Miss Kolka

When you lie in hospital for more than 6 weeks and you are a total sucker for hospital tv series such as ER or Grey's Anatomy, you almost start making your own hospital drama, listening in on what's going on with your neighbours, asking questions, following the staff's routines and just become over all curious about everything because you have so much time. I would'nt call it my "journalistic elements" because frankly I've never been convinced of my own wish to belong to that club. But I have a thirst for knowledge. Even if some might called it plain old fashioned nosyness. 

So 6 weeks, 2 rooms, 8 roommates and countless lovely midwives later I have learn so much about the female body, pregnancy, especially risky ones and newbornes that Im not sure a medical degree would have taught me more. Well ok, Im not an expert of course but sometimes it sure feels like it. Roommates can be as different as they are many: the smoker who went outside 4-5 times a day although the doctors kept telling her quitting was the best option for her too-small baby to grow stronger, the lovely danish positive one that had gone through one babyloss and one healthy baby before - she gave birth to a healthy little girl, 2 kilos in week 33 and was allowed to take her home only a week later, the sri lanka princess who's doctor husband didnt trust the establishement and always thought he knew better, the most-definately middle age lesbian expecting twins who rarely, if ever, said a word and now the algerian mother of 2,having an opinion on almost everything and sharing thoughts in a mixture of french, arabic and danish. I tend to understand most she says though, which for now is a good thing. 

So women lie here for multiple reasons, because they've started labour too early, because they have too much/too little amniotic fluid, because one of the twins is too small/too big or because their cervixes are faulty and they need a cerclage or have one like me. Most stay for a few weeks, some just overnight and others for long months. And for those staying longer, routine things like getting the food on time (rugbrød and always some pork assemble for lunch) becomes highly important. I was almost beside myself when the "cake-wagon" didn't come one evening, even a simple cake becomes heavenly in here - although cake baked by the hubby is always a 100 times tastier (lucky me - we have "date nights" where he comes with food, often homemade and we eat and lie together in my hospital bed).

Lying here it almost seems like pregnancy is anything but a routine thing...there are just so many things that can go wrong - chemical or hormonal unbalance, strange hand diseases, babies stopping to move, mothers almost bleeding out or worse. We can only be thankful to live in the western world where knowledge, equipment, right medicine and handpower are available. Sometimes I dont think people realise how much of a miracle it is to have children though and we take it too much at a face value. But that's just because I see the world through my eyes. Women today are supposed to handle everything all the time (the demand on men is getting stronger as well) but sometimes it is necessary to slow down and acknowledge we arent robots and that expecting mothers need to rest more - Is our life which already is full with work, family, friends, shopping, cleaning, hobbies worth stressing over? Isn't it just ok to take some periods of "Off time"?  Of course most pregnancies will work out perfectly fine, thank god but its not always the case. And If there is anything all these women have tought me is that they are scared. Very scared. They will do ANYTHING for their baby to be born healthy but in some cases it might even be too late.

Unlike the tv-series that have to remain sexy so people can watch all the gross medical stuff alongside it, there aren't many sexy stories here at the department of mother and child - mainly because most of the staff are women helping other women to give life and only two of the doctors are men, and although they are great men they are maybe not love-story material. The real love stories here are parents with their newborn children roaming the halls, happy and relieved their little angles have arrived safe and sound.

I want to blog. Problem is when you take a break for so long, you dont know how to come back. but you have to start somewhere.

What about saying that baby number two is on its way. Yes, we dont waiste time in this family. Due to pregnancy problems Im in the hospital and have been for 5 weeks (still 10 to go to be safe). The baby is not due until march but if you ask me it could come anytime. Since nothing ever goes according to plan. But hopefully this little guy doesnt come before Mr. F first birthday on new years day..because then the brothers might have to share everything, even a class. 

Yes, the brothers. I have two wonderful men at home and another little one on the way. Soccermums, join the club. I thought I had so much to teach to a little girl (being so obsessed with makeup and clothes) but I guess we will just have to hope I can be of some use to the guys, although you wont catch me playing rugby anytime soon. Football... maybe.

At least I'll be able to bake and fill them with food since there is one thing that runs in the family and is very clear from Mr. F's behaviour - He loves his food! This year though someone else will have to bake his birthday cake since mummy is taking some "personal time" in room 24.

Yes, I've been busy. Mainly not sleeping at night and therefore having to work twice as hard in the day to get my brain to function. But now the little devil allowed his parents to sleep 6 hours straight so it was time to blog again. 

There are days when I want to share something found on the never-ending internet. Like an article that makes you think. or cry. or both. That's how I felt after reading the tell-all story of Eve Ensler's trip to the Congo. Ensler is the writer of very successful play "The Vagina Monologue" that focused on violence against women. She found a familiar subject on her trip although much more horrendous than you could ever imagine. Her description of the ordeal many women have had to face of the hands of mostly their own countrymen is horryfying. That the women of the Congo actually want to keep living after what has happened to them is a big mystery. And there is one man there, helping to rebuild the women literally from pieces, as well as psychologically and restoring their faith in humanity. Many will have to return home afterwards, and maybe live near their attackers, or get attacked again - if not killed, which actually sounds better after you know what is done to them, their families, their neighbors, their children. How can we let this "femicide" go on? Isn't it just as bad as genocide? The article is 9 pages, but to understand how strong these women are it was certainly necessary to keep it all in, and dont let it put you off that it is written for Glamour,surprisingly of all magazines.

This is not the only story of "bad men" in the world press today. Most people have heard about Roman Polanski's arrest. A very peculiar turn of events, 30 years after the crime was committed and although Polanski has not returned to the US, it has not really been a mystery where he stays or travels. Probably politically motivated by Switzerland but that is not the point. The outpour of support for the filmmaker is more disturbing. Celebrities have signed a petition for the release of Polanski, but seeing names such as Almodovar, Scorsese and especially Woddy Allen (who is married to his adoptive daughter) has no real weight. Many say it wasn't really a crime. I guess Time's Amy sullivan says it best:

But it wasn't just her age that made it unlawful. It was the fact that the sex was unwanted, that she repeatedly said no throughout the assault, that she had been drugged. Polanski isn't being hounded for behavior--like homosexuality--once thought to be deviant but now generally accepted as mainstream. In 2009, just as in the 1970s, it is considered a bad thing to rape a child and run from the law. And so will it be 30 years from now and 60 years from now. Even in Hollywood.

Could not have said it better myself.

Some of the loudest voices in support for Polanski have come from France. And from cultural minister Frederic Mitterand. Who faces "some criticism" for writing on Sexual tourism in Thailand. Not in a theoritical way may I add. He actually paid young boys for sex (he is openly gay) and liked it. It happend more than once.

"All these rituals of the market for youths, the slave market excited me enormously ... the abundance of very attractive and immediately available young boys put me in a state of desire."

WHAT?! How is it possible that this man is allowed to stay minister and is defended by the government? It shows how messed up the hiararchy has become in France. No one should ever question the ones in power or acts of politicians. They are supreme beings. It just goes beyond me why French people can strike for any little thing but let things like corruption and total lack of ethics just rule free in their so-called democracy.

What all these men have in common, the lawless criminals of the Congo, Polanski, Woody Allen and Frederic Mitterand, is that they have no shame. They feel the urge for sex so they rape or kill or drug their victims, marry children they've raised or pay children for sex and because this is something they need or want they just go ahead and do it. With no regrets. And find it completely normal.

Want to blog but ha...

Have serious keybord issues with my computer... Its close to impossible to write any text longer than one sentence. This is maybe a plot by Twitter to get more members? Who wants to know my life/thoughts in one line sentences anyway? Those who really do are my probably so-called friends on facebook . One thought, if You got a serious disease and needed contribution for your medical bills (more for those living in the US I guess), how many of these TRUE FB friends would offer help?

Food for thought...while I find out how to fix this computer that has serious health issues!

We had been waiting for this since early 1997- a human birdflu and something contagious enough to make alot of people sweat (literally) . Oh, and when I say "we" I mean the people in news media of course, which incendently Im not part of anymore, unless you count citizen journalism for anything.

The trick is now to filter the information. Apparently what everybody seems to agree about is that a pandemic (or alot of cases) is inevitable this autumn. It is going to affect socities worldwide but how important or dangerous this impact is going to be, is hard to say. If the H1N1 virus stays as it is, it is not that deadly, and actually less than the more common influenza we have known for years. There seems to be conflicting reports about how deadly exactly the swineflu is. There have been stories about "healthy young individuals" dying of the virus. These are normally not considered at risk with normal influenza where it is the very young, sick or very old that get gravely ill. But I could not give you any examples and in some cases it has come out that this or that person actually did have some other healthproblems exc. Its not very clear. 

The French, always very up to date on medical progress and a huge pharmaceutical country report alot on the swineflu. The education minister has said he would not hesitate to close schools to stop the spreading of the virus. Doctors and researchers, often asked for their opinions say that more has to be done, transport systems might shut down and hospitals be under alot of pressure. Im not saying that these sometimes alarmist specialists are all linked to the big pharamceutical companies who happen to produce Tamiflu  in enormous quantities (the wonder drug against the flu, which I thought was caused by a virus and so by definition there wasn't much you could do once you had it) -  How much money are we talking about that governments are spending on the drug, billions of euros? But it is not to be forgotten when informing yourself on the disease.

Some say that the virus is bound to mutate and become more deadly and dangerous. What do we know? Until it happens, there is no way of knowing and by that time, if this strain of H1N1 is as contagious as it is said to be, almost half of the world will be immune to the new strain.

So is it worrying? Of course. Because the media tell us everyday. But they are also having a field day. Always a little story that can be found on a slow news day. And like me, manytv-producers like disaster scenarios. I just don't think that we realise that we are not all jake gyllenhal, the hero that survives the semi-end of the world. And frankly, the swineflu hasn't come to that, yet.

• Who's Anatomy? | 24-11-2009
• Here we go again. | 19-11-2009
• Of Sex, Violence and Bad men | 08-10-2009
• of Bloggers and other creatures | 05-09-2009
• swineflu - what are we to think? | 13-08-2009
• Was it for an underwater Rock concert? | 11-08-2009
• The city of the Happy People | 04-08-2009
• Felix meets Loulou | 21-07-2009
• This is Iceland! | 13-07-2009
• Popularity! | 22-06-2009
• Aurevoir..mais pas Adieu! About Burqas, Sarkozy and all that | 22-06-2009
• ... | 18-06-2009
• What's happening? | 18-06-2009
• Reminder | 15-06-2009
• What can Europe do? | 08-06-2009