It feels a bit like that to me the past 24 hours! Jesus said it in Luke 4:23 – Yesterday, of course, I was at the bowel cancer screening centre, today at the ICATS (Trauma & orthopaedic, it seems to stand for, somehow!) about the jolly little joints half way down my legs….

The good news (!) is that Janet Eaves, who’s one of the medics there, can’t believe I can actually WALK on these legs, having taken a few more x-rays today. What with my camera session for the ‘rear end’ of my anatomy (that’s June 11, if you’re thinking of praying for me), I shall be the most photographed celebrity in the North Down hospitals network….! As I’ve said in past blogs, truth is the knees haven’t been as bad pain-wise, but looking at the x-rays today, even I could see that they’re in a pretty bad way!

So: humanly, I’m now being referred to an Orthopaedic Surgeon, which will probably be in about 3 months, with the recommendation for replacing both of my knees (not in one go, of course! – 6 months between them). I have to admit that looking at the x-rays this morning, as a complete ‘amateur, I could see how bad they are. There is nothing between the main bones in my thigh and shin on EITHER leg: cartilage has done a runner, which is a lot more than I can do without it: (well, it’s in small pieces floating at the back of my knees). There’s a ‘spur’ growing on my right kneecap, too… and the damage to the knees has flattened my feet! What a wreck! Physician…. indeed!!!

And so: not humanly! – I know much more specifically where to target the prayer now! Seeing a surgeon doesn’t commit me to anything: I don’t want to be ‘irresponsible’ by saying ‘no thank you’ when perhaps a scan, which is what I’ll get, I guess, when I’ve seen the big cheese, will give a clear picture – by then – that God has healed them… so I’m glad today’s x-rays were so bad….

Janet laughed when I told her what I do for a ‘living’ – not AT what I do, but what it demands of these legs! I told her I still plan to be doing this in 20-30 years’ time. And, the offer of knee replacements is not normally given to people much less than 70…. and I have a long way to go before that one! It makes me even more glad that I do what I do, and love doing it, because if I didn’t, I’d probably have signed off disabled a long time back…. and the enemy doesn’t realise just how much empathy and compassion God’s given more for people with chronic osteo-arthritis, and other disabling diseases and injuries!

And so, tomorrow, with both hospital visits and human prognosis’s (prognoses??) in mind, I’ll head to the airport tomorrow morning!

Thank you for your prayers: won’t it be marvellous when a surgeon says – ‘Nothing wrong here!’….?