Flat on His Back

It’s a good thing I’m a highly capable woman because I have had to wear many hats today. Kory is still in intense pain from his back injury so it hurts me to even look at him. He was taking the pain pills the doctor gave him at the hospital last night, but he felt sick to his stomach all day and after he finally threw up several times, he decided he’d rather just feel the full force of the pain than to take any more pills. I think they give those nausea producing pain pills more to distract from the pain of the injury, as he complained more about how sick he felt all day, than his back.

Kaleb got to ride in the front seat for the first time in his life today – as Kory laid flat on his back in the back seat (see photo of my multi-tasking abilities - taking a photo of Kory in the back seat at the same time I'm driving 70mph). Before we left the campground, Kaleb had to help out a little and it was as if we’d turned him into our personal slave or something, for all the fuss he was making about every little thing we asked him to do. I wasn’t thinking he was too spoiled before today, but now I have to wonder. He was also upset we never got to play miniature golf at the campground so I had to have a talk with him about our unexpected circumstances and the need to catch the ferry we’d reserved to Sweden. I think he understood but I’m sure he thinks I’m the worse mother in the world to deny him such a simple pleasure.

Before we left the cabin I had to make breakfast, pack up all our stuff, clean the cabin, help Kory get dressed and use the bathroom, then drive three hours to the ferry, get Kory a wheelchair, get him out of the car and up to the lounge. Fortunately the drive north was a breeze – good weather, no traffic and beautiful scenery – so I was spared what Kory has endured on several of our driving days – and the GPS and Kaleb did a great job of getting me where I needed to go. The ferry ride to Sweden was three and half hours and I was so thankful they had a wheelchair so I could get Kory out of the van and up to a bench so he could lie down for the journey. The ferry (think cruise ship) was full of entertainment and innovative ways to pass the time. They had an internet café, a movie cinema, dog lounge, gambling casino, tax-free shopping, a huge kid area full of ping pong tables, air hockey, Legos, Wii machines, professional photo studio, art stations and lots of run-around area. (I have to say, Europeans very much value family life and children as we’ve even been on a train before that had a whole car geared to little kids with an elaborate play area built right into the train car.) The ferry today didn’t seem to have many rules however, as I saw kids younger than Kaleb plopping their kroner in the slot machines and pulling the handle – some of them won more coins than could fit in all of their pockets. What a sight.

We ate lunch on the ferry but Kory wasn’t too hungry and had a difficult time sitting for so long in the wheelchair. He needed to lean over and put all his weight on his arms against the table to take the pressure off his lower back. He just moaned most of the day but he seems OK now that we are at the hotel and he’s not having to move around too much. We drove about two hours east into Sweden to the town of Jönköping once we got off the ferry. We’d scheduled two nights here so Kory could visit an old friend who is now living here, and he figured even though he’s in pain, he can still visit while lying on his back, so we decided we’ll just carry on as planned this week. We still need to go to Oslo on Thursday to get our new passports so I’m hoping by then he can walk a little bit. As it is now he needs to lean over on my back and put all his body weight on me in order to even take a step. When we got to the hotel, I got one of those luggage carts and was able to get him up to the room pushing him around on that – which looked pretty funny – but worked great.

The hotel we are staying at is super lush and would be very expensive if we didn’t order it through a club we joined in Norway. We’re able to get four and five star hotels all over Scandinavia for under a hundred bucks a night. This one was only about eighty dollars and I’m sure it would be well over three hundred if we didn’t use the membership. It’s so nice now that Kory will be spending so much time in bed, to have a huge cushy room to hang out in. We’ve been here for several hours and I’ve yet to see Kaleb as there are several kid play areas, one with children’s movies playing non-stop, so he’s well cared for and hopefully won’t feel the need to play with his Nintendo for a few days.

Jönköping is a beautiful town situated on the shores of a lake so large I can’t see the other side. I took a walk around town tonight looking for a grocery store to buy Kory some saltine crackers for his nausea, but the only stores open were candy stores. They were the size of other grocery stores I’ve been in, but all they sold was candy – row after row of candy – every kind imaginable. I thought it was incredible when I walked into the first one, but then when I found two of them within blocks of each other I was shocked. (The dentists in this town must have a good client base.) I also saw that some pranksters had put soap in a big fountain and the foam was picked up by the wind and was floating all over the downtown area. It looked like pieces of clouds were falling from the sky. Teenagers had scooped out such a huge pile of the foam it was nearly as tall as they were – and they were daring each other to walk through it. Another fun sight.

It’s a spectacular summer evening and we have much to be thankful for.