I am sitting here in a dark hotel room while the kids and Alla sleep. all curtains are down since the sun rises at 3 am here in Stockholm.
the last or so proved challenging. it all started with wonder woman. Alla and i went on a date night, with little time to prep we had a cheese cake factory early dinner followed by wonder woman. about half way in, alla gets a text that Tal threw up on the sitter, so we left the movie. it was good but we didn't get to the wonder part. Tal caught a virus and would be home for a few days with fever. 24-48 hours and Mattan gets the same symptoms, then Alla... next week i leave on a work trip to Wisconsin. I leave healthy , but early next morning the dizziness hits first and fever quickly follows. fever is rare for me and semi clue less i am working everyday and go for walks in the evening under fever removing medicine. after 3 such days i fly back and this is when the real fun begins, it starts with pressure in the diaphragm area and asthma like symptoms, but i shrug it off, the next day it gets worse, i am tired with very little exertion. this is after walking everyday, 8000 steps plus for over a month and now after 1 diaper change and i am breathless. i go to urgent care, get a breathing treatment and they send me to the ER, they want to send me by ambulance... since they dont want me to drive , but my neighbor Lisa gives me a ride and stays on during the ER visit. . blood work m EKG and CT later and i am released home with suspicion of an asthma attack, a first for me. i have it with exertion but not just out of no where and not this hard and long. a beautiful weekend passed, not a drop of rain, perfect hiking weather. july 4th passes as well and i am stuck home doing nothing fun, not even a short walk outside.the next day, symptoms remain and i spent it at the cleveland clinic, now echo cardiogram and anything heart related is excluded. the next day with the pulmonalagistm who is nice but feels stumped but gives me inhalation and after 10 minutes i feel reborn, went from 60% to 80. ohh the relief. recovery has been slow. got just a tiny bit better everyday, i resume walking 3 days later and felt tiered after my usual walk, better with each passing day.
the pressure to get better was on with the upcoming trip. on Thursday we drove to hamilton Ontario and spent the night there with Tal wanting to go home and in the morning went to the airport, 5 hour flight to Iceland where Talziila is restless, finally he sleeps for the last minutes. in the short layover is Iceland i manage to explore the hot dog conundrum. in my visit here a few years ago i stumbled on the most amazing hot dog in the main gas station stop, just superb i bought some and when i tried them on, they were terrible.. bad light/good light situation. i thought i may have gotten the wrong brand or something. but here i saw them in an airport store and spoke with the clerks. they knew about it. they do something to them, when they make it home it does not taste the same. i was told to cook it in a broth, and also use their specific mustered. armored with good advice i left this store with snacks for the kids and turned around to see the same hotdog in a cafeteria on the other side.. i rushed over and enjoyed a yummi dog.
the next leg was also a bit restless for both kids, 2 flight is above capacity. we landed in stockhol at 6 am, had a decent arrival and got a shuttle with sleeping kids to the hotel. the kids and alla Crashed right away and i managed to survive and go for breakfast with the family.
my friend Amit came over to me me from Berlin and yesterday we had a wonderfull walking day.
this city is not breathtaking , but it is very nice every where. nice palace, nice harbor, great weather, nice old town, nice food, nice people, very pleasant we walked to Gamla stan the old town. had below nice ice cream and had a nice time at noon i returned to the hotel for a little rest and in the after noon ,we went to an urban deli where the kids after eating, just ran around and around the place, then we went to a lovely park with trains. and a carousel where the riders pedal, the parks here seem more thought out. we waled for 30 minutes to the restaurant. this place was not equipped for a large party and they limited our choices. but Hemma visistan - had very good bread, decent cod, great mash potatoes and good Halumi. much stuffed we went to another nearby park. this one had trampolines, slides where you climb a fake hill to get to, climbing wall, soccer fields, track, ping pong and mini golf. again a very well designed park for all ages. the kids ran up and down the slides, carousel and the small hills made of some soft material at around 10 PM we walked back to the hotel and crashed...
this morning at six, i walked up, snuck out of the room and went for a walk with Amit and Moti and lots of Pokemon. the city is peaceful, hardly a soul in sight on this Sunday morning. we do 5-6 k to one of the many islands that make this city and back, taking in the scenery and taking photos. at one point i was very distracted by a new Pokemon, that i fell and nearly went overboard to the shallow waters. nearby a mother swan hissed at us as we approached an then we saw her 3 teen age gray feathered kids.
i returned to the hotel to find them all still napping and my breathing almost back to normal. i still feel the residue of what was probably a nasty virus, but i am at 90+ % now, so expecting lots of city walks in the upcoming week. we are boarding in a few hours. cheers from nice stockholm
