The week started out with a trip to the hospital in Glostrup. I was so happy that Jens managed to push his
CAT scan appointment several months ahead of schedule. Jens’
original appointment was for June 28.
Our neighbor who had an emergency scanning told us not to settle for
such a long wait. “Call and cry and whine” she told us, “Tell them you are in pain and dying and that there is no
way you can wait.” It was pretty much true so Jens didn’t have to lie. But on the phone, the nurse said she was
soooooo sorry but the only day available was in 4½ months
from now. She did suggest calling back
from time to time to see if there was a cancelation – yeah, right! I
said, “That’s a good idea Jens, try calling tomorrow.”
Of course, that is not what the nurse meant. She meant like, try next month. But Jens was not going to wait one more day
so he called later that afternoon. What
a surprise - suddenly there was a space available 3½ weeks earlier. That
was great, I thought. But that was not
good enough either. So Jens called again
the next day and suddenly they were able to take him in, in just 12 days from
now. Wow - His original appointment for
June 28 had now been moved to Monday the 13th of March.
But to my disappointment, the visit to the hospital was only
a visit with a check from the doctor as well as a million questions. Surprisingly, the doctor said that Jens was
one of his strongest patients. The
doctor checked every which way that Jens could bend his leg. We were thinking the problem was his Sciatic
nerve – the one that runs down from
the lower spine all the way to the foot.
But the doctor said he thought the problem was actually in the lower
leg. “An MRI
scan will show us where the problem actually is” said
the doctor. That’s when we had to interject that because of the 2 metal
pins in Jens’ brain and battery pack in
his chest, he cannot have an MRI, he can only have a CAT scan. If he has an MRI, it will melt the wires in
his body. “That was too bad,” said
the doctor, “Because an MRI will pinpoint
the problem. A CAT scan will just give us a good idea and some guessing will be
involved.”
The doctor said that they will be able to do a CAT scan in
about 2 months. Oh mi god. We got bumped up several months and still it’s going to take another 2 months for the scanning ?!!! But good news came our way in the mail. It was a letter informing that Jens has been
scheduled to have a CAT scan at the end of this month. Yes !
2 days later we found ourselves at Fredriksberg Hospital
having a heart scan. About 15 years ago
they discovered that this one particular Parkinson’s medicine has horrible side effects. Both to the lungs and the heart. Luckily, Jens’ lungs
are ok – even with all that smoking,
but the doctors were afraid that they were going to have to do a heart valve
transplant on Jens. But thank god his
condition is stable and it is just a slight bit of fibroses he developed. That means that a bit of blood travels the
wrong way in his heart. Anyway, he got
the results back and there has been no development since the last check and
everything looks as good as can be considering the situation.
 |
Each city has a coat of arms. This is for the city of Fredriksberg.
It has 3 falcons. It was hanging on the wall in the hospital.
It was pretty nice and it looked to be very heavy.
It's made of porcelain.
|
Now it was time to get the party started. We drove directly from the Fredriksberg Hospital
to the other side of the country. Our
final destination was Kolding. We were
going specifically to celebrate Jens’ mother’s 89th birthday. It’s
amazing how well she is doing. She is still
going strong and takes care of herself.
She does, however, have a problem hearing. I SAID SHE HAS A PROBLEM WITH HEARING.
Before arriving to Kolding, Jens’ plan was to go to a town called Haderselv. Say it like:
ha-ther-slew. I’ve never been there so I was
excited about seeing it. Actually, while
driving on the road, I got very excited when I notice a sign pointing the way
to another little village - Christiansfeld - which we drove through a few years
ago. I swung off the main country road
and into the village. We came to this
very well-known bakery whose specialty is gingerbread. Christiansfeld, founded in 1773, is well known
for its gingerbread. It’s not my favorite but you can’t say no to something this
special. As a matter of fact, this
village bakes chocolate covered gingerbread cakes and packages it to sell to
other markets around the country.
Whenever I see it at the market that I shop at, which isn’t often, I buy it. I ended up buying about $35 worth of
gingerbread in this town on this day – silly
me.
 |
Honningkagehuset or The Honey Cake House
|
 |
| Hand made and decorated ginger bread men. |
Now onto Haderselv. It is about 700 years old and has a lot of
history – as most of Europe does – and the moment we drove into town, I
wanted to spend hours there but we only had a few minutes to spare. So, we drove on a few streets to admire the architecture
and then parked near the cathedral to snap a few quick pix. Google Haderselv – you’ll be
pleasantly surprised.
 |
| A side street leading to the church. |
 |
It was the iron work that caught my eye.
A monogram for the king but I haven't been able to
figure out, which king.
|
 |
These are the tallest windows of any church in
all of Scandinavia.
|
 |
The Queen of Denmark designed 4 alter covers. This is one of
them. Along with the altar cover is a matching robe that
the priest wear. Click here if you would like to see the others. |
 |
Every church in Denmark has a ship hanging from the ceiling.
|
 |
| Click here to see more professional pix of the cathedral. |
 |
| Another side street leading to the cathedral. |
From Haderselv we were off to a tiny country village called
Gram. Very tiny. It probably weighs only 5 or 10 grams at the
most. In Danish it is called Gram
Slot. Slot means castle but actually it
is more of a manor/mansion estate. On
the grounds of this estate, Jens’
grandfather and grandmother were among the team of groundskeepers.
We were following a teeny tiny paper map and ended up taking
the wrong road back to Kolding. That
actually worked out well for me because on the way to Haderslev and just before
Christiansfeld, we had zipped passed some sort of marker that I caught in the
corner of my eye and I had a feeling was very important – it was and this is it.
On the stone it says that this is the point where King Christian X reunited the
southern part of Denmark that had been lost to Germany during the second Slesvigske
war of 1864. At one point in history,
Denmark was a huge country. Then after
the war of 1864 it was even smaller than it is now. But in 1920 after Germany lost WWI, a part
of southern Denmark that Germany had conquered, became reunited through a vote
to rejoin with Denmark again. But only
part of what was lost to Germany was rejoined.
The other part of Denmark that voted not to rejoin, is now the northern part
of Germany today. It was here at this
point that the king of Denmark crossed the old boarder to reclaim and reunited
his countrymen and territory.
Finally we arrive in Kolding – this
is a fantastic town. A very small town
with an endless number of things to discover. For example this fascinating windmill can be see from Rigmor's kitchen window.
Kolding is the town where Jens grew up.
We popped in for 3½ days
to visit Rigmor, Jens’
mother. On our second dag, Rigmor wanted
to take a drive to the farmhouse where she grew up – she hasn’t seen
it since she was a young woman. We got
lost trying to find it as the farm house is actually away from the road. But finally we found it and we drove right
into the yard and had a brief talk with the man who is now the owner. At one time, Rigmor and her husband Arne had
taken over the farm – about
6 acres. Unfortunately, the soil is
sandy and not of top quality and there was a lack of rain at the time when the
Bosen family was doing their best to make ends meet.
 |
This is an areal view of the farm house from long ago.
Much of it has been changed from the 30's.
|
It was such a simple thing to do – take a drive – yet it
was a big thrill for Rigmor to drive down memory lane. The rest of our time was spent visiting and
taking it easy until it was time to return to Copenhagen.
 |
Breakfast would not be breakfast without real Danish danish.
One with cream, one with raspberry and one with prune.
|
 |
| Jens and the birthday girl having a fun conversation. |
 |
Getting ready to dig into the b-day cake with
Jens' sister and brother-in-law.
|
