[OC] Jotunheimen, Norway 🇳🇴

Located in Jotunheimen National Park, Galdhøpiggen rises at 2469 meters above sea level. It is Norways, and Northern Europe’s highest summit. Surrounded by glaciers and mountains as far as your eyes can see, it’s known all over the world by hikers wanting to explore and experience Norways incredible mountains.

I haven’t written much of my hikes and adventures in previous posts, although all of them has been, and still is pretty special to me, this one in particular was really special to me. And I’d like to share why. There’s a lot to this, but I’ll try to keep it as short as possible, so bare with me.

I was born with a rare childhood disease called calve legg perthes, also known as Legg Calve Perthes Disease, or CLP. It disrupts the blood flow to the top of the femur, making the bone go necrotic and die. This literally disolves the bone, making it smulder into pieces in a slow process. And as you probably can imagine, this is incredibly painful. They discovered my disease when I was about 4 years old, and my childhood instantly changed. I was instantly hospitalized, and most of my childhood was spent in and out the hospital, with a numerous of times being there for a long time. Now, this was in the mid 90s here in Norway, where they really didn’t know too much of the disease and it’s treatments at the time, so all sorts of tests were being done, and the majority of the day I was bound to the bed with my legs compressed and in a stretched position as of of the treatments (which they don’t do anymore as far as I know). When I could get out of bed I couldn’t walk, I was in a wheelchair most of the time, but on a good day I could use crutches. But, as a little kid you can only use them for a short amount of time until you’re too tired. I spent many of the days being terrified, not knowing what was wrong with me, why am I in pain, what’s happening? My parents tried being there as much as they could, but I was alone still, although, that’s a whole other story.

I was diagnosed at the age of 4, the majority of my childhood was spent in either a hospital bed, wheelchair or crutches at best. And after several surgeries, rehabilitation and learning how to walk again, this chapter of my life, this hell, was finally over at the age of 12.

I was rid of the disease itself and I could finally walk, run and play, but the condition weren’t necessarily any better. After so many years as a child spent in the hospital bed and wheelchair, and the surgeries on top of that, my leg was slightly misplaced and shorter. The bone starts growing back eventually, new blood vessels infiltrate the bone and remove the necrotic bone, but that again leads to a loss of bone mass and weakening of the femoral head, and sometimes secondary changes to the shape of the hip socket. The main long term p

The femoral head in my hip is rugged and uneven, which makes the bone grind down and tear away all the cartilage in my hip joint, which multiplies with my leg being slightly misplaced and shorter. This in itself causes its own problems and pains, which shoots either up my back or down my leg, or even both ways on a "good" day. It can be a slight discomfort that lasts either 5 minutes or 5 days, or be so intense that I’m bedridden for days on strong prescription painkillers.

This is my everyday day struggle. I can have periods where I’m not as much bothered by the pain in my hip, but it is always there. Some days are good, and others are bad, really bad. It’s normal for people who had this condition to get a hip transplant, some gets it pretty early and other’s get it later in adulthood. This will probably help with a lot of the struggle, but it will also bring its own set of limitations due to the transplant, wear and tear etc..

As a kid I really enjoyed being active, and I’ve probably tested out most sports there is, but because of my condition I was always limited and couldn’t do any of it for longer periods of time. This bothered me for years until I found resistance training and fitness. There’s so many ways you can train and rehabilitate, making everyday life easier for anyone with any condition.

I’ve always loved nature, especially mountains. But due to my condition I never hiked any big mountains because of the intense pain it would cause me. Although years of training, rehabilitation and strengthening of my hip has helped a lot, I have to be careful not to overload and exhaust my hip, so one might say these hikes might not be the best for me😅

As I said, all my hikes are special to me, but especially this one. As I stood in camp at the foot of the mountains and the beginning of the trail all sorts of thoughts ran through my head; "You’re not supposed to be doing this – this will be too much, the pain this will cost me will be unbearable – you’ve already completed 4 other hikes this week, you have pushed it way too far" and so on. And I’ll admit, I was exhausted, not only from the other hikes I had already been pushing through, but from the pain itself. I stood there anxious with tears in my eyes doubting myself and my ability to get to the summit, terrified. But I shook it off and decided to give it a try. It did hurt, and I was close to giving up a few times,  but I managed to push through and I achieved one of the biggest things for me personally, I reached the summit. I held my dogs and tears just started flowing uncontrollably. What an amazing, emotional and overwhelming feeling it was, with just as much an amazing view. What a way to celebrate your birthday!