Autumn

Darker, colder, shorter days. We’ve started heating up the wood stove in the mornings. At the gym I have zero energy. And I’ve gained 2 kg. I feel like shit! Husband is very comforting and supportive though. A nap and a shower did the trick and I was back in business.

Night shift. I have night shifts this weekend, tonight is the first. There is the city fair going on and an amazing amount of drunkenness and fighting. The police have apparently been driving car loads of drunk kids to the station to be picked up by their parents. A 17 year old boy was sent to the ER in a coma, with a blood alcohol of 3.8! A couple of girls came to urgent care after being attacked and beaten up. Later I heard that Irene too had been involved in one of the fights and sustained some bruises and a bloody nose. Apparently her boyfriend had gotten out of control drunk and they were attacked by a whole crowd. Then, in the early morning there was a MVA involving 4 people: 1 dead at the scene, 1 helicoptered to the major trauma center in Oslo and 2 sent to our sister hospital in Elverum.

First day at work. My first day back at work in Norway was a good experience. I was supposed to orient for charge nurse and learn the new computer system from 9am, and before that get the practical stuff out of the way, like usernames and passwords for the intranet, Gat and Dips, lockers, id card etc. However as the manager hadn’t come yet, and two critical patients arrived right at the beginning of the shift I decided to orient on the floor by helping out with one of the critical patients as it is good to have 2 nurses there. I soon discovered that it was the assigned nurse rather than me, that needed support. The patient had chest pain and was extremely short of breath (probably pulmonary edema) so that she was trying to jump out of bed in a panic. The assigned nurse was getting vitals. I put in an IV and got an EKG and arterial blood gasses, put the patient on a scope and inserted a catheter, got hold of side rails and generally took over, as the patients assigned nurse seemed a bit overwhelmed by the situation. OK, so I haven’t forgotten my critical care skills. Not much has changed here either in the past year. It is amazing to feel confident and competent for the first time in over a year. How can that be? Is it just the system that is different?


Oslo with the Kids Ingvild and Irene have to renew their passports. Tormod came along for driving practice. It was a beautiful day. Both Irene and Tormod drove, mostly Tormod though. When we were done at the Embassy (where the security is worse than at an airport), Tormod took us out to lunch at “Friday’s”, where the staff greet the customers in English. After lunch the kids did some shopping, and before going home, I treated them to italien ice cream and coffee.