Students have created an Instagram profile for their ill teacher Carlo Hagemann who teaches Communication sciences. With the account called ‘berichtjesvoorcarlo’ (messages for Carlo), they have made him laugh while he was in a hospital in Poland. In the meantime, he has carefully started working again.

Carlo Hagemann (60) was at a former au-pair’s wedding in Poland when he suddenly felt unwell. He returned to the hotel by himself. There, he suffered fever attacks. Cold, warm, cold. His heart beat loudly against his chest.

‘It really did not go well,’ he says in his office in the Maria Montessori building. ‘I typed the words ‘help’ and ‘hospital’ in the family message group. I had actually wanted to type ‘ill’ but the phone automatically changed it into ‘hospital’. My youngest son read the message while the bride was throwing her bouquet behind her and he was alarmed immediately.’

Heart attack

The family hurried to the hotel that evening on the 23^rd of October and they put Carlo Hagemann in the car. A friend of the bride, who speaks both Polish and Dutch, joined them in the hospital in Ostrów Wielkopolski. There it turned out that the Communication sciences teacher had suffered a heart attack.

‘They operated on me in a different hospital,’ he says as he lifts his left pantleg to show a scar. ‘Look, they took a vein out of my lower leg and used it to make a bypass.’

Carlo Hagemann, who lives in Nijmegen, had to stay in hospital for six weeks because the doctors thought a transfer to the Netherlands would be irresponsible. He was not allowed to see visitors because of the strict corona measures.

‘I cried, sitting on the edge of my bed’

‘At some point, I received a photocard from twelve ex-students, who I’m still in touch with. I can tell you: I cried, sitting on the edge of my bed. I found it that nice.’

Students who are still taught by him created an Instagram profile with the name ‘berichtjesvoorcarlo’. “We miss you in Nijmegen,” it said. “We hope that our messages will make you laugh a bit.” From his bed, the communication scientist looked at selfies of his students and he read about their humble adventures in the city.

‘Some doctors spoke English; most nurses only spoke Polish. I had little contact. That’s why the messages made me so happy; I also got some from colleagues. I have never been on social media as often as I was during those weeks in that hospital.’

It made him feel good to know that the people on campus were thinking of him, that he hadn’t just disappeared.

Corona

In the meantime, his wife and son stayed in an apartment close-by but he was barely allowed to see them. Usually, his wife couldn’t get further than the gate where she dropped off apples and yoghurts because her husband thought the hospital food was disgusting. ‘The fish tasted like the sole of a shoe. I lost twelve kilos,’ he says.

After six weeks, the teacher was finally allowed to go home but then he turned out to have corona. The doctors were relentless: he had to stay for another two weeks. Carlo Hagemann was transferred to a sanatorium forty kilometres away. Again, he was in isolation.

At the end of January, he first returned to the campus of Radboud University. He tried to pick up his work slowly but his physical condition is still poor. The appointments with his physiotherapist partly determine his daily life. ‘I hope I can supervise a seminar again in the next period.’

He’s not afraid that his heart will fail him again because the surgery was solid and he stayed in a highly rated hospital. However, the stay in Poland isn’t quite behind him yet. His insurance does not cover the rehabilitation outside of the Netherlands. Carlo Hagemann will not give in and hopes to get even through a lawsuit.