first tulips and other short stories

~ Getting the season's first tulips is pretty magical, wouldn't you agree? Like last year my favourite ones are of course the locally grown, climate compensated ones.

~ The experience of having your long-term blood pressure taken is definitely one of the most stressful things I've been through. It hurt immensely and after 13+ hours I was just a shivering, crying mess and had to get rid of it. My arm is still itching and very sore. Needless to say blood pressure was higher than ever before. 

What I've learnt from these past fours months with a doctor that does nothing to figure out the after-ten-months-still-runny-nose infection thing but makes a fuss about blood pressure (which of course is good in a way, but a total nuisance in another) is that I stress out much easier than I ever thought or felt. That this is something that has been building up over a period of ten years and that when you are smack in the middle of the stress of all stresses you don't have any obvious symptoms, but when you're beginning to get back on track, feeling happy and relieved then it all come crashing down. This too shall pass.

After an extensive and quite uncomfortable ultra-sound session my heart got a nice clean bill of health today.

I still do not like of feel comfortable around doctors, for all sorts of reasons (of which I could probably write an essay). But I have to say that all the health and un-health things I've been through especially these past four months have been both enlightening, thoughtprovoking and comforting in different ways. Perhaps the Swedish health care system isn't as good as it has been, with tax-cuts and the recent years offensive privatisation of our health service, but I've been through so many tests and examinations, specialists and nurses now, being taken seriously and overall basically treated with respect.

Just too bad I'm as clueless as to what's causing all this as I was ten months ago...

~ In quiet celebration of these stressful sessions above being over I enjoyed another beautiful winter day in Stockholm, not only one but two great soy lattes and treated myself to an adorable chiffon blouse at the winter sales. After the stressful morning - I truly loath rush hour commuting - or well, stressful days really, it was just so very nice to spend a couple of hours in the company of myself only. Clearing and cleansing the mind somehow.

~ Getting home to a little loaf who greeted me with almost his usual boundless enthusiasm. No stranger to chasing the odd cat and making a fuss about them occupying *his* floor cushions. I'm sure his mouth is still sore and of course the outcome and test-results of tumour is still hidden, but it's good to see he's after all is doing okey, more than okey. For now...

~ Laughing about Zigne and Ztina insisting on venturing out into garden, despite feeling very less than happy about the white, cold stuff everywhere. The "if I sitt really still or don't look the dog in the eye he might not see me at all"-behaviour is priceless.

All and all I'm really grateful that a truly dreaded day in the end turned out more than alright. And with tulips. Pink tulips.