One day Johannes came back from school and told us that next week is sportlov. Sportlov? Never heard of that. Turns out that sportlov is a week of school holidays that had been introduced a long time ago to avoid the high costs of heating the school buildings during the coldest weeks of winter. Nice.
Also, this week of leave would reduce the spread of the Winter vomiting disease, the famous Vinterkräksjuka, caused by some kind of Noro virus.
There are many activities for free in Sweden during that week, of course centred around sports and many kids use the opportunity to try out new sports. I picked activities for every day of the whole week from a long list, trying to spend as much as possible with Johannes at different places.
But first, we spent the Sunday at the swimming pool at Lund, and as it was the first day of the sportlov, we had to wait about an hour to get into the bath (Kathi and Johannes visited the nearby park while I was waiting for our number to show up). But it was worth it and we had much fun. The next day, Kathi came back from work a little more exhausted than usually. She called in sick for Tuesday as she was shivering. Johannes and I went to a gymnasium in the next little village for him to try out some ball sports.
He had some fun with other kids. Until… he got a ball onto his head. Gladly, it only was a softer ball and not a real football, but still, he didn’t feel well and wanted to leave. So we left and drove back home.
About five seconds after he had left the car, he vomited. Could it be vinterkräksjuka?
I took him up to our upstairs couch and measured the temperature. 39°C and rising. I checked for signs of a concussion, but he reacted normally. But still, puking and fever after getting a ball to the head? It could be serious. He vomited a second time. So we went to the hälsingcentralen (the local health center) next to the supermarket. After waiting for half’n hour they recommended to go to the emergency ward of the hospital in Lund because they would not have the equipment here to exclude a concussion.
So we drove to the hospital. On our way to the child’s emergency ward, he vomited a third time (I don’t want to elaborate on that). Anyway, after seeing a nurse who took down notes and got Johannes an ice cream, a doctor had a look at him and repeated more or less all the tests I already had done. She was convinced that it was no concussion and that it was merely an onset of an infection that coincided with the ball incident.
That night, he slept in our bed.
I, however, couldn’t sleep. I started to get fever and melagia. The next morning, I really was in pain and exhausted. I took a Corona test and it was positive. Jackpot.
To keep things brief: Johannes was better the next day, I also was at 80% after two days and Kathi never had much issues anyway. Except for coughing from time to time and a sore throat (which could have been a secondary infection, who knows) for a week, Omicron was not a big thing for us (maybe because the three of us did supplement a good dose of vitamin D). Unfortunately, all the things we had planned for sportlov had to be canceled.
By the end of the week, the weather changed. The dull, dark and rainy days of February were over and the sun finally came out. We took the opportunity for a walk through our neighbourhood and to the close by village Stora Råby. We found a nice little bakery and cafe where we sat in the sun for a looong time, regaining energy.
So sportlov didn’t work out as planned, but on Monday, Johannes went back to school and Katharina back to work, as usually. No quarantine, no mandatory (PCR) testing, no reporting to health institutes.
As for the war and fighting that started that week, please let us have a fika instead.
