Cinnamon Rolls and More

"The Cinnamon Bun Day" must be one of the most successful campaigns ever in Swedish advertising history.

October 4th in Sweden means we have all stuffed ourselves with, or been stuffed with, the pastry anywhere and everywhere we have gone. 

No decent employer has forgotten to serve the staff with this traditional pastry. Any visit with a friend or to a cafe without a damn bun would be considered a complete failure. 

I had three of them today and now I don´t want to see another for three months at least.

For a recipe of this traditional Swedish pastry see my post last year, Swedish Cinnamon Bun Day.

As the good son I sometimes try to be I brought along a couple of buns to my mother today. She looked at me tiredly and then told me "I have already had one and that was quite enough, thank you very much!". I told her to give them to the night staff.

The problem is if I hadn't brought them along the hospital staff would probably have looked on me as an utter failure as a son, probably my mother also.

Beside that it was a good visit. My mother was very chatty and in a great mood and had been without the additional oxygen supply the whole day.

On Joe Jervis´s ever watchful blog Joe.My.God. I read that "Anonymous" is planning to take down the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) from the Internet in a concerted attack on Monday the 10th, "Anonymous to Wall Street: We Will Take Down Stock Exchange On October 10th".

There is a video declaring their intentions and their motives for the raid, see it.

I cannot really comprehend how creating more disturbances and unrest for the International banking system will accomplish their goals. It seems to me that the only ones who will suffer from more unrest in the economic markets are the 99% "Anonymous" claims to act on behalf of. But who am I to judge, people say I am too judgmental anyway.

Mothers

"Arrangement in Grey and Black: The Artist´s Mother" (1871)
by James McKneill Whistler

In the early evening on Sunday, as I was getting ready to visit with my mother at the hospital, I got a phone call from my father.

He told me he had just had the strangest conversation with mother. She had claimed that my brother in-law had visited her that day with his granddaughter and during the visit said the most awful things to her in front of the girl. When my father started questioning her about if this really could be true since she had always had a good relationship with my brother in-law, she got very angry with him and hung up the phone in his ear saying "Well you can believe it or not, but I know what happened!"

My mother and I have some similar traits. We are both usually quite even tempered but sometimes blow up. To be completely honest, neither of us are the most patient of people, although of course everyone tells us we are just that - repeatedly.

When I arrived at the hospital ward she was still upset, but now because after thinking about it she had realized that it had been a very vivid and realistic nightmare. So together we called my father on the phone and settled things to his great relief. For some reason, she also felt the need to call my sister and brother in-law and tell them about her terrible dream and tell them she was sorry she had actually thought it had really happened.

Somehow this incident told me - more than any doctors could - that my mother was getting better, even if she is still weak and tired her passion is back. She is of course still on her antibiotics but can now be without the additional oxygen most of the time.

We have started planning for her return home and the help and support she and father may need the first four weeks  and in the long run - to cope with living at home. Hopefully this will all sort itself out during the days to come. She is longing for her own comfortable bed.

Line Up

This is just a cool advertisement I saw at copyranter a while ago.

I find it very amusing, and cannot help thinking about the trials the poor photographer had to go through to get this great shot. (I don´t think it is done in Photoshop, but others may know better.)
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On another note I owe you all an update on how my mother is doing. She remains in the hospital and will most likely stay their at least another week.

Mother is still on antibiotics and oxygen, but last night she was also given two bags of blood because they found that her hemoglobin count was very low (85, normal is around 120). Apparently mother has been bleeding somewhere internally but they do not seem to know from where yet. Due to dehydration she will also be getting a drip overnight.

However mothers erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) which was at 285 when she was admitted to hospital is now down to 55 (normal value for women in mothers age group is <20), which means the antibiotics are helping.

The doctors are still hopeful and so are my family. I am getting a bit despondent as the additional troubles set in as I recognize the situation, but I am also trying to keep my hopes up, mainly for my parents sake.

I am too tired for SecondLife tonight so I am staying away.

Pneumonia

I hate this awful sneaky disease thoroughly.

It sneaks up on people as a common cold and then when they least expect it slowly, slowly and step by step it makes them weaker by taking away their appetite and making them ever so tired.

Mostly no clear signs appear until the afflicted have it full blown inside their lungs. Then the fevers come, followed by the pains and the shallow breathing and an overwhelming fatigue.

My mother is 80 years old, but is still a strong willed lady with an extremely  clear mind. She will beat this. She has to, I refuse to lose another loved one to this killer!

Thank you science for antibiotics and painkillers and medical doctors who at least catch it in it´s later form.

When I left her this evening she was sitting up in her bed to have dinner. Her color had changed from that awful pale to a glow on her cheeks and she was more alert and awake although still very tired. I will keep my hopes up, mother is strong. Mother is strong willed.

UPDATE 9/26
My mother was today moved from the emergency care unit to a regular ward. She is of course still on intravenous antibiotics and oxygen and is very tired but has gotten some of her fighting spirit back.

After the move to the new ward my mother shares a room with a Bosnian woman who hardly speaks any Swedish, and my mothers Bosnian is absolutely non-existent. The woman is very friendly and chats away the whole time in Bosnian with some Swedish words thrown in. I had great difficulty in understanding anything she said but we nodded and smiled at one and other.

My mother whispered to me that she didn't understand why the woman continued talking to her when it must be obvious that she cannot understand her at all. She then silently confided to me that she actually turns her hearing aid off to get some peace and quiet.

The doctors say they are hopeful that this will go well, but I have heard that before and am not relying on it until she is back home with my father again.