5 Things I Have Yet to Find at the Pharmacy...

Health and beauty items aren't in large varieties in your small local grocery stores here, so sometimes you can find things at the pharmacy. Here are 5 things I haven't found yet. Let's just get down to it.

5. Leave in Conditioner- It's possible I wasn't looking hard enough or it's possible there really is none there. When you have hard water, your hair truly suffers and so I seriously need some relief for my very dry hair. Fortunately my friend Pernilla helped me find a leave in oil at the grocery store!

4. Tums. I have serious stomach issues. No matter what I eat, except for raw veggies my stomach usually goes crazy. I have to take Zantac everyday (for heartburn/acid indigestion/sour stomach) to not be in pain. I used to take prilosec and I miss that dearly, but it is not as safe to take while pregnant as Zantac, so I switched a year ago. Tums help with minor stomach irritations that I have and it's hard not finding them readily available. Anton says there is a chalk like substance here too for things like that, but I haven't seen it and I doubt they would taste as good as the berry assortment I have. It is supposedto be a stomach powder to mix with water, ick, that is not what I'm looking for.

3. Neosporin- Or something comparable. I wanted something for cuts, not burns, which is what is sold here. Neosporin is controversial because is could keep out necessary bacteria or help MRSA spreading. It is designed to help cuts heal faster and relieve pain to a extent all in a petroleum jelly/ Vaseline like form. I didn't know about the spreading of MRSA until now, but I like having a cream to put on cuts to numb them and help them heal faster. I'm really accident prone. I hope they create a superior invention of this. 

2. Tampons with Applicators. Yep. Don't think about this one too hard. Also tampons cannot be flushed in the toilets here... booo. The whole situation here is a hot mess if you ask me. Sometimes I think reduse, reuse, recycle is taken to the extreme and that's a serious statement coming from a serious initiator and advocator for the slogan.


1. Flushable Wipes. Once you've had flushable wipes and you love that clean feeling you can't stop buying them. Unless you move to a country where they don't exist. This one really is a pain when I think about potty training too, because it's so much easier for her to learn with flushable wipes and be able to clean herself properly. At least I don't have to worry about potty training for a while.

An Epiphany

I think I am holding in a lot of feelings here. Some of my friends may know I have been having a hard time lately. I came to realize why that is today. The truth is, I am an American and always will be.  I am an American living in Sweden. I realized that I am broken. I am emotionally split in two. I do not belong here, nor do I belong there anymore.

I am afraid of my trip to the USA for two months. Many of my good friends there haven't talked to me since I've moved here. That really hurts when you love and care about someone and you make an effort that they fail to return. I am afraid people won't want to see me and spend time with me and that a part of me will feel miserable for it. I am afraid things won't be the same or as great as I remember them; that I will have less in common or less to talk about with people and life will be awkward. 

I am worried that things that used to be completely normal to me will seem so foreign. I saw a 2 liter bottle of pop here at the store the other day and it looked so huge to me because here in Sweden we have 1.5 liters and that is what I am used to now. I shared that with Anton and he said, "how do you think I felt the first time I walked down an American pop isle?"

When I booked my trip to the USA,  I wanted as much time "home" as possible.  I told my friend Pernilla a couple months ago about being away for two months and our friend Alina will be gone for 6 weeks. She was far from thrilled. She was looking forward to the babies doing summer things together.  After she talked about all the fun things we would do I was sad I am going to be gone for so long. I then wished we are only going for a month, so I could spend more time with my friends,  the babies, and see more of summer here.

When Erin came here to visit us for a week in January, she didn't come out of the doors smiling and excited like I had hoped. I was upset but didn't fault her for it because the journey here is long. Things weren't normal with us as bffs that week,  because Erin was acclimating to so much at once. A new country,  a new home (I want her to feel like this is another home), and Rosalind. Anton and I tried to give Erin lots of different experiences, especially edible ones. It wasn't until I was driving her to the airport and we were sharing our lives with each other like old times that I had my sister and best friend back. While I talk to Erin almost everyday, it's not the same as being together. I really miss our relationship.

I am happy that the three of us have the opportunity to spend two whole months with Erin, my parents, and many others. I really need the help and break with Rosalind. Also our families will get to meet for our amazing wedding, and that is more exciting than nerve wracking, at least for me, maybe not for Anton!

I wonder if I will always feel like half a person or not completely whole in this country. I wonder if I'd really miss Sweden if we ever move to the US. I hope all my fears are unfounded. I hope I have a ball. Like my friend Alina said,  if you have too much of a good time you may not want to come back. I think I will actually look forward to coming back, to coming "home" to Sweden. I guess only time will tell.

The Pharmacy- Where All Meds Are Kept

Need meds? There is only one place to get them. The pharmacy. I am convinced that Swedes almost never use medications for a few different reasons: the mindset, the cost, alternative/natural remedies, and the pharmacy hours.

The pharmacy is only open six days a week (M- Sat), opens at 8 am and closes at 6 pm. If you have medication needs outside of that, you have to go to the hospital. I feel really uneasy living in a country without a 24 hr pharmacy within my grasp. I stock our medicine cabinet and have baby medicines in case we need them because I worry about not being able to get them easily.

I have been with my beau Anton for years. And in this time we have been together he has complained on several occasions about various ailments. My response is always, "did you take something for it"? I assume that if the problem is annoying enough for someone to complain about it, he or she will then take the necessary steps to ease their own suffering. I'm not sure if Anton is that lazy or just does not really like taking medications. I think it's the latter but I'm not so sure why. I will have to ask.

Many people here seem to have aversions to medicine or only take it in dire circumstances. I think it's great that abuse of medications doesn't seem to be a big problem here, but at the same time is taking medication when you need it really so awful? I bet some people mentally fight with themselves over this. I've had people give me natural or other remedies for ailments here before I take a medication. I think that's nice, but  I also feel like I know my body well enough on what will work for me a lot of the time and sometimes homeopathic remedies won't cut it.

The only time doctors wanted to try to medicate me was during labor. My anesthesiologist convinced me to get an epidural in case of emergency. I hate to say it but I wasn't really given a choice. Well to make sure the epidural works, they have to give you a test shot. That lasted about half hour. And then I went back to being in pain. I think they did that more for fear of complications. I was probably the heaviest pregnant woman she had ever seen and they really did not want to have an emergency c-section. My delivery went smooth as far as I could tell and I had no complications.

When Rosa was a couple weeks old she got thrush and I wanted her to take medicine. I knew that when it started it was not very bad, but a few days later it was thicker and had spread to her gums. The midwife would not give me medication for her. She told me to take something like club soda and rub it on her tongue before feeding her. It's like they want you to wait things out or try the homeopathic way first. The next time we saw the midwife the thrush was still there, as I knew it would be, and I procured a prescription. Poor baby had it for over a month and we had to get a second script for it. The prescription costs over $40, I think it was like $47, and we had it twice.

They do have pain reliever and cough drops at the grocery stores too, but the latest the store is open here is 10 pm. Also most of the time I'm not looking for either of those things. I have a 500 tablet bottle of Tylenol at home, and a couple bags of cough drops, so I think I'm good on that. I think the Swedish mindset may be healthier about medication. Over-medicating oneself is never the way to go. What I don't like is the lack of convenience when medication is a necessity. Not only do the hours just plain suck for the pharmacy, but there are less medications and over the counter options here. Medication options are vital because people react differently to the same medications. I guess I will keep stocking my pharmacologicals from the US. Until next time...