Making the most of a sick situation

This morning I had to call in sick to work, which was a problem - not only because it's always problematic when the person who's supposed to have the nightshift gets sick - but because talking on the phone isn't really something I'm capable of right now. Actually it's not really limited to the phone - talking at all isn't really an option right now. Obviously that becomes painfully clear when I try to sing along the lovely pick-me-up songs I've been playing all day. My poor neighbors, that normally have to tolerate my slightly off tune singing (I know some people out there are thinking - slightly!? I know who you are...) are now victims of me once in a while forgetting my ruined vocal cords and bursting out lyrics like a drowning cat. I do feel sorry for them, though maybe not as much as I feel sorry for myself.

Apart from singing I've spent the day building a village! Yesterday, Frida from Trendenser showed some super cute houses that she had made and today DesignoForm put up the instructions. So obviously me being the origami lover that I am had to try it out. Turns out it's quite easy! So now I'm thinking of making a whole bunch and make a village to go on top of my bookcase, but they might need to be a bit bigger than the ones I've made so far. Also, this gets me in the mood to redecorate and fix some things around the apartment. For example I'd like to move things around in the bedroom, but then I stood up to go check it out and the whole world took a spin and my throbbing head insisted I sit down and calm down and I remembered - oh yeah, I'm still sick. Crap!

Sweet dreams (are made of this)

 

 

Today I was unfortunately too dizzy to stand up for more than five minutes, much less go anywhere, so even though I've been yearning to do some cupcakes all day I've just been looking at the pictures - and the accessories! 

I think I might need to invest in some equipment soon. I mean you can't really bake without the cutest apron ever from Anthropology, or a pink whisk for that matter. The cupcakes I'm considering making are the ones on the right picture but with the frosting from the left picture. Banana cupcakes with white chocolate frosting, not to shabby I'd say... The pictures and recipes are from Linnéas Skafferi - a Swedish food blog I've been following for a while now. She makes some really great cupcakes (like the chocolate cupcakes with Bailey frosting) and the easiest most delusions ice-cream  (which is actually how I found the blog in the first place...). 

But as I said, I can't stand for very long and I can't go out and buy the cream cheese for the frosting so it'll have to wait. In the meantime I think I'll start checking out what's been coming in for spring in the stores - it feels like the perfect balance to the snowstorm outside...

Pic.sources: 1, 2, 3, 4 

Friday I'm in - bed?

I don't get this, I've had the flu already! It's actually less than a month ago that I was feverish and practically out cold for a week. It took almost three weeks to be completely over it - and now here I am - sick - again! Luckily I have today off work and a whole weekend without work so I don't need to call in sick, but I sure could think of a better way to spend my days off other than laying in bed covered up in blankets and freezing or five minutes later sweating a river from the fever breaking. It's infuriating!

The thing is, just because I'm sick and have a headache my mind doesn't stop working. So instead I spend the hours thinking about everything I should be doing - like preparing two presentations I have next month and two classes that I'm teaching in march. I should be looking at cheaper apartments, preparing for a couple of courses I'm taking these coming weeks and making a weekly meal plan (yes, I've stopped cooking again and need to take care of it!). I have some e-mails to answer and some calls to make. And in the midst of it all I come to think about a friend who has a miles long to-do list on her phone that she was considering organizing - and putting "organizing to-do list" on her to-do list! Goodness gracious! If I get myself in the shower and in some proper clothes for a work dinner tonight I'll be ecstatic.

Heartbeats

You know what's the worst? Waiting. I can't handle waiting. I feel my skin start to crawl and my hands start to itch, and my heart, oh my poor heart it's rhythm increases as the minutes tick by. Today I've been very focused on my phone. I don't remember any other day I've been so grateful for work, today the kids have been the only way to get my mind away from my phone, and from the waiting.

I was waiting for a call, or an e-mail - a sign, any sign that the meeting I had last week and the meeting I had yesterday had gone well. Then at last it came, an e-mail with the most wonderful words in the first sentence - I'm pleased to welcome you... Amazing! Luckily I didn't have patients at the time because I had to jump up and dance around just a little bit to celebrate. Today I won't be scared of what this means and what will come, today I'll just be happy and proud and bubbly.

So if that waiting is over, why am I bitching about it? Well, when I have an excess of energy I tend to do this one thing - bake. It makes me happy and I get to pound a dough senseless. But there's just one little tiny problem, the raise! Sweet Jesus I'm bad at waiting. And as I wait for the dough to double it's size I can't help but start feeling my skin crawl, my hands itch and my heart beating like a maniac. But maybe today the heartbeat isn't anxiousness, maybe it's just pure relief, joy and happiness? Maybe what I need isn't to sit down, breathe deeply and relax, maybe what I need is to jump and shout and dance around? 

And later, when the bubbles are out of my system, I'll enjoy the most delicious cinnamon rolls and a big glass of milk in the company of one of my favorite girls in the world!

Update: Three hours later, I'm done eating buns, drinking tea and talking and talking and talking. Some days are just really close to perfect - and today was really really close. 

The butterflies

I must say, it's been a couple of interesting days. Sunday night at the hospital was interesting. I love the width we work with at a pediatric ward. On any random day I can be presented with everything from chronic diseases to psychiatric patients to highly stressful life and death situations, and this Sunday I was. It's exciting, invigorating and exhausting. I've said it before and I'll probably say it again; I truly love my job, but yesterday morning I kept forgetting where I'd put my clothes and talking took a great deal of effort, it's probably one of the most stressful mornings I've had in quite a while. 

Luckily the rest of the day was a bit more mellow. I spent the day with thousands of butterflies in my stomach but I found out that some laughs and a couple of glasses of red wine could drown them so it turned out pretty good. Today I had an important meeting and spent all morning trying to calm my nerves without wine and laughs - I must say, I was not very successful. Hopefully the meeting went ok anyway and I'll find out more in a couple of days.

So after two butterfly filled days I've gone over to something completely butterfly-free - I'm now reading like a maniac to be ready for thursdays presentation. Pages and pages of care and complications of preterm babies - my head is spinning with abbreviations like ELBW, VLBW, RDS, BPD, NEC and so on. Interesting, of course, but it's a lot to take in on a three hour train ride. To boost my energy I bought some more tulips (I'm the only idiot that would think of bringing them all the way from Copenhagen), yes, I am now addicted! 

You make me wanna shout

This is my view right now. I'm trying to pretend that we are close to spring and not in fact in the deepest middle of winter. The light feels like spring, but the wind and the snow covered ground are not to be mistaken, they're definitely winter all the way. 

Though to be honest with you I'm not all that interested in time moving faster, actually a pause button would be quite lovely right about now. There are so many things that need to get settled this month that I'm a bit overwhelmed. I'm trying not to think to much about it but it's hard when people around you keep asking questions about making plans for a month or two from now. Right now all I can think about it getting through this week in one piece.

I have some preparing to do for an important meeting on tuesday and then I haven't even started on a presentation for thursday. Apart form that I need to sign myself op for some important courses (and yes, for that I do need to think into march and april which I'm trying not to do!) and talk to our union about my schedule which looks like hell... Crap, this is why I don't update here, I get a lump in my stomach just thinking all these things through.

Funnilly enough the title to this post started out referring to something completely different, but it's actually very fitting for my mood today. I should dance it out, that's where I can shout, and throw my head back and shout...

I think Christina knows what I'm talking about... ;-)

If we ever meet again

Yes, a silly old Timbaland song has inspired this post, not only because it’s a catchy and energetic song, but also because it says something I’m very used to saying which I find kind of funny, I thought I was the only one...

Years back (a decade or so…) I met a guy I really liked, he was sweet and smart and cute – everything I was looking for in a guy at the time. We met on a trip and the whole time I kept thinking I’ll tell him tomorrow, I’ll tell him when we’re alone, after dinner, after breakfast and so on. We took several walks alone, sat and talked for hours just the two of us and still it never felt like the right time. Finally the day came when we were leaving and I felt this panicked feeling of having missed my chance. I ran down from my room where I had been packing and over to his room with the excuse of returning something I had borrowed, but with the full intention of telling him how I felt. Once there I got tongue-tied and said something in the likes of “are you sure you’re not gay?” I still now, a decade later blush with embarrassment. Is that supposed to say to him that I like him? I could have bitten off my tongue the second I’d said it. In my screwed up head I meant; “you’re too good to be true”, but I’m pretty sure that wasn’t what came across. I couldn’t get myself to explain and I just left the room devastated. I spent the train ride home replaying the whole trip in my head, finding moments and places where I could have said what I wanted to say, that wasn’t minutes before we were leaving, and of course also finding hundreds of different things I could have said that would have given a more accurate description of what I felt than “are you sure you’re not gay?” The only consolation I had was that if we ever met again I would be different; I would be confident and honest, I would never let the same thing happen again.

I never saw him again. And to be honest I haven’t met many guys like him in the last ten years, but would I, had I met one, done it differently? I’m not sure… Actually I’m sure I wouldn’t have. Still it’s a great consolation to think about, that next time – next time will be completely different… Hope is the last thing that leaves us, right?

“I’ll never be the same

If we ever meet again

I'll have so much more to say

If we ever meet again

I wont let you go away

If we ever meet again”

To go where the magic happens

Do you know what I really hate about myself? That I’m a scaredy-cat, that I get freaked out by everything and nothing. One of my New Years resolutions is to be gutsier. To do things I want to do even though they scare me. I’ve never gotten the whole “do one thing that scares you every day” resolution. I mean, what’s the point in going around looking for scary things to do if they don’t have a purpose in them selves? I’m not planning on jumping off a plane just for the heck of it (not until I turn 30 – but that’s another story ;-). I just don’t want fear to dictate what I do.

Some things that I’ve done, that other people might see as brave have almost never been scary to me, they’ve been impulsive things that I don’t realise are big until afterwards. I don’t remember the last time I did something that really scared me, because when fear gets a grip it’s so insanely hard to shake again and I end up backing out. This year is quite unplanned and unsettled and that actually scares me a lot. It’s exciting and thrilling too of course, but not knowing where I’ll be or what I’ll be doing in a year – or even just six months – it scares the crap out of me. I’m working on being ok with it, to focus on the thrilling part, the possibilities, but so far it’s just getting scarier and scarier as the days pas. I hope that once I’m on the other side of this years New Years Eve I can write that even though I might still be a scaredy-cat I didn’t back out of something I really wanted to do just because I was scared, I wish I can write that I was brave – actually, knowingly brave.

Promises Promises...

Ok, so this day you hear a lot about – yeah, you guessed it – New Year resolutions. I’ve always been against them. I mean why would this specific day be any different from the rest? Why not just make the changes you want to make on any other random day of the year? But mostly I’ve always stayed away from them for the same reason I think most people don’t like making them, you’re pretty sure you won’t keep them and then you’ll just be disappointed. I suppose that’s a realistic outlook on things, it’s just the more I read about people thinking like that, the more it irritates me.

If you don’t make promises because you don’t want to break them – then don’t break them! And if you always make promises that you break then maybe you should think about how much you actually want to keep them, how important they are to you, and lastly maybe try to adjust your level of ambition. The solution isn’t in any way not to make the promise in the first place.

My sister once told me (I think she’d heard it from Oprah) that the most important person, to whom you need to keep your promises, is yourself. There is nothing worse than not trusting your own word. I remember how spot on I felt it when she said it. That’s it; I don’t trust my own word. When I tell myself I’ll do something and someone else asks me to do something that happens to interfere with that, I always end up breaking the promise I made to myself before breaking the promise I’ve made to someone else, and somehow I don’t think that’s right.

This year, despite the fact that I’ve never kept a New Years resolution before, I’ll make them, and if twelve months from now I haven’t accomplished them (yet!), I’ll know at least I’ve tried, and that’s far better than giving up before you even start!

Cheers to a happier, healthier and gutsier 2013!

Happy New Year!!

Looking back over my shoulder

It is of course impossible to accurately summarize a whole year, the big things are often the small things that are difficult to specify. Still, a year has passed and hopefully you've advanced in someway, done some good, evolved and learned.

In many ways this has been an amazing year for me;

I started out getting my dream job in january and trying to explain how insanely happy I was here on the blog. Visiting my family in Sweden in february and having a great time, realizing Stockholm isn't such a bad place after all, but that -20 degrees celsius isn't proper weather for a stroll downtown, as if I didn't know that already...

In the spring I applied for a course in International Health at the University of Copenhagen and got in, which felt like a huge win and a formal step towards my future plans. In April I moved back to the only city I call home in Denmark and going to work was a dream most every day, something I've never experienced before. 

In the summer I celebrated two of my friends graduating from med.school and had another short but lovely visit to Sweden. Then on a bit of an impulsive whim I bought a ticket to Los Angeles and had a weird night in Vegas, a fabulous and hot day in Disneyland and some relaxing days in San Diego with the greatest sister in the world. Barely had I come home and knocked down some 24-hour shifts at work before I headed off to Copenhagen and three amazing weeks of being inspired on a daily basis and meeting some of the most interesting people I've ever met.

Moving on to September I had to take a bit of an unexpected trip to Sweden to see my mom, but luckily everything turned out fine and it was a lovely visit. In October the long ago planned weekend in Paris finally arrived! It was so great and well needed that it made me think that from now on I'll try to always have a week or so of vacation in the fall, it gives you energy like you wouldn't believe it. And energy was well needed in the weeks to come. 

November started out with me closing my eyes and jumping into something scary - I finally sent in my MSF application form. The last couple of weeks of November and December were hellish. Way to much work, way to many sick colleagues and way to few days off. I learned to appreciate the insanely huge importance of the weekend when I had a period of about 22 days of work with one day off in the whole period. Not doing that again any time soon... After that horrible period (where I could burst into tears for no specific reason other than exhaustion!) I had the lovely reward of a weekend in Copenhagen with one of my oldest friends. 

After coming home I just had to wait for a few days before my family came down to celebrate Christmas here with me. We had a couple of days together with lot's of food, discussions (because it's not proper family-time if you're not discussing politics, weird new semi-scientific progress and well, the rest of the family...) and also some laughter and gifts. I suppose it's just as it should be.

Now I have one more day left in this year and I'm actually happy that I'll be spending it at work. Some people may say it's unhealthy, weird, sad or pathetic, but I feel at home there. I'll be doing some good and celebrating that this year has given me the privilege of learning how to take care of sick kids, and I get to do it every single day. If what you do the last day of the year says something about what you are going to be doing the next then I'll definitely be in the right place. 

Finding the upside

I'm not dead

I'm not seriously ill

I'm not missing work

My head has stopped throbbing

I have leftover ham from Christmas

If worse comes to worst I still have one and a half bottle of red wine.

Unfortunatelly I'm not built to see the positive, I'm built to see the facts (aka the downside). I feel half way to being dead and by all means seriously ill. I'm worried I won't be ready for work on Monday and I have to (let's emphasize - HAVE TO) work on Monday. I can't call in sick for a 24-hour shift on New Years Eve! I'll be hated by every single one of my colleagues - especially since I volunteered to take that shift myself. Oh, the throbbing in my head is coming back just thinking about it.

I don't get what people do when they're sick. Reading hurts my eyes and gives me a headache, watching movies hurts my ears (you know, when I can hear anything apart from the constant ringing) and trying to lay completely still and hope to fall asleep makes me go insane with boredom. I don't usually consider myself a crazy person, I'm pretty well balanced and reasonable. So maybe I yell at my computer and phone or other inanimate objects once in a while but I think that's pretty common. But laying in my bed just listening to the ringing in my ears has had me yelling at my head to stop throbbing and to my nose to stop dripping. The (loud) yelling is of course followed by a coughing frenzy and me left with no oxygen in my lungs, so now I'm thinking crazy person is not that far off the mark... 

The calm...

Today is going to be a good day. I have Christmas-red nails, stars on my top and I just had a candlelit breakfast. Yesterday I even put a couple of ornaments up so it feels just a little bit Christmasy now. I am  fully determent to be deep in the Holiday spirits when I get back, because when I do I just have two day- and one nightshift before my lovely family fly in and we officially begin the holiday celebrations. I'll go recipe-crazy for traditional Swedish dishes and I will enjoy it. But for now the decorations are small and I'm reveling in the quiet frosty morning before it all begins. 

The reward

I managed to get through my dayshifts this weekend and my nightshift on Monday with a bit of a cough and a sore throat, but today I couldn't help it, I woke up with a fever and no voice. There was no choice, I had to stay home. I've slept on and off all day, sipped tea and planned my trip to Copenhagen this weekend. I need this little get away so much you wouldn't even believe it!

Tomorrow I'm getting on a train (that hopefully can get through the snow) and bringing a book and a wool sweater, when I arrive in Copenhagen I have a deal with the cold that it will have stayed in Aarhus so that I can enjoy this long weekend that I so deserve. I'm hoping that a visit to the very Christmasy Tivoli will get my Holliday spirits going. 

The very best part of this weekend will of course be to see my oldest friend (who's actually my youngest friend...) and catching up on the last six months over a cocktail at a nice bar where I can feel a bit more glamorous than the girl in the unflattering scrubs with fetal fat smeared all over her... (isn't that just a lovely image..!)

As a must on every Copenhagen visit I need to stock up on my teas at the most perfect little tea-shop, that probably has every tea your heart might desire. They also have a salon upstair where you can get afternoon tea if you're in a Downton Abbey mood, and seriously, when aren't you?

Oh, and while we're on TV-shows, I've heard of a "Mad Men" kind of bar that I'm hoping we can try out. Supposedly the best cocktails in Copenhagen. I mean, if that doesn't cure a sore throat nothing will!

Finally we have the "pièce de résistance" - tickets to the ballet! I absolutely love the ballet. I wasn't raised going to the theater or the ballet (which is kind of weird with an actor father and a musician mother), so I don't know where the interest comes from, but it's like it's growing with time. It's something with the beautiful theaters, the incredibly talented people and the amazing music.

This Friday we're going to see Sleeping Beauty and from the looks of the pictures on their website it's going to be beautiful. My favorite is actually Swan Lake, I've never seen it live but I listen to the music every time I get a chance at I'm at my mom's place. She has it on vinyl, and I'm just waiting to stumble upon a record player at some vintage store before I blatantly steal the records from her.