Wearing long-johns in June

I'm still in Ivalo, and looking out the window the question of long-johns is highly relevant. It's below 5 Celsius and in the morning the tops of the fells were covered in snow. Here in the valley by the river it´s windy and the rain turns into sleet every now and then. I'm seriously contemplating on heading back South where one  can make a sun-shade out of them long-johns if is handy enough. Or just bury them in the back of the wardrobe.

One good thing about this arctic weather though is, that you don't have to suffer the company of gnats. Unless they're cramming under your hood while looking for shelter from the sleet and snow. Most uncomfortable, I would say.

-Tiina

Midsummer in Ivalo

Phew. Midsummer celebrations are finally over. I spent the weekend in Lapland, camping, barbequeing and chilling with friends. The weather was like a young bride and everyone was in a good mood. Even my mum and dad had spent the midsummers' eve together at home drinking wine and singing old songs.
All and all it's been good times, almost as good as the good old times =)

Tomorrow, if it's warm enough I'm heading to the beach. It's finally and officially summer in Ivalo!

-Tiina

Midsummer mindstorm

On friday all the Finns are celebrating midsummers eve. It seems that everyone is going somewhere, to their relatives, or to their summercottages by the rivers and lakes all around this country. I'm puzzled, 'cause I feel like I too should be going home to Lapland, but I really kinda don't want to. My family hasn't any midsummers' traditions, we don't own a cottage and I wasn't planning on going to Ivalo before the very end of this month, when it's warm enough there. I would like to see my family and my friends, but if I went there now, I would only stay such a short time that I wouldn't have time to see everybody. Also I was planning on hitchhiking there, taking my time on traveling, but now I feel like I wouldn't have enough time, since I would have to be in Ivalo by thursday.

Phew. Such a dilemma! I guess the best thing to do would be to sleep over this and figure out what to do tomorrow. I can't even pack now, since all my clothes are wet after laundry..

-Tiina

Riding in a rollercoaster

It´s been so long from my last post that I could hardly remember what I wrote. Surely enough things didn't go quite as I planned. The next day I didn't go to school, nor did I print those resolutions of mine. Instead I got some complications from the operations the week before and had to rush back to KUH again.

Tuesday morning I went to KUH to get some intravenous medication I was supposed to have once a year. After I got home my tummy started to ache. I tried to sleep, but finally the pain had gotten so severe I had fainted after getting up. After coming back to my senses I thought I should maybe call a taxi and get to the emergency duty at KUH. At the hospital everyone thought the medication caused the pain. After two nights in the ward I fainted again and now the doctors were sure it couldn't be due the medication anymore. Instead it was my liver, that had been accidentally left bleeding into my stomach,after the biopsy they took the week before. I was rushed to be patched, spent a night at the intensive care unit, during which I couldn't sleep a wink and my stomach filled up with fluids again. From ICU I was moved to the cardiac care unit, where they agreed on draining the fluids out. Only this time they did it painfully slowly, letting out only two litres of bloody fluids every day. The whole trip took one week and I felt like a wreck after getting out.

After I got home they rang me from Helsinki, Meilahti hospital. They wanted me to come over next week for some new examinations. There has been some discussion whether I would need a heart-transplant in the near future. Now more information was needed to back up the decision of putting me on the transplantation-list . The trip to Helsinki took another week, but I had only few examinations. Just some bloodtests, an echo and an endoscopy of my heart. Other than that I just lied there and read and thought I'd finally be bored to death. Anyways, the cardiologists seemed baffled with the results of the exams. All the results were better than earlier in February and my heart actually looked strong and well-working. It seems, at least for now, that I wont be needing that transplant afterall in any time soon (knock on wood). The poor cardiologist looked like he didn't know exactly what to do, since nothing needed to be done. He ordered me to come over again in September for another control, and wished me happy summer holiday. I think I got the best news I could possibly have.

Some month it has been.  And now I have the whole summer ahead of me. I think my rollercoaster is finally climbing uphill.

-Tiina

PS: After coming home from Helsinki, I enrolled to that Synja-hiking I told you about =)