Hello! Forgive me if my English is not that good, but I speak English better than I write it. I do hope you'll forgive me.
My name is Ingrid. Ingrid Elsbeth Schoenfeldter. I live in northern Norway, near Lillehammer, where the Olympics took place several years ago. I am fifty years old, and I am the youngest of nine children, four boys, five girls. We all live close to each other, where we can take turns watching over our father, Otis, who is elderly.
Our mother, Vilde, died several years back. She had a bad heart, and the last few years of her life were hell for her--and for us. We still all miss her terribly; her death has left a big hole in our lives.
I am currently in America, in Tennssee. I was supposed to be visiting a friend of mine, Frekka, but last week, I started displaying puzzling symptoms that have only gotten worse; therefore I was forced to go to hospital, where I was admitted last night for tests, to see what is going on with me.
I don't know how long I'll be in. I went in last night to hospital; already, I have been poked, prodded, and have had x-rays, to see if anything will show up on film. If something is there, I pray it isn't serious, and I pray it is treatable!
The symptoms I've been showing (blurry, double vision, weakness, frequent falls, shakiness) have been going on for about a month, but last week they really got bad. It scared me, not to mention, my family.
Where I live in northern Norway, it is very beautiful: cool, green summers that are short in duration, and winters that bring long nights, the northern lights (nordlissen in my language), roaring blizzards that dump a lot of snow on our village. We ski in the mountains during winter, go swimming in the lakes in the summer months, take day-long hikes during the spring and fall, anything to try to keep active.
People in Norway are said to be very friendly. I am no exception. I love making new friends, be it by traveling, taking walks, or on the Internet. I love to write stories or poems, read, watch some of the American shows on our television, catch up on the latest news going on in the world, and going to the gymnasium twice a week to work out.
My sisters are named Maija, Maikken, Freja, and Kalle; meanwhile, my brothers are named Frans, Kjell, Lunt, and Hjalmar. As I said earlier, I'm the baby, the youngest out of our family.
Well, that is all about me for now. I will write in here again soon; hopefully by then I'll know what's going on with me, and I hope to be out of the hospital by then, too! Please take care of yourselves and God bless!
~Sincerely, your new friend from Norway, Ingrid Elsbeth Schoenfeldter. :(
