Back in July, I had a little operation done on a part of the body not mentioned on sites that don’t begin with XXX. It wasn’t serious but I didn’t really know that at the time, because it’s not something people often talk about, and it was hard to translate everything to know if the medical term really meant “worry” or just “be uncomfortable.” After the fact, I have discovered a lot of people I know went through the same thing.

I wanted to share my experience because the more you talk about it, the more you know…and of course, my ability to laugh at myself and the situations I get into doesn’t hurt, either.

One of the things I should have put on my “Firsts that count as Rites of Passage in Italy” list is

…a man who is not your boyfriend spends a lot of time between your legs.

I’m used to having a male gynecologist now – I had received some unwelcome test results from my US (female) gynecologist right after I got married in California in 2005, and I had only two days there before I left to go back to Italy. So I knew I would have to “take care of business” in Italy.

I have yet to run into a female gynecologist here in Italy – although at Pavia’s hospital there are several “in residence,” they are relegated to tasks like the Pap smear. Fellow expats…is there a plethora of female gynos where you are? Some female gyno stronghold I don’t know about?

This is not to say male doctors are not sensitive to the patient – there is always a female nurse present during the examination, and from what Michelle mentioned, they have another person present at all times when they’re….down there, even for routine things.

Sometimes other colleagues will stick their heads in from the adjoining room and talk to the doctor while he’s examining you, like yesterday. It doesn’t bother me, but I feel like raising up and saying, “As you can see, we’re open, come on in!”

Flash back to that day in July….(there’s humor here, I promise)

I sat with a dozen or so other ladies waiting for their turn at the day hospital. They called my name – I was one of the first up that morning. The nurse walked ahead of me through a short corridor then ending up…with us in the operating room.

She pointed at a chair – a plain chair, nothing special about it. Brown plastic without armrests. “Get undressed. Pants, socks, underwear. Put these on your feet and this on your head.”

She handed me a sea-foam green cap that I normally associate with all those ER-type shows and I thought, right, we’re in an operating room. In her hand there were also two long forest-green bootie-type things that came up to my knees when I put them on.

Luckily that day I didn’t have a baby tee on or a tank top as it was summer, and I was able to cover a few more millimeters of skin. But what shirt can really cover everything??

Though I was nervous as hell, I started laughing. All my hair is tucked up in this cap, I have a short-sleeved shirt on, I have these new-age booties on (and not even color-coordinated with the cap) and I have both fannies hanging out.

How can I maintain a sense of dignity?

I have used my “Cracker Jack” drawing skills to give you a better visual of what I looked like that morning. Anyone who knows me knows that sometimes I blush easily, leading to a flaming red face. Please, PLEASE laugh….it was a moment that I hope not to repeat but I may not be able to avoid. :)

But I got over the unease quite quickly. There’s not really any room for modesty when you’re talking about health.

I launched myself into the stirrups “giddy up!” and an angry woman came in, which I learned was to be my anesthetist. I was nervous this woman was going to be putting a large needle anywhere near me, but it went as well as it can go when talking about needles and nether regions. The operation didn’t take long, and there are a few sensations and memories I will keep to myself about it.

Fortunately, I have never experienced the uncleanliness that they mention in these recent expose’ about hospitals in Italy. Pavia has one of the best hospitals in the country, and I’m fortunate to be able to go there for this kind of stuff. Of course, the waiting rooms are nothing special (no magazines in the hospital for us) and are really just chairs lined up in the corridor outside the rooms, and are not reminiscent of the sterile-plasticized-helpful-parenting-posters-everywhere like back home. But, the operating room was spotless clean and all the instruments/machines looked new, and that’s what mattered to me. The examination rooms are also clean.

I went with a British friend to a gyno appointment in Rome in 2004 and there I felt the facilities were really grim – bad lighting, fold-up chairs that made up the waiting room, and a sense of dirt everywhere, though the doctor and nurse were friendly and professional. She asked me to come inside so I could help translate but I knew in her place I wouldn’t have wanted to be alone, either. I also went to the “emergency” services a few times but those rooms are really just examination rooms and are not like staying in the hospital. I expected a bit of chaos because, well, it’s an emergency.

I wish someone I knew had talked to me about having gone through this – more about the procedure I had done: LEEP – cervical biopsy – Colposcopy – Cervical Dysplasia

Luckily, there have been some advancements in the area of Cervical Cancer and its precursors just this year which may make this operation (and its cause) unnecessary in the future!

• FDA OKs first cervical cancer vaccine on CNN
• New Drug To Possibly Treat Cervical Dysplasia from NBC

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Like I promised, some “Best of Pavia”- not an exhaustive list, since I’m already working on my new one here in Milan!

Salate (Savoury) Stuff

Hostaria Il Cupolone website and white pages listing
via Cardinal Riboldi 2, Pavia – Tel. 0382/303519

A two-story hostaria, steps from the Duomo of Pavia was one of our later finds while living in Pavia.

One of the best things on the menu is the Tagliere Cupolone which means “cutting board.” And its name doesn’t lie – a spread of four different cold cuts or salumi are placed on a cutting board and brought out. Also they bring a selection of things depending on the season, including grilled eggplant/zucchini, marinated Borettane onions (this sounds weird but is delicious), Porcini mushrooms and beans, bruschetta, stuffed small tomatoes, or

They usually offer you an aperitivo, a pre-dinner drink which is usually prosecco, and a small bite to eat. This can be bruschetta but the last two times I was there, it was lardo, which sounds very similar to lard. That’s because it is. Being a big food-texture girl, and having already eaten it other times, I had to pass.

The fact that the menu changes often can be wonderful and also frightening until you get to know the restaurant well. We brought a few groups of people there and weren’t able to give recommendations because we hadn’t tried any of the new menu items. The restaurant itself was recommended to me by a fellow expat, Jennifer in Vigevano, who works in Pavia.

I recommend it for a nice, cozy dinner (the lighting is much lower than that of the pictures on the site) staying well in the city center – steps from the Duomo, thus the name. Their wine selection is also quite extensive.

We also liked Antica Trattoria Ferrari (via dei Mille, 111 – 0382-539025), which is just across the Ticino river and over the old covered bridge (and nearer to our old apartment). You can take the 1 bus from the center or the 3 bus from the station, changing in the center to the 1. Their tortelli di zucca con burro e salvia (pumpkin ravioli with a butter and sage sauce) was quite good.

A pizzeria that was excellent, and right near our house (take-away!) is Ristorante Pizzeria Italia. Via Bramante, 8 – tel. 0382 25 086

The name is confusing – is it a pizzeria, or a restaurant? The answer is both. In fact, they are known for their seafood offerings. Sante and I never really took them up on it being as he was born in a port town and my stepdad the fisherman brought us fresh fish often, we weren’t sure they would live up to their reputation. They were packed almost every night of the week.

But their pizza is quite good! This was my favorite pizza, the Norma with salame piccante added. You’ll think I’m crazy but I’m really getting into pepperoncino, hot pepper.

Sweet Stuff

Other than the famous Cornetto (the Royal Cappuccino is my current fav) which kicks the Drumstick’s butt (sorry, no patriotism when it comes to ice cream), nothing really compares to Italian gelato bought straight from the gelateria (jeh-lah-teh-REE-ah). Even if we did have room in our old freezer (it was 6 inches tall and one foot wide), I wouldn’t keep much ice cream in it.

Sante and I have made it a quest to find the good ice cream wherever we go. And it’s something that we can just sense – what takes an ice cream from the mediocre to the great! It’s in the texture and aftertaste. I have been known to thrown away mediocre ice cream – I don’t owe them anything!

Gelateria La Perla (white pages)
Viale Ludovico Il Moro, 39 – 0382 468913

It’s situated a little further from the city center, but the 1 bus (towards Rione Scala) stops right near it. They have a nice covered patio area in front with lots of seating as well as some seating inside (good for the winter!).

They don’t get very adventurous with their flavors, but what they do have is always good. In winter, they have probably 10-15 flavors available and they increase this by another 5-10 in summer, usually more fruit flavors. Their pistacchio is always creamy and the right, natural color green. Never buy the fluorescent green kind. Ever.

One of the best flavors they have is Biscotti, cookies. Not the cookie dough kind you may be used to, but pieces of real cookie mixed in with chocolate and (egg) cream flavors. Very good!

Gelateria Da Cesare (white pages)
15 Corso Garibaldi – 0382 25074

I mentioned this place in a previous post about their wonderful hot chocolate with the homemade zabaione. In the dead of winter, people were taking away big tubs of their ice cream, so you know that’s good, too. The place itself is tiny so expect a wait if you want to sit down, and if it’s winter, hope you can squeeze inside to wait.

An add-on to the above mention of Pizzeria Ristorante Italia is their desserts. They had a full dessert case every night of the week with homemade Tiramisu, Pastiera, even cheesecake! Our favorite are the Profiteroles, which are actually French, not Italian. Little cream puffs covered in chocolate. These are the “Nero” version, dark outside, white inside, and they also have the reverse which is great.

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We had grand plans for leaving Pavia – we were going to make the rounds at all of our favorite places, have a nice dinner (with real tablecloths!) out, eat a big ice cream at one of the best gelaterias in Italy, and go for leisurely bike rides to remember the green countryside and beautiful sunsets.

What happened is a frantic stuffing of items into boxes, grining and bearing it through countless train delays, braving the mosquitoes to get a pizza a portar via (to go) or to watch the game in the few minutes we were still awake before collapsing into bed. Needless to say, it wasn’t the most beautiful way to say goodbye to a home we lived in for over a year and a half.

Therefore, I’ve decided to do a virtual goodbye tour through Pavia, with some highlights and addresses that you can use if you ever decide to go there, which I’ll post soon.

But first, I’ll leave you with a view of what happens when the suoceri (SWOH-chair-ee) from Puglia come into town for the weekend. This must have been one of the most expensive home-delivered meals ever. La Melanzane Parmiggiana (Eggplant parmesan) Notice our little mozarella nodini, little knots, in the background.

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We are leaving PAVIA!! I have to say, I’m excited. We’re moving to Milan in July and the days of spending 3 hours commuting are soon to be over! We’ll be moving to a pretty cool area in Milan, walking distance from bars, discos, movie theaters and lots of restaurants, and…only 15 minutes walking to my office. WOOT!

I am starting to collect some photos to post my “Best of Pavia” series in a few weeks. Let me know if you have any requests, and stay tuned.

I tried to catch up on my inbox a bit this weekend. I used to be a lightning-speed responder and now I’m lucky if I get to the email in a week. I like email, and it’s a natural medium for me, just like instant messaging. But I know some others out there are a little more email-challenged. Like those of you who haven’t responded to my emails in quite a while.

To quote a good friend of mine, “I really like receiving email, and reading them. I don’t really like responding, though. And this seems to affect me receiving more.”

Therefore, for the sake of progression and bettering humankind, I have decided to help you, my fellow human being.

Following in the steps of the famed MadLibs, I have created the “Easy Email Responder.” You are all welcome to use it and help those afflicted. (If you have writer’s block, you can fill out the World’s Longest MadLib)

How it works is you write your email as usual to the recipient. Then, after your salutation, you paste the Easy Email Responder you prepared so that the person can reply and then fill in your prepared blanks.

Easy!

Here’s an example of a real EER I sent to a friend today. (Parentheses to be changed by you, blanks by the responder)

Hi Sara –

It was nice to hear from you, and thanks for asking about (my relationship). So, to fill you in, (Francesco) is __________________. I think _______________. At least, I __am/am not__ pregnant, thank god!

My job is __________ and maybe I’ll ___________ in the future.

Most recently, I’ve been spending my time _______________. This summer, I’m going to ____________ and ____________, and if I get really lucky, I’ll _____________.

Other than that, things are _____________. My (family) is ________________, and in _________ we’re _________ together.

I hope we’ll be able to visit you ______________. Maybe we’ll see you at the Heathrow airport!

So, how are things with you?

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Related Articles at Ms. Adventures in Italy:

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• Saying goodbye to Pavia
• Pavia: the Last Frontier