Last Friday was the happiest day....

.....I'd had in over 25 years. I was on cloud nine. Then two people decided that they would erode that euphoria so,  I guess, it's little wonder that I think we rarely feel as if we are entitled to enjoy ourselves. Life, it often seems, is an endless round of tasks that remain to be completed, promises that have yet to be kept and deadlines that need meeting. Must we really wait until we have taken care of all of these before we loosen up a little? Whilst it's good to be responsible it's important to remember that duties are a bit like viruses. They have a way of multiplying!

Mind you, I still maintain that if you are given a chance to be happy - take it.

Today is the first day.....

......in over 25 years that I have not suffered any abdominal pain or discomfort.  Nothing at all - just as it should be.  It may be the only day I get like this, but I don't care.  It's an amazing feeling to be free from all pain.  And my family neither know nor care - a seriously bitter pill to swallow.

 

 

 

 

 

When I realised, I offered up a prayer of thanks and wept.  (I was walking along a street at the time.)

And the heat returned.....

....yesterday evening. 

 

I went to a healing service to give testimony to what happened over a month ago.  (The same testimony I was driven to give yesterday morning, in a small church over 20 miles away.)  After the evening testimony, the Minister told the assembly how long he had known me and what he had seen me endure.  Then he prayed........During that prayer, I thought  - Not again!!  This heat.  This almost unbearable heat.  Even the Minister was sweating.....  At the end of the service it had all but left me. 
And not a single member of my family knows nor cares.  Oh well, such is life...

 

 

I wonder what the next chapter will bring.

When I was preparing...

....this morning's service, I found these words -

Worry is filling your mind with bad thoughts of the worst that could happen.  Worry is like water.  It begins as a trickle of doubt that creeps into your mind.  If it isn’t stopped, it soon becomes a stream of fear, which creates a pond of paranoia, which overflows into a river of distress, which develops into a raging torrent of tension.   And before you know it, the flood of worry has carved a Khyber Pass of anxiety in your mind! 
William Ward – the 18^th century Baptist missionary - wrote this about worry -  “Worry is faith in the negative, trust in the unpleasant, assurance of disaster, and belief in defeat.  Worry is a magnet that attracts negative circumstances.  Worry is wasting today’s time to clutter up tomorrow’s opportunities with yesterday’s troubles.”

You could say that worry is like rocking in a rocking chair - it gives you something to do, but you never go anywhere with it.

When we face a challenging circumstance we have two choices...... We can lose heart and let worrisome thoughts control our mind; or we can pray about it.........

 

 

 

 

I guess we all worry to some extent, but I've never understood why we worry about things that we have no intention of altering - or even trying to.

 

 

Whatever you are doing, enjoy your day.

Time for one of those...

....different sort of blogs.  I need to start with an apology, because some of the following is a repeat.  (Let's précis the historical bit.)

1982 - Crohn's suspected.

1990 - Crohn's confirmed.

(In the intervening years, many tests, many pills and potions, many bouts of severe pain.)

1997 - Undergo small bowel resection

1999 - Crohn's gets 'foot back in the door'

2002 - Suspicion of pancreatic problems due to previous surgery

2009 - Exit sites of bile and pancreatic ducts relocated.

(In the intervening years, many tests, many pills and potions, Reiki sessions etc, many bouts of severe pain.)

2011 - Crohn's gets 'foot back in the door'

2012 - Confirmed that there is no prescribed drug currently on the market that can help. Talk about further surgery. Great concern by all, due to 'significant risk factor and mortality issue'

2012 (Sept onwards) - Can barely eat.  Any and all foodstuffs causes intense debilitating pain

2013 (Feb) - More intestine removed.

2013 ((Jul) - Crohn's hits back, hard.  Confirmed no period of remission appeared likely - more pills and potions; more tests.

 

My ability to absorb nutrients and proteins has been severely curtailed by the illness and the operations; so I have a constant battle against extreme fatigue

 

So much for the history.......

 

On 8th Sept I went to a healing service, in my own parish, led by Ash Kotecha. I went, worn down by the knowledge that the pain wasn't going to leave me, but get worse.  Worn down by the knowledge that I was (not so merrily) trundling along a road towards having my 'food' fed straight into my veins.

 

I stood at the front of the church, with a few others. At no time was I touched by any other person  (I knew that the power of prayer had more than helped me through the dark days at the beginning of the year.) The longer I stood there focussing on spoken words of Scripture I'd heard many time before, I became hotter and hotter (internally).  It was close to unbearable, and the pain was still there, still as intense.  At the end of the evening, the heat had gone, but the pain hadn't.

 

A couple of weeks ago I was aware that the pain was much less, and the sharp stabbing attacks were not lasting as long. And this is how it has remained. Instead of a daily pain level of 7-9, it's usually a level of 3 or 4.  It does still hurt to sit in meetings, as in sitting still for long periods.  It still wakes me up when I inadvertently move onto the traumatised area of my abdomen.  The level of fatigue is still the same.  But, overall, I feel just as I did approx. 15 years ago.  And if this is the general level the pain remains at, you'll hear no complaints from me. 

 

 

I know what happened on 15 February. I now know what happened on 8 September.  Do I understand it?  In truth, I doubt I ever will, but I know it and give thanks for it. 




 

The world is....

changing fast......(Oh no, there's that word 'change' again - run away, run away!!)  Today's state-of-the-art device is tomorrow's car-boot-sale bargain. As with technology, so with fashion - and sadly, even with philosophy. What once was cutting edge is now blunt and dull. It seems, sometimes, that to survive on this fluid, fickle planet, we must be ready, at all times, to abandon every idea we once held dear. Yet some things don't change.

 

 

 

If you are ever under pressure now, to drop a deep belief. Don't. Not if your heart still sees the sense of it. That's most likely one change too many!