Stockholm

I spent 5 lovely days in Stockholm! I took the train from Copenhagen (6 hours) which had very pretty scenery of trees, farms, rolling hills and Swedish wooden houses. I had a problem, however, with my finger. The day before in Copenhagen, I woke up with a small red bump on the tip of my right ring finger, which I thought was a weird bug bite. I walked around with a red dot on my finger all day and went to sleep like normal. I woke up at midnight with a painful and swollen version of the same finger. I went to the hostel bar to put ice on it and watched the Tour de France coverage on tv (go Froome!). The next morning it was still swollen and I got on the train for Stockholm. In Stockholm, my finger was starting to turn green and mushy.

I stayed with friends Emily and Trevor, a married couple with two small kids I had met at Texas A&M. Emily is an astronomer, and I met several astronomers through my bike/astronomy friend J-P. So the 3 of us with our various graduate degrees sat around after dinner discussing medical care and clinic options in Sweden, whether to wait for the cheap walk-in clinic the next morning or not, and decided I should just go to the emergency room, which Emily and I walked to from their apartment at 8:30pm. We got into the patient, "back-stage" area sometime after 11pm, and passed out together on the gurnie. By then, my finger was very ugly and oozing orange puss. At 2am the doctor came in to take a sample of my finger goo for analysis and to cut all the yucky skin off. He made a mess, gave me common antibiotics, a bandage, I paid $300 which I can claim back with my travel insurance, and we left. The next day, the same doctor, whose name was Einar, called Emily to tell us I had an antibiotic-resistant staf infection (MRSA) in my finger and needed to come back to get a different antibiotic. We did, and skipped the wait in the ER. MRSA can sometimes spread to other parts of the body if not treated in the first 4 days. Einar needed to wait one more day for further culture results to know which form of MERSA I had: the common community form that will go away with the 2nd antibiotics he gave me, or the more resistant hospital form which requires an IV drip of more powerful antibiotics for up to 2 weeks. Einar called Emily again thr next day, and thankfully, I had the community form, and didn't need any further treatment. A week later, the skin has grown back on my finger, and all is well.

Between an infected nostril in India, and an infected finger in Europe, it doesn't take a genius to put the two together and guess that I'm a nose picker. My friend Amanda said I picked my nose in the car all the way from Texas to California (and back) when we did a road trip together. Now I believe her, and I  really promise to knock it off, or at least to use more hand sanitizer and a tissue. I know, I'm a disgusting pig and it's no wonder I'm still single. Whatever.  :)

As far as I know, Emily and fam are MRSA-free. We did a bunch of laundry and cleaning, which may or may not have helped.
Thankfully again, they didn't kick me out, and I had enough time, and perfectly healthy feet to walk all over Stockholm. Emily and Trevor took me and the kids to a lake-side town on the train, and we also had an adult's night out at a Mexican Taqueria!!! I learned a lot from seeing them do their parenting voodoo with 2 todlers. Not an easy job! Hats off to you! They are able to strike a balance between nice, loving, fair parents who also don't let the kids pull shenanigans or get away with naughty behavior.
I told the 3 year-old that she can come visit me in 12 or so years on an airplane to see a big red bridge, and she wants to come! See you in 2025 Juniper!!