In the spring of 2021, I noticed a new ache in my left hip. Being of a certain age, I didn’t think much of it and chalked it up to simply growing, ahem, older. I was 50. At my next physical I brought it up to my doctor who dismissed it and suggested yoga.
So I took up yoga, but the pain was getting worse. I went back to the doctor who then suggested I lose ten pounds. OK, done. Pain still there and worsening. I decided to visit a chiropractor, a young slim man who tugged and turned and cracked my entire body. I visited him weekly for three months. Still, no relief from the pain. From the little information I found online, I pieced together a self-diagnosis or perimenopause-related aches and pains. Growing old it is.
Fast forward three years and I have made the bold decision to relocate my family, two school aged sons, three cats and a dog, to southern Italy — a decision I did not take lightly. I traveled to Italy many times in the past, beginning in college with my parents, then a few times with my late husband, then again with kids in tow. After the sudden death of my husband in 2020 at a young age, 48, I began questioning everything from the meaning of life, to happiness, to religion, and everything in between. While mired in grief, I had several friends staying with me helping out with the kids and animals and my general sanity.
During one of our nightly talks which inevitably ended with me sobbing, we discussed the future. Our futures. My future. I knew I didn’t want to stay where I was in suburban coastal Connecticut, but I wasn’t sure where I wanted to land. I assumed somewhere in Europe. A trip to Italy was soon planned. My good friend Karen has family in the Abruzzo region of Italy and suggested we visit there. I was immediately sold and put an offer on a house on the spot. My thought was, I’ll have an investment property which I can use with the kids, friends and family and when my sons get out of school I will go there full time. Better food, better climate, friendly locals, breathtakingly beautiful scenery, and of course, universal health care, all factored into my decision to buy.
But not just universal health care — far superior health care. Longer life expectancy, even. After two years of visiting Italy back and forth, amid a growing concern for the political direction in which the United States was headed, I made the decision that life was too short to bide my time waiting to be where I knew I should be. Where I felt a belonging I hadn’t felt in a long time. I packed up and moved to Italy.
After settling into life in the country, complete with the initial culture shock and irritating bureaucracy, I felt more and more like a local. I was a legal resident with all the benefits that entails, including the coveted “tessera sanitaria," the Italian health care card. It wasn’t long after my move that the pain in my hip grew increasingly worse and it deteriorated quickly. My Italian boyfriend suggested I get an MRI for my hip. Utter nonsense, I thought. MRIs are several thousand dollars and are reserved for life or death scenarios or people like Beyoncé. He assured me it is different in Italy, so the appointment was made. Three days later I was in the clinic getting an MRI.
The following week I picked up my results — in Italian naturally — and made an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon to decipher the results. He took one look at them and the accompanying images and declared “oh, you need complete hip replacement surgery." And I was put on the schedule three weeks after my visit.
In total, from the suggestion of getting an MRI from my boyfriend, to the scheduled date of surgery was less than a month. I was flabbergasted. I had been living my life for nearly four years with no cartilage in my hip, bone scraping bone, bone spurs forming and joint thickening. I can still hear my physician in Connecticut say “try yoga."
My doctor gave me a brief description of what I was to expect from surgery: three days in the hospital, followed by 22 days in a rehabilitation center with twice daily physical therapy and meals designed for optimal nutrition. And the best part, my doctor said smiling, “brace yourself: this is all free. I know you’re not used to that as an American.” Boy, that was the understatement of the year.
I went through surgery with flying colors. I was in the hospital for two days with a morphine drip — gotta love the European attitude towards pain management — followed by my stay in the rehab center. I had a private room, which did cost extra, to the tune of 80 euros per day. I requested a private room in New York City when I had my oldest son and was told it would be upwards of $2,000 dollars a day. Needless to say I had a shared room with another screaming baby and new mother in New York.
In light of the current French Revolution-type of discontent with the health care industry, I am grateful I made the bold decision to move to Italy and enjoy the benefits of free health care. In the United States, hip replacement is often an outpatient procedure which after having endured it myself, I find preposterous. We need time to heal, not the boilerplate: "you’re as well as you’re insurance will pay for, good luck at home and don’t forget to do your excersises that we printed slightly askew on a piece of paper with fading ink." I am fortunate to be living la dolce vita here in Italy — which happens to include a genuine concern for the well being of its citizens. I consider it one of the best decisions I ever made.
