4 semanas en Hollanda

So here I am back in germany.
I think I told you in my last post that i was going to Groningen in the Netherlands to live with Arja and Jelmer, to lovely friends of mine, to get my health back in shape.
Did that - and it was awesome!Hehe, I think we make good flatmates, guys...maybe next time in NZ...?!
I actually brought up the discipline to go running every day for an hour. well, interval running. but it's a start. And it actually felt great being able to do these things again without getting out of breath after 5 mins. especially after getting so fucking sick in South Africa where any sort of sports was totally out of question.
Of course, I kept my healthy diet which was no problem thanks to Jelmer who's not only a very reliable weatherfrog but also a chef deluxe! And when I did fall for any unhealthy stuff at least I wasn't on my own but had Arja and Tjitske right by my side when it came to chocolate, chips and candy...cheers guys, had a great few weeks with you all!

But because I didn't wanna spend all day thinking about my next lung function results I updated my CV and went to all the temping agencies I could find...with, to be honest, no success.
Reason no.1: I didn't speak dutch. Reason no.2: I only stayed for a short time. Reason no.3: In the language department I'm no competition for all these multilingual dutch students who allw ant barwork. I didn't wait for reason no.4 and went home.
OK, I have to admit, I had imagined the jobsearch to be a wee bit easier and I was a tiny, tiny bit pissed of that day. So I binned my CV and went to the voluntary work office. I thought, I did 3 months of voluntary work in SA before, I can do another month here in holland. Fortunately I didn't have to pay any rent so I could just affort it.

So, the voluntary work office. Nice lady, I told her what I wanted to do and my dutch was pretty much non-existing. No worries, she said, thee'll all speak english and german.
next day I went to the senio's home I was assigned to ( after working with kids and teenegers in SA I wanted to try out a different age group) and of course - nobody spoke english or german exept one german therapist who's lived in Holland for nearly 10 years and has almost lost all of her mother tongue.
Anyway, because of the language barrier I was assigned to a lady who could hardly speak anymore - sad, but managable for me. So I talked to her in an english-dutch-german mix, fed her some coffee from the bottle, played bingo with the group and basically made a total fool of myself....so lots of toothless laughters right there.
Yeah, these oldies actually liked me so I went back every day for 3 or 4 hours.

Pretty cool, I was usually with the demented elderly which was great cos I could basically tell them the same story about who I am and what I do every day for the first few days. My dutch improved rapidly, also because I had to speak quite loudly since most of the seniors are half-deaf and everyone could hear my mistakes and correct me.
so what did I actually do there? Well, the usual things nurses don't have time for, really. Make and serve coffee or tea (make sure the diabetics don't steal the sugar cubes - seriously! they look like a hamster with both cheeks full of sugar and still try to deny it...!), have a chat (with a bit of dutch and a lot of hands-and-feet), read stories, look for their glasses or their fake teeth (they keep losing stuff all the time!), play games, go for walk or push them around in the wheelschair, listen to them chatting away, sometimes give out tissues and huggs when they get depperssed or frustrated with their situation or feel lonely, help with the daily activities such as gymnastics, creative afternoons, singing, ganes, etc..
Seriously, that was great fun but the old ladies cheat like hell...! :)

Before going straight back to Bremen I stopped over in Hannover for a weekend to attend a seminar about Cf and lung transplantations.
I was a bit worried to only see very sick CFers with oxygen and stuff but to my surprise there were quite a lot of younger ones in their early twenties who just wanted to gather some infos and get in touch with the topic. And, what also surprised me, almost all of them came with their partners. I keep reading Jaan's and Alice's blogs and I seriously admire them for how they accept his CF in their relationship but it seems like a lot of other people are able to do that too.Hmm...I guess I still have a long way to go to get to that point....
Anyway, back to the seminar. First we talked about exercising and physio before and after the Ltx (lung transplantation), the healthy diet and just keeping the whole body in relatively good shape.We learned about the criteria of getting "listed" and that ther is a thing aclled "life donations" which is practised in japan a lot since they rarely agree to organ donations after the death of a person. so a lot of ethic chat about that and the definitionof "dead" which varies even in european countries. There were doctors and surgeons to explain what exactly happens during a transplantation and we got to watch one on film...how cool!
We talked about clinics in germany, statistics, risks and survival rates.
What a life could be like after the operation, what the psychological aspekts are, the individual pro and con of a transplantation and we met 3 Cfers who are transplanted - even a 40-year old who had an Ltx 13 years ago!

It was my first CF seminar and so interesting, good to meet other CFers who aren't that sick but still thinking about the option of transplantation. but even though everyone was having a good time, I think after 3 days of CF talk we were all glad to go back to our "normal" lives.

So now I'm back, had a clinic appointment a coupla days ago and after almost 3 months of daily exercise I've gotta admit I expected an FEV1 at least in the mid 50s.....no such luck, a merely 1% improvement which is ridiculous. I meanb, I could feel my lungs getting so much better in holland but then beeing back here, getting a flu shot, i felt my energy boost started to fade....grrr....!
Yep, I can say I was absolutely devastated and the nose surgery is getting closer and I'm kinda nervous. Terrified, more like it. So my poor doc, who was working on crutches cos he had a bicycle accident, had to put up with frustrated and crying me...not the most pleasant sight, I can imagine....

Anyway, after 7 hours of registration and pre-check ups for the surgery yesterday they sent me home cos they couldn't fit me into the schedule anymore. Now I gotta go in tomorrow (or today, it's almost midnight while I'm writing this...) morning at 7.30h, will hopefully be on the op table between 10 and 12 and if everything goes well I'll be done with it all at around tea time.

so that's it for now...I should go to bed and at least TRY to sleep, have to get up in less than 5 hours....

since I'll have to stay in the hospital 5 to 7 days and I seriously doubt we'll have the luxury of internet there I'll send some emails (and hopefully write another post!!) when I get home.

xxxJ.