A visit from death 10 feet away…

“That noise is so annoying! It brings stress to this place” my mom said, glancing out the door, trying to figure out where it came from.
We were sitting next to my stepdad who has now survived 5 days with his new liver. He was enjoying one of his first meals, toast with butter and jam + a cinnamon bun that I ran down to the cafeteria and bought.

The beeping noise was loud. It kept beeping in the corridor and soon nurses and doctors started running. Fast.
And when doctors run fast in a hospital, it´s usually not a good sign.
The beeping noise continued and I walked out of the room out in the corridor to see what was going on. Three small tables were being rushed into the room 5 feet next to me and the nurses looked scared. A doctor came running. One of those heart defibilators came through the corridor entrance 20 feet away and the nurses carrying it were running. Fast.
Panik. Everywhere. “Is his family here?!” somebody yelled. “We need a doctor NOW!!!” “I think he is getting heart massage right now” an older patient said, also looking out his door to see what was going on.

Keep in mind this is a small department at Huddinge Hospital. It´s ONLY for transplant patients and my guess is they have about 3 liver-patients, 2 kidney patients and one or two heart patients. (Just a guess though)
The beep continued. I walked into the room again and closed the door behind me.
My stepdad was worried and asked me what was going on. “Well I think you might have to wait a little longer for your painkillers cus they seem very busy right now” I told him. I made the mistake of mentioning the heart defibilator. My dads eyes were filling up with tears, not because he was scared this would happen to himself, but because my dads heart is bigger than anybody elses heart and he was suffering with the other patient and his family right now.

I tried to calm him down, gave him a hug, told him they usually save people with that amazing machine and then I tried to switch subject.
As I was walking out a few minutes later to get my dad some more tea, the beep had stopped.
I found a nurse and asked her to show me where the tea was and she did. “I know you guys are super busy now but any chance you can get my dad his painkillers soon?” “Sure sure, so sorry, we´ve had some emergencies tonight” I looked at her and asked “Did he survive?” She looked away but I could see tears from her eyes, “No, unfortunately not”

This time I was smarter and did NOT tell my dad about this.

As we were driving home, me and my mom were silent the first 10 minutes. Then the questions started coming. Who was he? What type of organ was he waiting for or had received? Was he young? Were his family there? What went wrong?

Non of that makes any difference. Non of that really matters for us, nothing changes with the answers to those questions. I know that.
But I can´t stop wondering.

Like my dad said as his eyes were filling up with tears, “It´s such a fine line between life and death”

True. One day we are here, sitting in the couch, watching the news.
Next day we´re somewhere else.

Organ donation

160.000 US dollars. That´s how much my dads liver transplant costs in total including medicines, doctors salary, hospital care e.t.c.
He pays 10 bucks/day in total. 10 dollars per day at the hospital which might be anything from 2 weeks up to 8 weeks, but let´s assume he is there for 3 weeks. That would be a bill of 200 dollars. FOR A LIVER TRANSPLANT! That maybe covers 1 hour of surgory time, if even that.
The surgory took 11 hours!

Add to this that the hospital where he got his transplantation, is the NUMBER 1 hospital for liver transplantations IN THE ENTIRE WORLD.
Med students travel to Huddinge hospital from all over the world to participate and study the amazing skills that these doctors have.

I might not like this country for many reasons, but this is absolutely amazing.
If this would be the U.S you would need insurance, if no insurance you would either put your family in great debt or you would die.
As one of the greatest nations in the world, I have to say that´s pretty weak.
I would expect that from an under developed country, I would expect that from maybe Africa, some countries in Asia, but not from America?!

I am so thankful.

Organ donation

Alright, so here we go again. Second round. Hopefully there won´t be a third.

Tonight is the most important night in my life so far.

Barca, Real madrid and Man United

You´ve gotta be kidding me. Please….
15 more goals last season and NO you have NOT ended a season with more points than us for the last 5 years.
So are you really going to pick this discussion? With ME?

And then you go: “OOOH what happened 23rd of december”
And then I go: “OOOHHH what happened TODAY?” Doesn´t the last result tell pretty accurately how the team is doing? Roma kicked your ass.

Here is why I don´t like Real Madrid. AND Manchester United. They are so similar in my eyes. A bunch of stars, playing for the money, switching members a lot, not many “older” core players and by that I don´t mean age I mean they have such fast routation on players, they lack the inner piece that Barcelona has.
Just listen to the players and how they speak in interviews. Ronaldinho, Messi, Puyol, Iniesta, Xavi… They BELIEVE in the TEAM itself and the tradition, the commitment, the honor.
And then you look at Christian Ronaldo. Sure he scores. A LOT. But he falls if he runs into a mosquito, he is often a “one-mans-show” and he hangs out with strippers. Nice guy? I don´t think so.

Rooney I thought looked so mean before, and then I saw him on MTV´s show PUNKED and realized he is just plain stupid.

Baptista and Van Nistelroy….just a pain in the ass, both of them. They have no loyal words for the club, all they say is that they wanna win trofés.
Sergio Ramos is hot as fire sometimes but both him and Marcelo are cheaters, you know it, I know it. Higuain and Robinho just look mean, seriously, MEAN. Robinho looks like he talks alot and can´t listen right?!  Gago and Diarra, well the last one I just wanna say that his name means babypoop in swedish so he is just gross.
Gago in Swedish means “about to puke” so I guess that´s it for me.
And I´m saving the best one for last. Saviola. I guess you need to take Barca´s B-players…

Music and Football is the shit!!!!!!

There are a few things I am overly passionate about.

I think I´ve narrowed it down to Music and Football.
There are a few more things that I am passionate about, probably overly passionate compared to the level other people keep thir passion at Making a real cappuccino, fast cars and Salsa.
But when it truly comes down to it music and football is the shit. That´s what makes me tick.

A good song or a good game. That adrenaline beats everything.
Today, Ronaldinho came in, and the noise from the audience, the massive support, the love, the happiness… I swear to God that was GOOSEBUMPS.
The song that makes you run faster, makes it impossible to sit stil, makes U smile, that can change your day!

Just love it…

Sun in sweden today

Holy mother of Jesus the sun is out today! It´s like, really sunny outside! First time I think I´ve seen the sun since I left L.A!

Gotta get out! ASAP! NOW!!!!

Happy

I´m scary happy right now. To the point where I´m kind of bouncing…
I wake up in the morning and I think about the following:

How I love life
How I love my bed
How I look forward to today, tomorrow, next week and the week after that
How I miss my colleagues in L.A and how happy I am to work with them
How I´m so happy I´m alive
How I love the smell of coffee
I work with something I Love, I have the best friends in the world (and I´m at a distance where I can actually see them), my family is the most supportive lovable people in the universe, I own the most comfortable bed in space (best thing I´ve bought in my entire life), I have the best music in my iPod and I´ve become pretty damn good at salsa. Could life BE any better?

Well if I would have to mention anything becoming better, Barca could kick a littlebit more ass and Real Madrid could have just a few more injuries (baaad kharma I know). Someone could send me my favourite vanilla creamer from the U.S which I am totally running out of and I could have a palmtree in my apartment. THEN it would be 100% perfect.
But is life ever perfect? Of course it´s not.

The more I´m thinking about it though, it´s just about experiences and meeting people. Doing just what you want, choosing what you do, actively,  consciousnessly(spell check plz!), every day.