What a day !

 On the way to A Coeur Ouvert, our hub café, we saw some cranes flying overhead. Normally we see them around the middle of February, and they are harbingers of warmer weather, just as their departure in November signals the arrival of the winter. 

Our hearts were warmed by the sight. Poor dupes.

As I was thrashing out Hebrews 11:1-16 with the lads at lunchtime we noticed a strange perturbation in the air outside. Snow. Lots. Falling hard. Silly cranes! I hope they turned round and flew off back south again.

Anyway I later trudged through the streets to post off my bank loan application and then to meet Pat to go to her hospital appointment. 

Sometime before Christmas she was subject to quite a violent arrhythmia which resulted in her being admitted to hospital by ambulance. The situation stabilised, she was sent home with provisional medication by taxi. Now she needed further examination - an ECG and a heart ultrasound - and a decision about the next step.

A charming lady administered the ECG, then the young cardiologist came in to do the ultrasound. He looked like a tall twelve-year-old, but we're aware that may say as much about us as about him.

"Your problem is atrial fibrillation. It's very common. By their 80s, 1 in 3 people have it. The medication you are taking is working well, and if you were in your eighties we would continue with it, but for someone young like you we need to take a different course of action. Your heart is strong and healthy, but we need to stop this atrial fibrillation. We'll try medication first, but if that doesn't work then we'll perform an ablation."

Somewhat encouraged and reassured, we battled our way home through the snowy streets. Well, kind of. By now it was basically all melted.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A bit about music exams in UK and France

They're really different. I think I have already mentioned that while in the UK people generally find a private teacher for their instrument, or do it through a school scheme, here there are municipal music school, conservatoires and so on. The situation is a little more complex than I had first understood, because the schools vary in the rigidity of their organisation: the most, the conservatoires, next the municipals, then the associations. Our music school is an association, but it tends to apply the standards of the municipal schools with its programme of cycles, etc. Britain - grade 1 to 8, grade 8 being roughly equivalent to A-level, pre university/conservatoire. France - 3 cycles, each taking about 4 years, with 3ème cycle being roughly equivalent to grade 8. Theory of music - UK to take grade 8 you need theory grade 5. In France you study theory alongside your instrumental studies, very slowly. Catrin's flute music is MUCH more difficult than the stuff she does in theor...
Read more

Good news from my sermon buddy

Yesterday we went over my script from August 13. There really wasn't much she had taken exception to. Once or twice she wondered quite what I was getting at (they had the same problem at Deeside, I think...) and I do have difficulties with the word " de ", but then she said "Who doesn't?" So I felt very encouraged. I also took the opportunity to ask her about one or two things: 1) Direct preaching. Like I used to in Britain, I preach saying you - using "vous" when I am talking to the whole wide world and "tu" when I want it to feel as if I am addressing each person individually. French preachers tend to say rather "What will we do, what will one do". So I asked her if she felt my way was too direct, too brutal for the French ear. She said "I think you can get away with it with your English accent". In fact several people have commented on how much they appreciated being spoken to directly in preaching. 2) Liaisons Last...
Read more

A brief sortie to North Wales

 Following the Great Keswick Debacle, when our volunteering at the Keswick café was sabotaged by our assorted indispositions, we had airline tickets to use up. Yes, we had not taken travel insurance, so we paid even more money to change our tickets to fly for a short visit to North Wales. This time we were able to go. We passed extremely slowly through a very crowded Bordeaux airport but in good time to get our plane. All seats in the terminal were taken so we leaned against whatever we could find while waiting to board. Hey, bags need seats, too! though sometimes pointing out to Pat, "No, that's a bag seat", makes the bag find a new refuge on the lap of the person sitting next to it... Once on the plane we quickly found our allocated seats - right at the back on the left hand side - stowed our bags and the flight was smooth and uneventful.  We had 30 minutes in Manchester to disembark, get through immigration , hustle off to the station and board our train for Shotton. I...
Read more