Oslo to Yellowknife, or Adventure in Travel, July 2018

July was an amazing month.  A trip to Esket'emc (near Williams Lake) to attend the Secwepemc Elder's meeting.  That trip was followed (literally, as in flying back out the same day I flew in) by a trip to Oslo with Val Napoleon for a 5 day workshop on Indigenous Law sponsored by YoungCAS (the Norwegian Centre for Advanced Studies).

We were staying at the Holmenfjord Hotel in Nesbru (just outside of Olso).  It was beautiful. Hot and cloudless days.  Wonderful conversation and intellectual adventures in a truly beautiful location.

Val and I also got to spend an evening with her friends Richard Daly and 

On the trip home, our path took us from Olso, then to Frankfurt, and then to Calgary.  This would allow us to fly on the "Dreamliner", which Steve told me in the best plane around.  and it was beautiful.   Here, for example, is the view out the window the Dreamliner.  It was daylight at the time, but the window dims things down so you are not blinded and can still watch a movie.  Unfortunately, i was not making best use of the technology:  i was having massive pain in my chest.  since i was wearing my fitbit, i could also see that my heartrate was up in the 120 beats per minute, and I was not exerting myself.

The long and short of it is that I finally went to see if there was aspirin at the back, as the pain was bad.  And eventually, it was the moment for one of those "is there a doctor on the plane?" announcements over the PA system.  Yes... there were 4 of them.  Plus a nurse (since the doctors did not feel able to put in the IV).  The doctors were organized:  there was nitro, an IV, oxygen etc.  The spoke with the doctors on the ground, and the eventual decision was to re-route the plane to yellowknife (we were still 4 or so hours away from Calgary).  sigh.  

Val came off the plane with me (thanks Val) and took care of getting a message to Steve (who headed right to the airport and made it to Yellowknife by midnight). 
  
The people at the hospital were great:  it looked to be a virally caused periocarditis (inflammation of the lining around the heart).  Morphine and antiinflammatory meds [gout meds?!] did the trick.  And so... an unexpected stay in the yellowknife hospital.