Under the Scalpel in a Foreign Land

J.D. Mann was sent to St. John "The Baptist" Hospital in Torino, Italy for medical treatment while serving prison time for drug trafficking. The Prison Authorities and Expert Doctors from his first Italian prison had performed numerous tests to try and determine what was his skin disease that covered his entire body from the very first moment they saw him after his arrest on drug trafficking charges. They were all stymied by the inability to solve this mystery yet a CT scan did show a lesion on his right lung. It was this, that placed him in the new hospital away from his sanctuary of the two man cell at Busto Arsizio,Iatlia.

Although still confined to a prison cell, at least J.D. was happy to be getting the necessary medical treatment he so desperately sought for many years before. Yes, he was very concern with this latest discovery and quite shocked. He had done the drug trip only for medical purposes but never anticipated anything but the skin disease and now it was his lungs.

The entire year from arrest to this point was very stressful due to the serious language barrier of English to Italian and the blatant refusal of these Italians to provide an Interpreter, at least, for the Medical questions and so forth. Now he was again placed in a hospital for many serious exams without any knowledge whatsoever of exactly what the Doctors were about to do. The anxiety of impending danger of accidental death by an Italian doctor was all to real and J.D. had seen for his own eyes almost daily, incidents on the T.V. concerning this issue across Italy. A very big ISSUE and he was about to find out just HOW BIG.

As the Doctors were performing several lung exams that included the third CT Scan in just over a year they decided that the CT Scan showed something very serious on this lung of J.D. So, they scheduled another exam called a PET which is similar to the CT but more intensified. From what J.D. could understand of the Italian language this was to determine if he had cancerous tissue in the lungs. Little did he know or expect when a few days later another Doctor showed up in his hospital prison room.

" Who are you and what kind of Doctor are you?" asked the terrified J.D. "I'm a Urologists", the medium age Doctor said. "Do you mind if I do an exam?" J.D.'s fears were beyond imagination at this point. "What do you mean an exam and for what reason?'" the startled, apprehensive J.D. asked. "And where is my lung Doctor? I thought I had a lung problem and NOW you want to check my ASS".
He was extremely frighten by this new revelation and allowed the nice Doctor to do a digital exam. "You are going for a Biopsy in the morning", was all he said. 'WHY?" He cried out. "How can this be happening to me when I thought I just had a skin disease". "Sir, You have an enlarged Prostate Gland and we need to do this Biopsy to be sure it is not cancer." J.D. understood every word even though it was in Italian and his heart felt like exploding. What was he going to do now? Stuck inside a prison hospital with not a clue of proper speaking Italian and only understanding the bare minimum and to hear about "cancer" which he knew was very,very very, serious in any language. All he could do was "Pray to his GOD" and being that he was in the "JOHN THE BAPTIST" hospital gave him is only solace.

After the next day's most embarrassing moment in his life, propped up in the stirrups like he is about to give birth and with six beautiful female Italian students assisting the Doctor/Professor and Head Of the Department of Urology, male expert in this field of medicine, J.D. braced himself for the "MAG" lite apparatus that was about to enter the un known, where usually only excrement exits. This definitely qualified as "pure fright" as each and every female proceeded to extract a tissue sample with this device while looking into a camera to the right of J.D.'s foot as their instructor guided them. HE WAS TOTALLY SCARED TO DEATH!!!!!!!!! and without any family, friends or even an English speaking person to comfort his aching soul and pride. HUMILIATION at it finest was all he could think of yet he knew he was facing something very seriously wrong with his immediate health and it was not the "lung issue" but this procedure.

The following Monday after the previous Thursday, Biopsy exam, J.D. had another Italian Doctor at his bedside who he had never seen before. "Sir. You have Prostate Cancer and we need to operate, will you sign the release papers for this operation?" the jolly robust 50's something man asked. "What choices do do I have?" J.D. responded in broken Italian and when he signed that paper the life in his soul became dimmer. This was probably the worse news a person could receive, let alone receive while in an "Italian Prison Hospital" and you are an English only "American" who feels the prejudice, hatred, and reluctant concern to really want to medically help a fellow man. HE WAS DEVASTATED!!!!!!! ESPECIALLY when one of the nurses came by and asked, "Do have some one you can write to about this? Family? Wife? Also do you need writing paper stamp and envelope?" "WOW" was he petrified.

Two weeks later with his "spirit" broken J.D. was wheeled to surgery where he thought he would never return to his prison room or even to his family he left behind a year and half ago for what was suppose to be a medical motivated drug smuggling trip to save his skin and now it was to save his LIFE.