I flew to my hometown Aarhus on Saturday morning to spend a few days with my
best friend Lars, cycling, enjoying life, and taking in art during the Aarhus
Festival Week going on right now. The cycling cornerstone of the trip was a 300
km brevet we were riding on Sunday. Alas, we are not having luck with our
brevets this year; back in April, when Lars was visiting me and we were going
to do a 400 km on Mallorca, he came down with bronchitis and we had to abandon
when he could not breathe on the climbs. And this time an alergic reaction to
some unknown Danish insect did me in at the 132 km mark. But all is not lost.
There are always photos, and today I rode a very nice 90 km rute in glorious
sunshine.
I arrived on Saturday, and Lars and I walked to the supermarket for some
shopping. He lives smack in the centre of the old city, and everything is
walking distance. Around the corner from his apartment, we came across the
Carlsberg horses, used during the Festival Week:
http://www.greatpix.eu/All/Picture-A-Day/i-vnGvfhc/A
The on Sunday at 8 a.m. we set out on our brevet. I had not trained properly
due to my knee injury and leg inflammation earlier in August, but things were
working out fine.
We cycled through a bucolic Jutland landscape south of Aarhus:
http://www.greatpix.eu/All/Picture-A-Day/i-FbnLkWc/A
At the second control, the 99 km mark, a hill west of Aarhus called
Himmelbjerget (“the heavenly mountain”, totally ridiculous given that it is
only about 150 m tall), I rewarded myself with a Danish classic:
http://www.greatpix.eu/All/Picture-A-Day/i-h4qmdH7/A
At 132 km, we stopped at a supermarket to get coffee, and Lars noticed that my
lower lip was swelling rapidly; I had noticed some swelling (but not the bite
that gave rise to it), but now it was really growing. So Lars called the local
guard duty doctor, who said that with allergic reactions on or around the face,
there is a concern about them spreading to the throat and impacting breathing,
so he was going to send an ambulance to take me to the hospital in a town
called Viborg, about 50 km from Aarhus, to have me checked. Here I am, packing
the stuff that I was taking with me to the hospital—the bicycles were left at
the supermarket and picked up later:
http://www.greatpix.eu/All/Picture-A-Day/i-rGcLDMs/A
The ambulance and the doctor arrive; they gave me some drugs intravenously and
did some tests already during the 20-minute drive to the hospital:
http://www.greatpix.eu/All/Picture-A-Day/i-sv27fRL/A
At the hospital, and not pleased with the situation:
http://www.greatpix.eu/All/Picture-A-Day/i-VWXb8T9/A
But my face sure did not look pretty:
http://www.greatpix.eu/All/Picture-A-Day/i-c443pQ8/A
It all ended well, though, and after some additional tests and drugs I was
discharged with some additional medications to take during the next 3 days.
Meanwhile, Lars with the help of his brother, went back to Aarhus, got his car,
and came back to pick up the bikes and then me. By 9 p.m. we were back in
Aarhus.
The experience with both the ambulance crew and the hospital staff was
excellent: competence and friendliness are the two words that come to mind. And
despite the fact that I am not in the Danish health insurance system (I am a
Danish citizen but I do not live here), the issue of payment or insurance was
never even mentioned. It simply did not exist for the doctors and nurses who
treated me.
Cheers,
Nathan
Nathan Wajsman
Alicante, Spain
http://www.frozenlight.eu <http://www.frozenlight.eu/>
http:// <http://www.greatpix.eu/>www.greatpix.eu
PICTURE OF THE WEEK: http://www.fotocycle.dk/paws
<http://www.fotocycle.dk/paws>Blog: http://nathansmusings.wordpress.com/
<http://nathansmusings.wordpress.com/>
Cycling: http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/belgiangator
<http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/belgiangator>
YNWA
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