I didn't know what the fuck was going on. I only had a few cramps like. Now I was lying on the platform and my hands and legs were seizing up and my face was gone numb. And the cramps, the cramps!

On the way to the ambulance as the ceiling tiles whizzed by the ambulance man looked down at me and said "Are you pregnant?"

"No", I said.

"Oh", he goes.

Oh? Oh??!!! What the fuck does that mean? Now that really scared the shit out of me. All sorts of things started going through my fuzzy head. I was like:

Pleeeeeeeeeease don't let me be having a miscarriage when I didn't even know I was pregnant! Please God let my imaginary baby be ok!

Then I started thinking maybe I was having an ectopic pregnancy like Christina out of Grey's Anatomy.

They took me off to some hospital in Milan. I didn't know me own name, never mind where I was. I couldn't collapse in Pavia like, oh no. I had to do it away from home. Anyway they wheeled me into the emergency room where there were approximately five thousand people and left me on the trolley.

I have never felt so alone or so far away from home in my life.

Some student doctor came over and started asking me questions but my face was still seized up and I couldn't move my mouth to talk. Then they left me on the trolley against the wall.

And lads I was in pain. I was wriggling around the trolley and roaring and screaming. And would you blame me like, I was fucking delirious and my muscles were all spasming. I was fucking terrified.

Then some lovely woman who was there with her Mammy came over and she was like

"Are you in terrible pain love? You poor thing!"

I managed a mangled:

"Please hold my hand."

The she was holding my hand and minding me and her Mammy came over and was rubbing my little feet and kissing my forehead and pinching my cheeks.

Now can we all just take a minute to mentally send out good vibes to these two women.

Ohmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...ok.

I thought to myself, thank GOD these two just happened to be here at the same time as me! Then the daughter looked down at me and she said:

"Do you believe in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ?"

"Eh...yeah", I goes.

What like? I was hardly going to say

"Actually Missus, Jesus and Mary and all the rest of them lads aren't real, they are only symbols of the strength we already have inside ourselves so instead of praying to them for strength you should be looking inside yourself for it."

There's a time and a place, people.

So anyway there I am in some hospital in Milan, half dead on a trolley being minded by some lovely women.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

BBB has been waiting for me at the Pavia train station. He has been calling and calling my phone, which has been dead for hours. My train hasn't come in yet, and there's an announcement:

"The 20.30 train from Milan has been delayed an hour due to a medical emergency."

"Everything is ok", he keeps telling himself.

The train pulls up. A girl gets off.

"Are you waiting for your girlfriend?" she says to him.

Sweat starts rolling down his back.

"I am."

"Is she small and blonde and foreign?"

Mini stroke.

"She is."

"They took her away in an ambulance, she's alright though."

Sprints onto the next train to Milan.

The train departs and the conductor comes along.

Sidenote: conductors are Nazis.

"Where's your ticket, son?"

"That was MY missus that got taken away at Milano Rogoredo!"

"Jesus Christ. She was in a bad way. No problem, boy, no need for a ticket here".

BBB then got off the train at Milano, got the underground to the last stop and then sprinted the 47 miles to the hospital along a field that a road sweeper told him to take as a short cut.

I'm sure his muscles were rippling as he was doing it.

I wouldn't be surprised if he swang on a vine at some point.

Meanwhile the two ladies that were minding me had to go and they took my number and then everyone else in the room stepped up to the plate. My phone was taken out of my handbag and charged, someone rang BBB for me, someone let me use their phone to call one of my clients to drive up to Milano and pick me up. My head was stroked, my cheeks were pinched, my face was kissed, my feet were rubbed.

I was still dying though. And I'll tell you one thing lads, you are NEVER too old to need your Mammy!

The next thing, BBB comes flying around the corner, "Amore!"

I have never been so relieved before in my life.

He looks around.

"Where's the doctor here? Who's in charge? Nurse!"

I fell in love all over again.

Then my client and her husband came in. I love this woman, she is my Italian Mammy. I always say that if anything ever happened to me I'd call her straight away and I did and she drove straight up to get me.

After a few hours of being ignored and being handed a plastic bag to puke into (thanks lads, thanks a mil. Not even a kidney dish like) I thought I felt better so we decided to go home.

BBB brought me home to bed and put his arms around me.

"Go to sleep now Amore it's all over."

Yeah, it was all over, right?

Wrong.

Thursday 10th June

Mother of the divine Lord!

Woke up with unbelievable cramps.

Balled my head off because I was down to work today and I didn't want to give a bad impression but christ like, I could barely stand.

BBB brought me to A&E.

I was seen straight away. They took blood, they x-rayed my stomach, they put me on a drip. The next thing the (smokin hot) doctor busts in.

"Jesus girl I don't know how you're standing, you have no feckin haemoglobin, you need a blood transfusion. BBB - go home and pack her bag, she will be here a few days."

No! Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Ok let me explain.

I am the ultimate world's most squeamish person. I have no problem with injections, they are grand. Giving blood however, I can't even think or talk about it and I have to sit down. Drips as well. Rotten. Blood transfusions? Look, I'm grand, I'll just die, thanks.

So BBB went home to get my things and I'm not ashamed to say lads, I had a little cry on the chair. It was just all too much like. Far away from home, collapsing on the train, the whole ambulance thing, blood transfusion. Enough like, I'm supposed to be prancing around Lush rubbing cream into people's arms right now.

So then the ambulance man came to take me to my room. I stumbled up the hall anyway with cartoon birdies flying around my head and this young fella in a white coat goes,

"Here she is now! She's pale, but she's on her feet!"

They took me to my room. I faceplanted on the bed.

The young fella is my doctor. He tells me he is the same age as me. I don't know how I feel about this. The male nurse comes in to give me an ECG. There is a booby show. I silently thank God for my perfectly formed mammaries.

Then I am whisked away for 47 thousand tests in quick succession. One of them is a TAC where it's the scan yoke where they inject you with contrast fluid. Of course now I don't know anything about these things, so I didn't know the contrast fluid is hot. First it burned the fucking hand off me and I roared with the fright. Then it went down me main artery into my groin and it was all hot and it happened so fast I thought I was after weeing on myself!

I was lying there like "Oh Christ when I get up now I hope there's not a big wet patch on the table - morto!" But then the nurse came in and goes "did that burn the bod off you girl? It's roastin alright"

Thank fuck.

Then after 42 squillion more tests they brought me back to the room and put me on a 7 thousand drips. BBB slept in the plastic chair with his head on the pillow next to mine. I was awake all night with my head turned away from the drip, so as to avoid projectile vomiting.

Friday 11th June

Had to battle my way to the loo, wheeling the drip along with me, and subsequently mangling it past the cleaning trolley that was parked in the door of the loo.

And lo! Mother Nature's Monthly Gift! What joy! What fun!

Go back to the room anyway with my "I-just-got-mother-nature's-monthly-gift-now-you-have-to-feel-sorry-for-me-for-5-days" look on my face.

"Ah love, did you get your menstruation?" he goes. "Into the bed now til I mind ya".

A short while after the nurse comes in.

"Signorina you are booked for a gyno visit at half one."

Kill me.

I count the seconds til half one.

They wheel me away past the pregnancy clinic. Loads of pregnant knackers are lurking around with their fat knacker impregnators, gawkin up into my face. We get to the waiting room and they leave me in there with pregnant starers. Gawkin up into my face and talking about me overright me, discussing all the drip yokes stickin out of me and the gauze taped to my arms in the seventeen places they took blood from between yesterday and today.

If I wasn't half dead I'd say somthing smart.

The next thing the doctor comes in "Jennifer, you're with me."

Of course it's man.

Of course it is like.

Anyway we go into the room which is a room within a room. The door of the inner room is open. Obviously I assume this is because the outer door is locked and guarded by fire breathing dragons so I assume the position and he gets down to doing what he does best.

Then next thing some wan walks in.

"Giovanni boy I don't know what the fuck I did with that box of gloves I had earlier, well Missus how are ya" she goes and starts rooting in some drawer.

Eh....hello like? Bit of privacy like?

While she is rooting in the drawer another wan walks in "That file is out there on the table for you. I'm going to the shop do you want anything? Howeyeh Missus." she says to us, so close to my undercarriage that it nearly had an echo.

Lads. Come on now. Italians just take the biscuit with this kind of shit. They really don't give a fuck about privacy or anything like that.

Then we went into another room for part deux. "Lep up there Ms. Jack-es" he goes, pointing to a stirruped bed in front of an open window. Just an open window like, looking out onto Pavia. Hang on til I whip out Fifi now to make friends with a passing builder.

Afterwards anyway he said all is perfect and well in my lady garden, thank god. I was lovely and relieved then so when they took me back to my room I went for a nice nap with BBB minding me.

So just a tangent here people: THIS is the reason why I always wear nice matching underwear and have my lady garden perfect at all times. Because you never know when some strange man is going to put a probe up your Mary Bridget. My mother laughs at me and tells me I am obsessed and have a problem with the whole matching lovely underwear thing but at the end of the day when I was lying on the train platform and they opened my trousers I didn't give a shite because I knew I was wearing something fabulous. Ladies: let this be a lesson to ye!

Anyway then they gave me antibiotics and I slept like a dead body in the bed.

Saturday 12th June

Yesssss! I get to go home today! I had an infection in my intestines but it seems to be gettin better and my bloods are back up to normal levels. BBB comes to get me and I hobble home down the road.

There is nothing like getting back into your own bed lads.

Now can we just take a moment to reflect on how amazing BBB has been through all this. He never left my side for a second and he fought for me to get the best reatment the whole way. He held my little feet and told me I was the most beautiful woman in the world even when I was cockeyed in the bed with a big unwashed head on me.

God he really loves me.

And I really love him.

Despite all the terrible things that happened this week, I am one lucky bitch.