N3il's Blog

This Saturday, 15 February was my 48th birthday.

The kids were all away for the weekend, the first time ever all 3 have been away together and how nice it would have been to have a great day out, eating, theatre etc! But to be honest I was just not up to doing anything, although we have seen slow improvements this week, I just didn’t have the energy to do anything. It was going to be a very quiet day.  So after trying to catch up on a bit of sleep in the morning,  Sue woke me up and presented me with a pile of cards.

That’s when the day got better!

As I started on opening the cards, there seemed to be more than I would normally expect, which would usually be about 6, but this pile had a least 20! The usual family cards were there, but most of them were from friends who wouldn’t normally know it was birthday anyway. Each card contained words to encourage me and another bit of paper which had a value of its own (money).

I must say I was totally blown away and wasn’t quite sure what was going on. But it certainly brightened up what was promising to be a quiet day. By the time I got dressed and went downstairs there were more cards through the letterbox and this trend continued through the whole day. By time we went to bed I had received 48 cards like this and all of these cards were from friends in the ‘Band of Brothers’.  It was like a constant shower of blessing throughout the day.

The ‘Band of Brothers’ is a group of 90+ men at the church and for the last 5 years I have been involved in running this group of men. They have been an amazing encouragement to me and the family during the course of my illness. It is this group of guys who have travelled daily with me for my radiotherapy sessions to Guys. It was Maurice Clarke who organised this day of blessings, as a way to bless and encourage me during my time of recovery. Thank you guys it has done the job it intended and it definitely made our quiet day one to remember.

Thanks
Neil

Well it really is 10 days since I arrived for my operation and in some ways the time has flown by and in many way time has really dragged away. But I feel in can say that there is light at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully I with all things being well the plan is to be home by mid week.

As for health progress there a bit to fill you all in with.

I’m no longer a’Man of Steel’ as all the staples holding my face together have been removed, which has also made my face less pulled together so more comfortable. I still have some tape strips just to protected the scar.

For my swallowing, I’m still being fed and watered via the tube through my nose, which does mean I never really feel hungry, but I do still feel thirsty partly because the ward is always so warm and I can just give myself a syringe full of water. So part from syringes of water the rest of my daily food comes in the from of a 1500ml carton with a liquid the colour of cup of tea, but with a more soup like consistency. I did walk by on the ward a couple of days ago where they was serving everyone’s lunch and even hospital food smelt great and did start to realise what I’m missing out on at the moment.
Re learning to swallow is taking a bit of time and on Wednesday I had Video fluoroscopy which is an X-ray of me swallowing and they found out that the automatic safety aspects of my swallowing was far better than they was expecting them to be. I have since been doing lots of exercises to improve these abilities and after learning to swallow a tea spoon of water and am now able to sip water, the goal in the next 24 hours must be to sip ‘Pepsi Max’

Over the last 3 days I’ve had a bit of a runny nose which hasn’t helped especially when trying to sleep, but hopefully this is behind me and last night I had 2 blocks of 3-4 hours sleep, which is more that I’d had over the last 10 days.

It’s been great to see some friendly faces over the last week, although some should have been kicked out from the hospital for not showing full respect for a sick man! Mum has been down form Ipswich 4 times in the last 10 days and Sue has been everyday but one.

There are still some challenges ahead like eating! And I also found out Friday that I will need to have some radiotherapy which wouldn’t happen for another 6 weeks or so. My left eye still isn’t right which makes reading or evening watch TV an effort as I can’t fully focus and general I have a way just to getting fit. I’m so thankfully that I am though the worst bits and it now just putting all the pieces slowly back togetherness.

Thanks again for all your prayers and support and we have definitely know God’s protection on my life through all this.

Just to finish on a high. Movember has been a great success for me and our team bandofbros_spc. The team has raised between us £1250 and I’m straggled that I have raised £415 myself. So a great big thanks to everyone of you who has support me and my team through this effort.

If nothing else Movember is about us men looking out for out health and getting help if we need to.

Thanks Neil

The Band of Brothers, the men’s group from St Paul’s Church, Crofton spent a weekend away together at Carroty Wood, Tonbridge, Kent. We had a great time of fun together and out speaker was Phil Stokes, Phil is an inner city pastor and teacher with entrepreneurial inclinations. He start projects, communities and conversations. Check out this website to see what else Phil is involved in. http://www.thewellcc.org.uk.

Phil spoke at 4 sessions, click the links to either listen on line or download the mp3 files to listen in your own time on your own mp3 player.