“Oh dear!” I say anxiously after I hobbled from one bed to the other, “Where is my arm?” “Look at that, you found it there,” the nurse says to me with a smile. My left arm is almost lying across my head. Completely numb.
Very friendly staff at the hospital in Figueira
How did I end up here? A stupid mistake with the table saw, which meant we had to race to the hospital with screaming sirens and a dangling fingertip. Broes behind the wheel, me holding my left hand together while muttering: “Stupid, stupid, stupid!”
The screaming sirens are just a figure of speech. Son Broes can drive well, normally, but in times of crisis like this he is really someone you can rely on. Just like the people in the hospital. Except for the lady from the administration, who insisted on registering me: “Sorry senhora, my driver’s license is in my pocket, but I can’t get it out because I have to hold my finger. I just sawed it off, you know.”
Broes was parking the car, and in the meantime the bureaucratic monster tried to squeeze between me and a team of Rescue Angels waiting, but luckily another senhora saw that it was serious, that I was quite pale around the nose, and that my hand was bleeding profusely.
Time to do something then
Before I knew it, I had passed the triage (no, that is not an extreme sport) and I was lying on a bed where one person and then another came to take a look and do something. Like: a pill under the tongue to make you feel a bit calmer, let a liquid run over my hand, smile at me, and stay very sweet and calm so that you can realize that your hand is indeed in good hands, and that those people know what they are doing.
A man in a white coat asked: “Do like this?” and held the tip of his index finger completely crooked. The others bent over my efforts, and after some muttering and talking back and forth, I was disinfected and temporarily bandaged by two very friendly nurses. The others had apparently set out a strategy. I just had to wait and see, in the bed in the hallway.
Someone came by to measure my blood pressure, then someone to check my heart (it was still there, although it was still shivering) and then someone to know the temperature. Then I had to hop onto another bed – not easy because by now there were all kinds of bags and tubes and clips attached to me – helped by the standard sweet friendly cheerful carers, who each and every one give you the impression that everything will be fine, leave that to them.
Well, gladly.
So I made a round through the hospital, from one bed to the next, to a real operating theatre with those cool lamps and people in green clothes. There were also yellow, white and blue uniforms. I was not only deeply impressed by all the professionalism and undoubtedly the drugs, but also by how typically Portuguese it was.
People were talking happily to each other, laughing, it almost seemed like a party. Later in the ward the same. The only not-so-happy people in the hospital are the patients. Logically, but that friendly, cheerful, happy, and at the same time compassionate helped me a lot.
Fantastic, now that’s what I call work ethic!
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We moved here in 2000 from Rotterdam, Holland to the Termas-da-Azenha, Portugal.
A big step, especially with two small children.
We are busy to rebuild one of portugals cultural heirlooms: Termas-da-Azenha, an old spa which has been turned into several holiday houses, rooms and a campsite.
You’ll find mosaics and paintings everywhere.
Since 2018 we call ourselves the first B&B&B in the world – Bed & Breakfast & Bathrobes. You can buy a home-made unique bathrobe/housecoat with us.
Each week a little blog about what is happening around us. An easy read. A few minutes in another world. A little about what it going on in Portugal. If you plan your holiday to Portugal, it might be a nice preparation
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