Last week we were in Stockholm. Today we are home in Perth.
When I logged on to my laptop last Friday there were emails, skype messages and facebook notifications to call home urgently. Dave’s Mum was in hospital after having a stroke and the prognosis did not look good. Luckily we were staying with friends in Sweden and within two hours we’d called home, spoken to the hospital, cleared out the car, packed up our bags and had arranged for a taxi to take us to Arlanda airport. Our boots, our tent, our camping gear and a little bit of our sanity was all left with our friends as we rushed to the airport hoping to catch a flight back to Australia. We arrived at the airport at 3pm and by 8pm we were on a Finnair flight home via Helsinki and Singapore.
In just over 24 hours we were home.
The good news is that since we’ve been back, his mum has made a remarkable recovery. Dave’s sister also flew in from the Eastern States and I think having her kids around has made a huge difference to her making her way back to us. When we first arrived she was unable to speak or even recognise who we were but this past week she has astounded the doctors by being able to walk (slowly), eat, and talk. There’s a lot of rehabilitation to be done to strengthen the muscles in her right side (arm and leg) and lots of ‘homework’ to stimulate the brain and make sure that it’s functioning the way it did before she had the stroke. We’ll be hanging around for a while to make sure that everything here is ok.
Taxi to the airport $80
Flights from Stockholm to Perth $4000
Seeing the look of recognition on Dave’s mums face when she woke up on Tuesday…..PRICELESS! 
