Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Sunday, December 14, 2008
What I've been up to...
I know it's been a month...and, what a month it's been! We headed to Spain over Thankgiving. It was great...we froze to death but had a great time in Madrid, and then a train ride brought us to Barcelona for another five days of fun. Yep, we loved it so much last time we were there that we decided to go back! And you would think that I would have posted some photos from that trip by now...and maybe I would have if it hadn't been for that sudden emergency trip to Vienna just a couple days after we were back in Tirana!!
What's that? An emergency trip? Well, let's just start by saying that there's nothing like a dramatic exit from a party.... and, boy, was my exit dramatic!
It all started with fun and games...one of my friends had his birthday party at Blur, a big local indoor playground.
We played in the ball pit, bounced around in the bouncy houses, and generally had a wild time. That is, until I followed some of the bigger kids (meaning 4 and 5 year olds) who were jumping over the side of the bouncy house into the ball pit. As I told my mommies, I "forgot my foot" (meaning, I didn't make it all the way over the side) and slammed my face directly into the side of the ball pit.
A couple screams and a lot of blood later, my mommies were at my side, along with the nurse who was on-duty from the embassy, who fortunately for us, was also at the party with her kids. Long (LONG) story short, I had a pretty deep gash just on the side of my eye. Although my eye was fine (for which my mommies cannot express their gratitude frequently enough), the cut was too near the eye to do stitches without anaesthesia.
Since pediatric anaesthesia is risky in Albania, within two hours of the accident we were on a plane to Vienna via Ljubljana. (My mommies are also endlessly expressing their gratitude for making the last plane out of Tirana that could get us to Vienna...they actually had to hold the plane for us for 10 minutes...medical emergency of a child and all that....). By 8:30 that night we were in the hospital emergency room in Vienna and I was getting stitches. And, let's just be clear here...the medical equipment in Albania may be lacking, but at least the Albanians are nice to kids. The bedside manner of the Viennese doctors was, shall we say, lacking... And I let them know just how much I didn't like them by making sure to scream at them really, REALLY, loudly.
We spent a night in the hospital to make sure there were no ill-effects from the anaesthesia, and then had another day and night in Vienna before heading home. Unfortunately for mommy Mindy, absolutely NO shops were open in Vienna on Sunday, meaning that she had to wear blood-stained clothes for two days until we returned to Tirana. (Fortunately her shirt was brown, so the dried blood didn't show too much...) And fortunately for me, the English language movie theater was open and showing Madagascar 2! I had no idea that Alex the lion and Marti the zebra could speak English!!! I thought they only spoke Albanian....!
Obviously the injury didn't stop me from wanting to bounce off the ceilings the next morning!
And, thank goodness for the Vienna Christmas markets, or we would have been really hungry!!!
And, yes, in case you were worried, I'm fine, and the stitches came out yesterday morning. (Don't ask my mommies how that experience went...apparently they didn't enjoy the hour-and-a-half screaming wrestling match while they tried to keep me still...)
What's that? An emergency trip? Well, let's just start by saying that there's nothing like a dramatic exit from a party.... and, boy, was my exit dramatic!
It all started with fun and games...one of my friends had his birthday party at Blur, a big local indoor playground.
We played in the ball pit, bounced around in the bouncy houses, and generally had a wild time. That is, until I followed some of the bigger kids (meaning 4 and 5 year olds) who were jumping over the side of the bouncy house into the ball pit. As I told my mommies, I "forgot my foot" (meaning, I didn't make it all the way over the side) and slammed my face directly into the side of the ball pit.
A couple screams and a lot of blood later, my mommies were at my side, along with the nurse who was on-duty from the embassy, who fortunately for us, was also at the party with her kids. Long (LONG) story short, I had a pretty deep gash just on the side of my eye. Although my eye was fine (for which my mommies cannot express their gratitude frequently enough), the cut was too near the eye to do stitches without anaesthesia.
Since pediatric anaesthesia is risky in Albania, within two hours of the accident we were on a plane to Vienna via Ljubljana. (My mommies are also endlessly expressing their gratitude for making the last plane out of Tirana that could get us to Vienna...they actually had to hold the plane for us for 10 minutes...medical emergency of a child and all that....). By 8:30 that night we were in the hospital emergency room in Vienna and I was getting stitches. And, let's just be clear here...the medical equipment in Albania may be lacking, but at least the Albanians are nice to kids. The bedside manner of the Viennese doctors was, shall we say, lacking... And I let them know just how much I didn't like them by making sure to scream at them really, REALLY, loudly.
We spent a night in the hospital to make sure there were no ill-effects from the anaesthesia, and then had another day and night in Vienna before heading home. Unfortunately for mommy Mindy, absolutely NO shops were open in Vienna on Sunday, meaning that she had to wear blood-stained clothes for two days until we returned to Tirana. (Fortunately her shirt was brown, so the dried blood didn't show too much...) And fortunately for me, the English language movie theater was open and showing Madagascar 2! I had no idea that Alex the lion and Marti the zebra could speak English!!! I thought they only spoke Albanian....!
Obviously the injury didn't stop me from wanting to bounce off the ceilings the next morning!And, thank goodness for the Vienna Christmas markets, or we would have been really hungry!!!
And, yes, in case you were worried, I'm fine, and the stitches came out yesterday morning. (Don't ask my mommies how that experience went...apparently they didn't enjoy the hour-and-a-half screaming wrestling match while they tried to keep me still...)
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