Full Throttle

Italy

The first thing that hit me when I woke up on Thursday morning in my hotel room in Italy was pain. The pain was coming from my legs but starting off in my feet, and it felt like the bones in my ankles were crunching together. I threw off the bed sheets.
"Oh, yeah, no, fuck that," I said, looking down at my legs which were extremely swollen from my knees downwards. I groaned in frustration, hitting my head on the pillow before sitting up and swinging my legs down off the bed. A loud thump resonated through my room as I hit the hard wooden floor, my attempt at actually getting out of bed failing miserably. I tried again, clutching onto the bed side table and dragging myself upright. I had to stop myself from crying out as bolts of pain blazed through me from my feet, and I slumped onto the bed. My bladder was nagging me. I had to get to the bathroom before doing anything else. I took a deep breath, steadying myself before using my surroundings to hobble and limp into the bathroom.
"I don't think I'll be doing the track walk today," I said as I relieved myself. Now there was the problem of standing by myself whilst washing my hands. I opted to lift myself up to sit on the counter by the sink in order to take the weight off my legs, thinking myself rather clever until I forgot about the fact that I couldn't stand, and dropped onto the floor. The pain was unbelievable. I couldn't breathe. It took me a good few minutes of trying not to pass out before I shuffled on my bum back to my bed. I called Nick.
"Hey, Jess," he yawned as he picked up the phone. "What's up?"
"I can't do the track walk today."
"I know you're tired, but if I have to get out of bed, so do you," he chuckled.
"That's exactly the problem," I said. "I can't get out of bed."
"Jess, I know you want a lay-in, but you can't, you have things to do. Now, get up sleepyhead, the world is waiting, and so are your adoring fans."
"I tried to get out of bed, and I fell."
"Oh, for god's sake, don't tell me you broke your arm when you fell," Nick laughed.
"Nick, my legs are literally the size of carnival balloons. I cannot walk. I almost passed out trying to make it back from the bathroom."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, Nick, I think I just said what I meant."
"Hang on, I'll be round yours in a minute-"
"No, the door, I can't unlock the door."
"I'm sure you can manage to unlo-"
"Nick, I really can't. I'm not fucking with you here, I can't walk."
He paused, thinking.
"I'll go down and get a spare key from the reception," he said before the call ended. It was a few minutes before I heard the key card unlock the door that, only a second later, swung open. Nick took one look at me sitting on the bed and his jaw dropped open.
"What the fuck did you do!"
"Nothing! My feet and ankles have been swollen for a few weeks now and I just thought it was because I was working harder to keep up for when I got back into the car and they were fine last night when I went to bed, I swear!" I said quickly, as if on trial and trying to claim that I wasn't guilty when I quite obviously was.
"I'm calling an ambulance."
"No!"
"Yes."
"No! If you call an ambulance here, then it will be all over Instagram within two minutes of it arriving."
"You can't walk, Jessie!"
"Why can't she walk?" Charles popped his head around the door, his eyes bulging when he saw me.
"What the fuck, Jessie! No, you need an ambulance," he agreed with Nick.
"I do not need a fucking ambulance!"
"You need an ambulance!"
"I am not getting into another fucking ambulance!"

"Okay, can you feel that?" the paramedic asked me in slow English.
"Yes, that hurts, and you don't have to speak in English," I said in Italian. Relief washed over his face as he carried on the questions in his native language. After a further five minutes of the man prodding and poking at my legs, we arrived at the hospital, and I was wheeled out of the ambulance and into the building. I took out my phone, trying to ignore the embarrassment I felt as I was taken through the hospital by checking my Instagram. Nick had called Franz Tost for me and told him that I had to go for a last-minute check-up at the hospital; I didn't want to worry him by calling it an emergency check-up. A doctor walked in as I was being transferred onto the bed in the room, and the paramedic gave him a quick rundown of why I was here.
"Grazie," he said as the paramedics left. "Buongiorno, signorina Osbourne. My name is Doctor Romano. I see that you have quite significant swelling in your lower legs, do you have any idea when you first noticed the swelling?"
"Um, probably a month and a half ago?" I said, unsure. "It wasn't that bad, I barely noticed it."
"And was there any bad swelling last night?"
"No, everything looked fine when I went to bed."
"Okay, and do you experience any shortness of breath or dizziness?"
"Not really."
"What do you mean by 'not really'?"
"I have a few times, but it isn't a regular thing."
"Okay. It says in your files here that you had a heart attack two months ago after a motor accident, would that be correct?"
"Yes."
"Have you had any sharp pains in your chest since then?"
"A few," I stuttered.
"Okay, we're going to run a few tests on you to try and find out why this has happened. Please wait here." He left the room. A nurse came in a few minutes later, carrying extra cushions.
"Buongiorno!" she said cheerfully.
"Buongiorno, come stai?"
"Oh, I like that you speak Italian, your accent is molto buona!"
"Grazie."
"Okay, what I am going to do for the swelling is prop your legs up and then give you a massage to help move the fluid away from the affected area, okay?"
"Okay."
She started the massage, making me hiss in pain.
"Oh, come on now, you're a big girl, you can handle it."
She carried on and I laid my head back onto the pillow. The pain was excruciating, but it got better, and soon it was a relief.