Hi all,

I hope you have had a great Christmas.

Been off the board (and the whole net) for a week or so, as Elaine and I have had a slightly different Christmas from what we originally planned. The Plan was for us to go up to Helsinki for a couple of days (flying in Saturday evening, 18.12., and back lunchtime Tuesday, 21.12.) to see my family, and then to fly to New Jersey on Christmas Eve to spend a week with Elaine's family.

Well, we did get to Helsinki on Saturday, but before the trip I hadn't actually shut down my laptop completely for several weeks, and thus not noticed that the latest operating system upgrade had broken the wireless LAN driver - something I only discovered when powering up the laptop in Helsinki. So no internet or e-mail - no major problem for a 2-day visit.

Except that on Sunday evening I got violently ill, with heavy stomach pains and vomiting. According to Elaine, she's never seen anyone so ill.
Managed to drag myself to a doctor on Monday morning, and got sent to the university hospital surgery unit, as he couldn't rule out my appendix as the source - and a burst appendix is not a very good thing to have. The local surgeons agreed - it was a borderline case, but they couldn't rule it out, so (with my agreement) they decided to take it out just in case. Went in for surgery under full anesthesia at 3am on Tuesday morning (they left all the "easy cases" last in the queue), and everything went OK. Too bad it turned out the appendix was perfectly fine. But, well, in case we ever decide to go to Antarctica, I am prepared...

Poor Elaine was stuck in a country with a language that she didn't understand *any* of, and left with quickly rearranging everything (as it was pretty clear we were not going to be flying back to Amsterdam later that day). After a number of phone calls and faxed documents to KLM she got the flights rescheduled and the hotel extended. I got released on Wednesday, and we spent a leisurely day and a half in Helsinki. Our flight back to Amsterdam was on Friday afternoon - and as Christmas Eve. not Christmas Day, is the big day for the Finns, *everything* was closed in Helsinki on Friday. Finally found a place for lunch (even the hotel restaurant was closed), before heading out to a rather quiet airport.

Of course we had to cancel the New Jersey trip (long flights definitely not recommended after surgery due to greatly increased risk of deep vein thrombosis), and as we got back to Amsterdam late on Christmas Eve, we didn't have any Christmas decorations, Christmas food or presents - until we went into "well, let's improvise" mode. Have to say it was actually a very nice Christmas, with a very psychedelic optic fiber Christmas tree, and recycled presents.

The funniest part was back in Finland - Elaine couldn't speak or understand Finnish, so she was being very quiet, while carrying all my stuff (as I am not allowed to lift anything heavier than 1 kg/2 lb for a couple of weeks). All he finns must have thought I had found the ideal wife (well, I have, but that's another story...).

So, anyway, my belated wishes for wonderful and happy holidays!

Julf

Wow - some run up to Christmas... Good to hear that they got you sorted out though. Did thy ever figure out what the problem was? Bet Elaine votes for a "stay at home" xmas next year... if not - I'm very impressed!

Happy new year!

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Sudden onset projectile puking...always makes me think of staph food poisoning. Weird leftovers for brunch Sunday?


Could be "winter vomiting sickness" as well (a virus IIRC). 22 of 24 in my department at work got caught by cakes last winter. (1 didn't eat of the cake and 1 is now known as "ironbelly")

Seriously unfun when you're exploding at both ends

My brother-in-law had occasional bouts of stomach pains and illness for quite a while, and (I think) usually after curries and other strong food. Despite quite a few visits to the doctor and hospital it wasn't solved. It turned out he had Meckel's diverticulum. A quick operation later and it seems to have worked.

Gareth

Glad you made it through...

Just one thing: Finland doesn't have the Sweden problem (everyone speaks English)?

My wife learned Swedish but in general people hear her and immediately switch to English. She figured out that if she switched to Spanish they'd usually switch back to Swedish.