"This too will pass!"

I had a day of rest from blogging yesterday - I felt extremely tired and aching in the morning, and then when I did begin to feel better in the afternoon, I went with Sue, Charlotte and Harrison to see son Duncan and Fay and Freya in Nottingham - which had been planned. I drove there, which made me feel so much better. Driving was very good yesterday.

We had a great time there - it is always good to go and see them, along with Diane, Fay's Mother who lives with them, and their 4 dogs!

In the evening I drove to Mark's, and for the first time in over 4 months, I stayed the night, just like I used to every Sunday.

Didn't make Church though yesterday, which saddens me, but now my driving experience is getting better, it won't be too long before I can go where I like, and on my own.

But for today's posting I want to go back to the recovery room by the theatres in QMC Nottingham. I think I understood there were 19 theatres, and one recovery room. My main operation was in number 16.

The last time I blogged about about my time in hospital, I was just getting prepared for it, the procedure and the operation itself. Well, on both occasions in the theatre, I don't remember anything that happened after the preparation room. Whatever they gave me, seemed to stop me mid sentance. What I next remember is the "waking up".

So let's think about the waking up after the main operation. Now I can tell you, it hurt. The first thing I did was to open my eyes to make sure I could see, as I think I have already mentioned. Yes I could see!

I started to prod myself a little, Yes, I could feel! But oh the pain! Pain in the back, where they had removed tumour and part of the spine. It was like lying on large metal balls, I remember. To a much lesser extent, that is what it still feels like!

But of course I was well cared for, and at this stage I was one to one with a nurse, still in the Recovery room. True to form, it wasn't long before I started asking questions - but I wanted to know all bout the nurse.

She was very pretty, had been nursing for 18 years, 10 of them in and around London, before specialising into what she was doing now. She originally came from Indonesia, where she trained for and started her nursing.

After two hours in the recovery room, I was transferred back to the ward. Well not quite the ward – it was a special part of the unit where people who just had their operation were put for further observation. It wasn't a high dependency unit, but like such a unit whereby one nurse would perhaps have two patients to look after. I was there for two days before being transferred back to where I had come from, and where they fondly called me Father Ted!

Throughout this post operation procedure, morphine was the order of the day. At this point I was wired up to my own supply, which I could access whenever I wanted it at the push of a button. Well looking back I don't think that was quite the case, as I was only allowed to push the button so many times within a limited period. I have to say I used morphine sparingly, as I remember when I had my kidney taken out 3 years before, hallucinating on the drug, and I wasn't going to this time!

This period of my spell in hospital was a strange time. I kept thinking about things I had done during my life, not really being able to believe this situation I now found myself in.

In a very strange sort of way, and for the first time in my life, through the pain I remember beginning to think of what it must have been like to have been crucified on a cross.

Jesus didn't have access to these wonderful doctors and nurses, nor did he have a button to push to access morphine to relieve the pain, whenever he wanted. He was totally alone.

It is only when you find yourself in this sort of situation, that you really begin to make some sort of sense of it.

I have always been of the opinion that in order to experience true Resurrection, we have to go through a real crucifixion. I remember thinking at the time this was a real crucifixion and I hoped something good would follow.

Members of my family and some friends who read this will remember a wonderful great aunt of mine, Auntie Gerty, who was a Methodist Lay Preacher.

When I and my sisters, particularly Catherine as she is more my age, were children, she would often offer words of wisdom, which we would not take too seriously!

And one of these favourite little sayings, which she would always say when there was a crisis of some sort, and wagging her index finger whilst pointing it at you, was "this too will pass". She would speak so dramatically, and often with a tear in her eye!

As children and teenagers, I regret to report that we would often snigger behind her back. As we have grown older, we have come to learn the pearls of wisdom in those words – indeed I have found these words to be part of the true crucifixion/resurrection experience - and they have greatly spoken to me in recent times.

So in the recovery room, and in the special part of the ward, all I could think of were the words "this too will pass".

And it has, as I now continue to make good progress.

We were never promised a life full of just "highs", however much we and so many people in today's world seek it.

Rather we were promised a life full of richness, and in order to experience this richness we have to take all that is thrown at us as we journey through life - and that is the bad times along with the good. And as we catch it all, we have to make some sense of it, some sense where Jesus himself is the key.

Blessings to you all.

Chat again tomorrow.