Saw Matthew - doing very well on work placement! I'm very proud of him....thought I had to share this.

Also saw GP: back on antibiotics (and heavy duty treatment for the thrush - tablets as well as drops for the mouth).

BUT - I'm definately going back to work in the Practice next week if only to give lots and lots of flu jabs

Desmond (who is really incredibly nosey) says I'm to tell you that he says Fair Trade chocolate does not count, and is actually an aid to weight loss.

He reckons it works like this: It is generally harder to come by than any other type (so you have to expend more calories to obtain it), it is also generally more expensive (so you have less money to buy other snack food) and the feeling of virtue that ensues form eating it releases "feel good" chemicals in the brain (in addition to those already released by eating chocolate) so you don't eat chocolate again for a longer time than you would otherwise have done.

Therefore - Fairtrade chocolate is probably a negative in terms of calorie counting and an actual aid to weight loss.

I say: Well done Desmond - I couldn't have come up with  a better piece of convoluted logic myself

Sermon!!

God bless

With love as ever,

Lesley xx

Just for today, dear Lord, let me realise that there is nothing that we cannot handle together - and may I pray the same prayer tomorrow.....

GP has referred me for MRI scan on my lower spine as I have symptoms (and have had for a while) of spinal stenosis - nerve compression. This is because (probably) of too many years lifting patients compounded by a known laminal fracture (caused by a patient deliberately in 1994). It's now causing quite severe problems when I walk short distances and interfering with bladder & bowels...

While I didn't want to do anything about it pre-op....she hadn't forgotten!

MRI (at Clatterbridge) is on 24th October - can't wait. It's not as if I have anything else to do

Back at the Royal Liverpool Hospital 22nd and 23rd for more pituitary function tests (always good fun) involving being made to feel really ill and pints of blood being taken...

AND the referral for radiotherapy has now been faxed - watch this space.

I still have that sermon to finish.........

It's a good job I don't really mind things medical, isn't it?

To be honest, it's the little things that get me down, like the sore nose (stitches still in!!) and the sore mouth - yes, the thrush is still there...and the beloved goldfish that still inhabit the space where my concentration used to be ><> ><> ><>

Desmond has suggested Faritrade chocolate - but then, he would, wouldn't he?

Must go, and try to get some more done....

God bless,

With love as ever,

Lesley xx (and Desmond)

Just for today, dear Lord, let me realise that there is nothing that we cannot handle together - and may I pray the same prayer tomorrow.....

Made it through the first day back at work - but was absolutely exhaused! I sort of wondered if I'd rushed things a bit especially when I realised that I had Deanery Synod last night as well....

I'm still tired this morning and really don't feel much like going and leading the Bible Study - but this week is going to be a little unrelenting altogether. Tonight I have to be at a Clergy/Reader Fratricide (oops Fraternal!)....

Tomorrow, I have a Church service to lead at "my" Church Plant.

Thursday I'm doing a day's training (well, a "pamper day") at a local hospital and Friday at work. Saturday is our Deanery away day - which will be lovely - and Sunday I'm preaching (but haven't written the sermon - yet.....

It's a good thing I haven't yet gone back to my other job, then?

Five weeks post-op and I still have stitches in!!

Desmond says they suit me (after all, he points out, that he is very handsome and he has stitches) - but I think I look like the Bride of Frankenstein, and I'm a bit fed up of folk asking me why I had my hair cut after all these years!!

Still, one very good thing has emerged: I know that I am more than what I do. I realise now I had begun to lose sight of that in the run up to the surgery, and that I am loved not for what I do, but for who I am. That feels fairly incredible to me.

God bless

With love as ever,

Lesley xx

Just for today, dear Lord, let me realise that there is nothing that we cannot handle together - and may I pray the same prayer tomorrow.....

Glad you managed to concentrate enougth to log back into the new forum.....

Steve

P.s must have missed it but who is desmond???

God is good!