Jesus’ words from Luke 4:23 – I guess (unless you’re Jesus, and I’m nowhere near!) praying for yourself – well, to me at least – must be one of the hardest and most unfruitful exercises in my life. I command pain in my body – knees only to be honest) – to go, dozens of time a day, with very little success. I’ve said before, many times I don’t doubt, that I have no problem at all praying for people with exactly what I might have wrong. Some doctors might be in the same position: successfully treating patients while not really doing the stuff for themselves. I’d be interested to hear your personal experiences of praying for your own healing, successes and not-so-successes!
So to be here and have so much of my body under scrutiny from my doctor friend Joel Isaias (Jois) is such a blessing. Another lovely blessing occurred when he was organising the big scan I had done the other day on my knees. Normally, here, it costs 18,000 pesos (22 to the £ = 818), but Jois told them on the phone that I was part of his family, like an uncle, and the price came down to 3200 pesos (£145)! Of course there have been uncountable tests done on my blood, and today, I had ultrasound scans of my liver, kidneys, lungs, and chest (so I guess the hear comes in there somewhere, too!) – into the hospital at 10 am, out at 1040 am, and Jois will have the results at 1 pm!
I had a bi-annual check up in the UK recently, a, Echocardigram… I was an hour in the parking queue(!) and, when the very nice lady had finished soaking my wonderful masculine picture-perfect chest and abdomen, she told me it’d be 6 weeks before it was worth contacting my doctor for the results… hmm! 6 weeks there, 2 hours 15 minutes here… but I still love the NHS, despite that!
It’s wonderful to feel ‘physically cared for’ – thank you for that, Jois – what I know right now is that this little overweight aging body (though the weight should go down one the slug metabolism is resurrected!) seems as though it will be able to go on a long time yet…. I only need it for, maybe, another 40 years to keep me circumnavigating the globe. I’m so blessed. I hardly ever get colds (I can’t remember the last one), really have no memory at all of having the flu or similar bug, and, despite some of the unknown and bizarre things that pass as food in some countries that enter my mouth, to my memory it’s about 40 years since I was last sick! I do thank God for that, even more when I’m down to a 28-30 inch waist (I’m not letting on what it is right now!)….
