A horrible end to a vacation

On Thursday we drove from Untersteinach in Bavaria to Kiel in northern Germany, the drive took about 7 hours, we got on the ferry to Gothenburg at 7 in the evening. It was a nice crossing, we ate lots of food at the buffet, drank some beer and wine, my aunt Wenche and uncle Hans even danced a little.

On Friday morning we got up at 8. My aunt complained about stomach pain, and we teased her a little about having ate too much at the buffet the night before. We left the ferry at 9 and began the 3,5 hours drive back to my aunt and uncle's home in Son (about 70 km south of Oslo).

My aunt's stomach pains didn't get any better. Just before we got the the border to Norway she complained that the pain had spread to her chest and her left arm, and when we crossed the border she started throwing up and was in severe pain. She was having a heart attack.

I looked up the address to the nearest emergency room on my mobile phone, then programmed the address on my uncle's GPS. The unit said it would take us 19 minutes to drive there. I guess I don't have to say it was the longest 19 minutes of my life, so far.

The Emergency room in Sarpsborg is very hard to find. Even when we knew we were at the right address we could hardly find it, it was a little galas door that looked like the entrance to any other house, and it said with small letters on the door that this was the emergency room. I told my uncle to get my aunt in there while I took care of parking and paying for the car. When I got in there a few minutes later I was horrified to see that the nurse/secretary in there had my aunt standing on her feet, or rather hanging on the counter through a kind of glass window thingy whilst taking down her name, address and symptoms. My aunt could barely stand on her feet, my uncle had to hold her up, there was no chair in sight – and the young woman behind the counter was more busy with getting my aunt's name right than her condition. Finally she was allowed into a room where she could lay down on a bed. The doctor came shortly after, and immediately called for an ambulance. We were told that my aunt would be taken to the hospital in Fredrikstad, so my uncle and I (thank God for GPS) made our way there, only to find out when we got there that my aunt had been rushed to Ullevål hospital in Oslo. We asked the nurse at the hospital in Fredrikstad if she could tell us why, because as far as we know, people are only rushed to Ullevål in Oslo when it's very critical. She couldn't tell us anything, just told us that we would have to go to Ullevål.

It took us about 2 hours to drive there, another 2 hours that truly seemed a lot longer while we were talking about how bad this had become all so sudden.

The ambulance had made the trip from Sarpsborg to Oslo in 58 minutes, but the time we got there my aunt was already in the intensive care ward on a heart monitor, and they had also already un-blocked one of the veins to her heart.

We spoke with a nurse who told us it seems my aunt will get well again, because she got to the doctor as soon as she did. She will probably be moved to a smaller local hospital today where she'll have to stay for another 4 – 5 days.

Then finally we got to meet with aunt again. She was very tired, but alive.

In another time or place we might not have been as lucky.

What a horrible way to end a vacation.