06 nyheter

Time for some latest news! I've barely had any internet access of late, and have found this very frustrating to say the least. After all it's the main way I have of communicating with friends and family both back home and around the world. I've tried to setup some broadband access with Telia (the equivalent of Telstra back home and with pretty much the same level of customer service…) but after some confusion they wouldn't let me sign up as I don't have a 'real' personnummer. Do they want my hard earned cash or not?! Go figure… So I'm investigating other options which it would appear there aren't many of considering my situation. I have a couple of blog updates almost ready to go but with no broadband am unable to upload any pics (am currently on dial-up, in Sweden… can you believe it!) So unfortunately you'll just have to wait a bit longer!!! = (

Anyway, much has happened lately and I want to tell everyone about it! I got a job!!! Yes!!! I got a job!!! It's with a company called Power Play AB at Stockholmsmässan (the Stockholm convention centre) as a sound and lighting technician. I usually work from 0700-1600 M-F with occasional overtime and weekend work. The job involves assembling large aluminium trusses in all manner of shapes, then arranging various lighting setups on them and raising the whole rig to a specified height. After the exhibitors have setup their booths the lights then need to be focused correctly and finally after the convention is finished the rig is taken down and dismantled. Then it starts all over again! Also for conferences sound and stage lighting needs to be setup and later the control booth manned to alter lighting conditions and sound levels, roving mics, laptop setups etc etc. The former is at times pretty physical work and good for keeping fit!

I also get to drive a number of different vehicles ranging from electric buggies (kinda like golf buggies but they are much harder and have tray backs, open tops and silicone filled tyres so they never go flat no matter how many nails and screws they have in them!) to Sky Jacks that are very, very manoeuvrable and go really, really, really high and last but not least the ol' Scissor Lifter (Snorkel). In some ways it takes me back to the ol' Brisbane Hilton days… Totally different jobs but there are some similarities (is more like houseman stuff and staging connections). I'm working with some great ppl; Ben, Görgen and Kicki, Cissi, Göte, Marcus, Tuomas, Tim, Joakim (and some others I haven't met yet). Thanks for the job Allan! Also a big thankyou to John for his help!

It turns out Ben is a member of the Potatoes motorcycle club here in Stockholm. Check out their website, those guys 'n' gals are crazy!!! He invited me to go for a ride with him after work one fine sunny day and I accepted. He organized a bike for me to ride (an older Yamaha 750 roadie) owned by a friend of his who agreed to let me ride his bike even though he'd never met me (yeh I hear you ask yourself, is this guy crazy?!) and also lent me a set of his old leathers to wear and even offered me his own back guard which I turned down saying, "I'm not planning to crash today." So we geared up and I wanted to ride around the block once to remember where everything is (as it had been ages since I'd last ridden a bike...) and noted that the bike is very difficult to start and requires many attempts to get it going, also when you turn the handlebars almost fully to the left or right the revs increase dramatically without you moving the throttle (hmmmmmmm) which is only an embarrassing issue when you are manoeuvring the bike while standing still. We then headed out onto the open road. Let me say at this point that there's absolutely no feeling like riding a bike fast, but it really is so easy to die. I should know, I've had two very good mates die in motorbike accidents - Damo and Ilijash - may they rest in peace. Still when you get on the bloody thing you just can't help but to go fast, that's what they're for afterall…

We rode for hours on freeways, backroads and through some really stunning windy forest roads, and I was having an absolutely amazing time, not that there was much opportunity to take in the beautiful scenery as riding a bike demands total concentration and your complete attention. At one point we passed an accident between a motorbike and a car - the police were there and the car didn't look too good but everyone appeared to be ok. It wasn't long after this we stopped for some gas and a drink. Back to it again through yet more fantastic windy forest road, the journey continued. I had just passed two cars and was negotiating a long slow corner that turned more sharply into a reverse S bend (but nothing severe or out of the ordinary) and for some reason I noticed the grass and a big ditch on the other side of the road and I remember saying to myself, "you don't want to end up in there." The next second I was breaking sharply before entering that very same grass! I managed to keep the bike upright through the rough uneven ground however things quickly became less controlled when the bike hit the log lying in the ditch… I remember briefly becoming airborne and duing this time two thoughts raced through my mind, "so this is what it's like to crash a motorbike" and "this is really gonna hurt" before I violently hit the earth (Ouch!) and rolled and tumbled several times.

I stood up immediately and instantly noted the sharp pain in my right hip and left hand which I instinctively gripped. It was very painful to move my fingers and a couple weren't working properly so I massaged my hand and felt some things crunch back into place inside and then it seemed to be working ok again if not still a bit sore. I did this as I was walking back over to the bike which I noted now had some 'grass accessories', no windscreen, no side mirrors or front indicators and some scratches that I'm pretty sure weren't there before. I tried once to pick it up but the pain in my hip got the better of me. I began to remove the numerous 'grass accessories' whilst muttering various obscenities to myself and thinking how it had been going so bloody well up to this point but now everything was royally f***ed. Both drivers of the cars I had just passed pulled over and Ben, who had been riding slightly further ahead returned to see what had happened to me and make sure I was ok. Another bike rider also stopped to help out. I tried to pick up the bike again and this time succeeded and then Ben checked over it and we connected a rubber hose that had come off, it also seemed to be leaking a bit of oil and there was some fuel around. We managed to start it ok and then turned it off and pushed it back up to the road, but now it wouldn't start…

Ben checked the oil and decided we would need some more for the trip home. I knew working the clutch with my left hand was going to be hard but thought I could manage ok. I helped Ben bump start it and then we were on our way home - I rode extra carefully as the tyres may have had oil and/or fuel on them. We stopped at a servo for some oil and had to bump start it again… I noticed a big difference in wind resistance on the freeway with no windscreen (?!) and it was pretty painful every single time I had to operate the clutch but somehow I managed. Finally we made it back to Ben's place and I then had to break the terrible news to Fredrik - the poor bloke who's bike I had borrowed and smashed - who actually lives across the hall from Ben! I knocked on his door and he eventually answered and I introduced myself, "G'day, I'm Ty from Australia, you lent me your bike and I'm really, really sorry but I crashed it" ( yeh I felt like a million bucks right about now…) He didn't believe me!!! Seriously!!! Because it turns out Ben has played a similar trick on him before. DOH! Anyway I got him to come down and survey the damage and then he sure believed me - all he could say was, "ok…, ok..." and he asked it I was ok. Ben had just told me prior to this that Fredrik had spent the last 2 months doing up the bike himself (oh yeh that made me feel like about 5 million dollars…) and although it wasn't finished yet it was well on the way. He took it pretty bloody well and didn't even take me up on my offer to let him slog me one! I let him know I'd pay for the damage but he didn't even want any money but that's ok, he'll be getting some whether he likes it or not! He even said that he'd lend the bike to me again! Nice bloke.

We all hung out at Ben and Hannah's (his wife) for a while and ate some grub. The lads decided they would call me "ditch" from now on… Well enough deserved I guess! Ben offered to take me to hospital but I thought if you come off a motorbike you're gonna be sore… which I definitely was… (ok, so I should have gone). So I took the Tunnelbana and Pendeltåg home and literally a few hours later (I have to get up at 0515) I was back at work, my left hand had swelled quite a bit but I could move all my fingers ok (though the last two had little strength) so I didn't think anything was broken (think about it again Ty… denial is a powerful thing...) I had the weekend off and somehow managed to work the entire following week as well but my hand and hip were still bloody sore last weekend and I was looking at it and noticing I couldn't see one of my knuckles properly now that the swelling had gone down some and I decided something was wrong and I needed to do something about it, NOW!

So I asked a guy I know who's training to be a doc and he had a look and thought one of the bones in my hand was broken and I should go to the ER (Akutvård in Swedish). So I got on the bus to Karolinska Sjukhuset (hospital) and arrived about 1500 and didn't end up leaving until 2330 but I must say a big THANKS to all the great doctors and nurses who looked after me; Dr Caroline and Undersköterska Lotta to name just a couple. The doc checked out all my injured bits; my right hip, left knee, elbow and hand which she took some x-rays of and as you can see below the second finger in from the pinky has a spiral fracture along most of it's length (Ouch!) Also note that the knuckles should form an arc (you'll have to tilt your head a bit) but the knuckle attached to the broken bone is about 1cm lower than it should be (Nooo! I'm deformed!) so the bottom half of the broken bone has slipped slightly underneath the top half which is what's causing this.

Because I left it 11 days before going to hospital (on ya Ty) the bones have started to heal and so the doc didn't want to try and reduce the fracture (put it back in place). She said that it's in a good position (I did that remember!) and should heal fine. I was concerned that I couldn't see my knuckle properly and am unable to touch-type (my two last fingers don't work properly - I'm really not enjoying this one finger typing crap I can tell you! However, I am getting faster at it!) and since I normally work in IT I really need to be able to touch-type. She checked all this with a specialist and they decided that I should go to another hospital in the morning to see if my hand needed to be operated on, mainly due to the 1cm knuckle drop. The nurse did a great job of putting my hand and wrist in a half-cast to keep the finger in the correct place for the next 3-4 weeks (!) while it heals properly, or until they operate on it in the morning…

So I got the bus home and managed to scoff some food and drink before midnight (yes I was starving!) as I had to fast for 8 hours before my 0830 appointment at Södersjukhuset (south hospital) to determine whether I needed surgery or not. I put my head down for a few hours before getting up at 0600 to put my cast in plastic and shower with this special antiseptic the hospital gave me (once again incase of an operation). I called Görgen at work to give him the awful news that he was going to have to hang 300 lamps on his own...!!! I told him that he knows I'd be there if I could, but am not sure he believed me… No brekky for me and I was on my way to the train. I managed to find the hospital ok and believe it or not I was actually early! Yeh! Not long after I had paid my dues (SEK260 which is around 50 aussie bucks) a nurse came up to me and explained that they had made a mistake and I would actually have to pay SEK2000 which is like 400 aussie bucks! I swallowed and calmly explained that Australia and Sweden have a reciprocal healthcare agreement (which means I get treated like a Swede would) and that there was no problem at the other hospital (yeh) - I had only paid SEK260 there. She went to check this out further but came back with the same response.

I queried this with her again - there's a big bloody difference between 50 and 400 bucks and money is a bit tight at the moment until I get my first pay (btw Swedes get paid monthly but not for the month you've just worked, for the previous one!!! don't we have laws against that in Australia??? so I won't get my first full pay until the end of next month! crazy!) So she went to check it out with her boss. After some more to-ing and fro-ing they finally got a response from their head office and I was only supposed to pay the SEK260. Phew! So eventually I got to see Dr Gerber (what a hard name!) and she removed my cast (Nooo! All Lotta's hard work!) and checked out my hand and the x-rays and told me I've got one of 2 choices; to leave it how it is and it will heal fine with no loss of functionality, though I won't have a proper looking knuckle, or to have it operated on and put back in it's rightful place which would involve an incision on the top of my hand and pins, screws, plates or some combination of them (hmmmmmm I've always wanted metal hands… (mechanical breathing sounds) hisssssss Vader voice, "Luke, I am your father. Search your feelings, you know it to be true." I let her know that I'm concerned that it won't work properly when healed and I need it to and would prefer to have it operated on.

She thought about this momentarily and provided a third option; to inject some local anaesthetic and try to reduce the fracture (put it back in place manually) and see how that goes first. She said that at 11 days the healing bones are like chewing gum. No sooner than I said, "Yeh, ok" the nurse whipped out a massive needle to which the doc commented, "That's not for you" and I'm thinking she's joking but fortunately for me she wasn't - that one just draws the local anaesthetic from the vial and there's a much smaller one inside for me = ) which was promptly injected into several locations of my hand (Ouch!) A few minutes later she was trying to tear off my finger (that's what it looked and felt like anyway…) After rather a large amount of pain (did we even need to bother with the injections???) and what definitely felt and sounded like some internal movement of goodness knows what, she decided that was enough (what? no more? are you sure?) and proceeded to put my hand and wrist in another half-cast - no offense doc but you're not nearly as good as Lotta! Some more x-rays to check the position (which btw cost another SEK100 - about 20 aussie bucks) and eventually back in to see the doc who seemed pretty happy with her work and showed me the x-rays and that the knuckle wasn't quite as low as it was before and the bone is now in a better position generally. She didn't see a need to operate and actually advised against this due to the added complexity and inherent danger involved to tendons etc (Nooo! my metal hands!!!) She wanted me to come back in a week for some more TLC and x-rays to ensure the position hasn't changed and everything is going ok.

So there it is, in all it's embarrassing glory. Just couldn't not tell u all about it though! So I guess God wants me around for a little while longer… That's all it takes on a bike, lose concentration for a second or two and it can all be over. It is said that it's not a matter of IF you will come off a bike but WHEN. So I've had my WHEN and survived so let's leave it at that shall we? I sure hope so!

It's been an sad couple of weeks for us Aussies, and I must pay tribute to Steve Irwin - I'll never forget watching the first episode of "The Crocodile Hunter" - he's standing in this flimsy dingy at night, looking for some croc with a torch and then announces, "There it is!" and proceeds to dive head first into the water and then wrestle this croc into the boat, which btw ended up being a bit bigger than he was expecting! A lot of ppl knocked him but I thought he was a bloody legend! My condolences to Terri, Bindi Sue and Robert Clarence. I've attached a clip from the local Stockholm newspaper - Metro - below. More sad news with the death of Peter Brock, an Australian racing legend. He may have driven for the wrong team for most of his career but none of that matters now. RIP Brocky. My condolences to Beverly, James, Robert and Alexandra.

I'm back at work already (no rest for the wicked!) and am on light duties working the sound and lighting desk for a conference. That's about as much as I can handle typing with one hand so I hope you're all doing ok and 'til next time take care all!