Day 148 – A Swim and some well checked balls

Day 148 Has seen some good news, a follow up required, a good swim and no seizure activity.

1. Miles Covered under my own steam in my drive to improve my physical fitness and so strengthen my immune system to take the fight to the tumour.

   5.9 Miles
   Morning Walk Doune Ponds Short 1.4 Miles
   Morning Prayer & Organ practice St Modocs Church & Back 1 Mile
   Doctor’s Surgery and back 1 Mile
   Ancaster Square to McLaren Leisure Centre and Back 1.2 Miles
   Lunch Time swim 360 metres
   Evening Prayer & Organ Practice St Modocs Church & Back 1 Mile

2. Bags of Rubbish Collected as part of my ongoing drive to keep improving my balance to an optimum level.

   1 Bag

3. Time in Prayer and Organ Practice. Prayer is the greatest power on earth and forms a significant part of my day In which I thank God for bringing me out of the shadow of night and into the light of a new day that I can spend in service before praying for healing, for guidance on the challenge and most importantly the healing and needs of others. I also take time at this point to read the daily readings as a source of wisdom while practicing the organ tunes I have learnt and am learning as part of my morning and evening prayer routine to force the cognitive rewiring of my brain.

   90 Mins of Prayer
   20 Mins of Organ Practice

4. Food is a huge part of my challenge to beat the beast and has also generated a significant amount of interest so I will mention in bullet points any changes to what was eaten. (Food eaten daily will consist of the following:

   • Breakfast will almost always be an oat based cereal mix served with a banana, two dozen or so blueberries and a tablespoon of flaxseed served with coconut milk followed by a piece of wholemeal seeded toast with butter and Marmalade and then an apple and a glass of pure orange juice. Any changes for the day will be noted here.
   • Lunch will almost always be either a tuna mayonnaise sandwich with spinach, rocket and watercress salad or a poached egg on toast with spinach, rocket and watercress salad followed by a veggie pick and mix of 50g of tenderstem broccoli, 10g of carrots, 12 red grapes and 4 cherry tomatoes. Any changes for the day will be noted here.
   • 8 to 10 Brazil Nuts will also be consumed daily by taking 2 brazil nuts each time I return home from a walk or Physical Training or the Church. A Cup of Horlicks will be drunk each evening along with a port glass of red wine and 3 squares of 85% Dark Chocolate.
   • Tea will almost always be a home cooked meal cooked from raw ingredients followed by a tangerine. Tonight was Salmon fillets with Mango Salsa and spinach, rocket and watercress salad with left over mango for pudding. Children’s verdict? Delicious. Sadly Margaret had already stuck one of her oven ready meals in the oven by the time I got back from the swim. But next time and she still blew me a kiss as I left to go and start cooking.

5. Achievements. What have I actually managed to achieve through the day beyond cooking, eating, praying, practising and Physical Training.

   1. Today was a frustrating day in that I lost a lot of time through errors of mine but I did manage to successfully learn and perfect an organ tune that had been taxing me somewhat for a while. I will perform it for you all one day soon.
   2. After the excellent doctors appointment this morning in which I received some reassurance I decided to get going and go for a swim over the quieter lunchtime period.
   3. So at 1100hrs, after making myself a packed lunch I grabbed my swimming bag and headed towards Callander on the bus. It was as I reached Callander that I suddenly remembered that I had an engineer from SEE Hydro coming over to replace my meters in order to get me onto a more efficient tariff. So once in Callander I went to the front of the bus and presented my card for the return journey to Doune. I would have made it on time but the bus started 20 minutes late and never caught up that time so I arrived 10 minutes after the engineer had left his calling card at 1205. I called the number while I frantically searched up and down the street for his vehicle. Nothing seen so after some excellent work by the call operator for SSE we failed to reconnect with the engineer for today and had to book an alternative date instead.
   4. That all took some time and still I needed to have lunch and go for a swim. Lunch eaten and some tidying up and cleaning done around the flat I then headed off for the swim I had been meaning and needing to do. I caught the 1424 bus and cracked on for a great swim which repeated the 18 length swim which I had managed to extend to without any repercussions.
   5. I just missed the school bus back so texted the children to let them know I would call when home so that they could come over for tea and headed down to Callander for the next bus at 4:47 pm. Nothing for it but a Mocha and a flapjack with a hug from Julie and Debbie in the Deli Ecosse.

6. How was I feeling? Great. I had a good straight 7 hours sleep and have had a clear head all day. Why is it that when you go to see the Dr all your symptoms seem to magically clear up? As I walked into the Dr’s surgery I wasn’t feeling nauseous. I wasn’t feeling off balance or off colour in any way. In fact I felt great and nearly cancelled the appointment but then I had a slight twinge in the scrotum. I was going in!

   I did have to drop my drawers and the poor Dr had to conduct his examination with the inevitable ‘Now Cough!’. Good news.

   1. He couldn’t find any sign of a lump or obvious alien tissue.
   2. He thought that the rather off balance and unwell sensations that I have been having over the last 10 days or so could well be down to the balance of anti-seizure medication so once my advisor was well I should get in to see him at the earliest opportunity.
   3. Despite all of the above however an ultrasound is being booked for very soon in order to rule out any possibility of anything that shouldn’t be there.

   So I had been taken seriously. Listened to carefully. Had the symptoms understood and considered and been examined thoroughly, sympathetically and gently. The net result? While there is still a scan to be completed it has greatly calmed my mind to have the Dr appear to be completely relaxed about the whole thing and to be pretty certain that there is no alien tissue present. No cancerous growth. I am so very glad that I didn’t stick my head in the sand and that I put on clean underpants this morning!!

7. Memorable God Filled Moments. I was going to break this category down into two parts but then I realised that a memorable moment has undoubtedly got God’s hand at work within it so the two go together and remain together as the point at which I tell the story at the end of the post.

Unusually for me today has not delivered any God filled moments but it has delivered a wonderful few moments in which the children came for tea. They are both musical, James especially so and have been working on a song together so once they arrived it was out with the video camera and microphone and onto my keyboard for them to work on their song together. I had had great hugs from two very happy children as they arrived out of the rain so was already hugely content as I set about cooking for us all in the kitchen. The children set about their music. I loved to hear them both getting on so well and working so closely together while producing such beautiful and imaginative music together. I felt hugely content having them both with me like that and was so thankful for that time with them, listening to them play together, listening about their time at school and the exciting stuff coming up as we ate together even if I did find myself saying again, ‘Please stop saying ‘like’’ as it seems to have become the default word for every third or fourth word in every sentence. It makes no sense and distracts hugely from the lovely and funny things they were saying. But it is not the end of the world. I am sure that I probably said MMMMmmmmmm after every full stop as a child!!