A couple of weeks ago, I had cause to go and visit my doctor (I have NO problem with doctors/going to doctors myself, despite my determination to supernatural healing occur!!) so that I could get ‘permission’ to stop taking the rat poison – warfarin – that I’d been on for a year, following the pretty major pulmonary embolisms that I had in August last year. As you know, I view the fact that God saved my life (for those who don’t know, the embolisms, according to two consultants, were quite cataclysmic! – and SHOULD have been fatal) as a sign of a new lease of life… this year has been pretty busy, packed with long haul flights (not really a ‘go’ idea when you’ve had blood clotting issues!). I’m delighted to say that my lovely doctor, Dr Lawson, immediately took me off the rat killer… (for those I think I’m a bit of a rodent, I’d be well dead after a year on 7 mg of warfarin a day!).
He’s given me a new drug that I should only take when I’m going to do a long flight: seems sensible, I guess, but I’m not in faith to have any more of those ‘occurrences’ that I had on 22 August last year! Pulmonary embolisms were what killed my dad 50 years ago on September 30…. I have no plans to go the same way, even at 22 years older than he WAS when he died…
While I was with him, he wanted to set me up with an appointment for a check up with the cardio folk at the Ulster Hospital: the haematologists, too, just to check everything was ok… seems, too, that I’m scheduled another precautionary check up for bowel cancer – that wonderful game of ‘poo sticks’!! Two years since the last one, which, you might remember, came back potentially positive: after taking the ‘total body cleanse’ laxative drink the night before, I’d have been surprised if any cancer could have stayed inside, as I think even my brain got sucked down the loo! So it’s back to cling film across the loo pan for the next five days, and then the poo sticks do their job… well, I have to make them do their job!
…and then, as he scrolled down my notes, he said that I hadn’t had my knees x-rayed in a few years. So, paper in hand, I toddled (waddled? – hmm..yes, these days) off to Newtownards Hospital – it’s funny, but when I look in my bedroom mirror (it faces me when I walk in the door, so it’s not vanity, you understand 😉 ), I look as though I’ve just got off of the horse I’ve been riding non-stop for years, with the shape of my legs. I feel like John Wayne looked! All I need is some chaps and I’d be well away…
One of the lovely things about Northern Ireland is that everything is so quick and easy here, where doctors/hospitals are concerned. My x ray results from last Friday – they told me it’d be 10 days before the results would be with my doctor – were on his screen. He turned the screen towards me so I could read it! – nothing at all by way of suspension or protection in either knee, just bone on bone, which I guess makes it understandable why walking is something of an issue! So, other than steroid injections, which I will have, as they do make a considerable difference, if only for a while, my only option is replacement knees.
Knowing enough people who’ve had that surgery, and regret it terribly, it’s not something I want to put on my radar for the future. And the fact that each knee means about 6 months surgery/rehabilitation… and the fact that it’s not possible to live on your own and have it done, certainly NOT in a house with very steep/narrow/deep stairs! Maybe if I was in a bungalow, but I’m not….
Soooo…. it seems that medically I’ve reached the ‘end of the road’ with my God-given, God-designed and created knees: a ‘fact’ that I refuse to accept, so, at every opportunity, I’m getting them prayed for, as with no cartilage or meniscus, humanly they’re only going to get worse. I refuse to give up praying/being prayed for: God gave me these knees, and I believe that in his ‘warehouse’ of new body parts in heaven, he’s got a pair of knees that could very easily be inserted supernaturally into my horse-ridden legs…. as God has done for (truly) hundreds and hundreds of people, since mine have been obliterated. Please could I ask you to keep praying for these knees if you already do: or pray for them, if you don’t already!!
Thank you…bless you…. with Cali/Tulua, Colombia, coming up in 7 weeks’ time, I could really do with them healed pretty instantly – and the knock-on side-effects from crap knees, notably flat feet and bunions… thank you!!!!
