Vappu

I checked in at the hospital yesterday morning just to find out that the platelets count in yesterday's blood sample was still too low to start another round of chemo. The value was now 87 so it's roughly at the same level as one week ago. The nurse consulted the doctor who postponed chemo by yet another week in an attempt to give the body more time to start producing platelets normally.

I asked to see the doctor to hear his analysis of the situation but he had another patient. I didn't want to hang around and wait as I have an appointment with him next Tuesday for the CT scan results, so I left.

This weekend there was the traditional May Day or "Vappu" celebration in Finland. I looked up in Wikipedia and found a page on Walpurgis Night where there's a pretty good description about the Finnish traditions. This is the time of the year when everyone drinks home-made mead ("sima") and eats home-made doughnuts and when students from the technical university take over. You see them wear overalls and white student hats and run around doing various rituals. Though the rituals seem to vary from place to place, a common nominator is that there's a bit of alcohol involved. In Tampere, the dipping of first-year students into the river downtown is a popular show. Another tradition is that everyone that has completed high-school will take their white student hat on and get downtown.