Just a bit of catching up now that I’m able to get back to my laptop. In case my blog readers were wondering what happened to me regarding medical matters, the coronarography at San Luca hospital Lucca did not go well. There was too much calcium in the heart arteries and to force one’s way through with a stent would have been tantamount to pushing a passage through a bottle with a very thin glass wall.

I was returned to Castelnuovo hospital and told to prepare for a major operation. I could choose between various hospitals for this to be carried out but chose Careggi hospital in Florence as it has a very good reputation and because I have some relatives who live close by. The ambulance came for me on the 3^rd of January and I was almost immediately wheeled into the operating theatre. It was a very cold evening and the auxiliary staff had to keep warm in an adjoining room when not on duty.

I clearly cannot remember anything about the operation except to be informed, when waking up, that it was completely successful and that I was now fitted with four aortic by-passes and two heart valves. I was wheeled into the intensive care section where I felt like an accessory to that classic film ‘Alien’ since various tubes appeared to emerge from my body, which I could barely move, I remember feeling very thirsty but I was not in any particular pain. I was not very hungry and, indeed, managed to eat just enough of the ‘cibo’ bianco’ (white food i.e. semolina, rice, fruit pulp, ricotta cheese) to keep going.

The hospital staff in all this was absolutely brilliant, even coping with that first night when I felt like I was in some ghastly endless quite nightmarish scenario. Around the third day I received my first visitor, who had to be clad in protective clothing. It was my wife’s Florentine cousin and I was sure glad to meet her! A couple days later I was transported out of intensive care into a ward I recognised as the one I had first been wheeled into when I was ambulanced to Careggi. Here Sandra finally reached me and it was so wonderful to see her again. (I think she must have been more concerned than I was about the whole palaver). It was not long now that my journey back to Castelnuovo Hospital began. Here I stayed in a ward until the doctors decided that I was in a safe enough condition to be discharged.

It’s now a week that I am back home but the tough work begins! Already I’ve had a week of physio with two gym sessions and two cycle ones in good company with three other similarly afflicted patients and supervised by two very efficient lady psychotherapists. Today, it being such a sweet, almost spring-like day, I’ve managed my second walk down to the little local church and also indulged my first session on my laptop keyboard.

I praise the Supreme Being for being where I am and with who I am now. I do feel really lucky and promise I shall regard each new morning that greets me with ever more gratitude.