THIS BLOG IS CLOSED

To all our friends

We would like you to know that we have moved to Oxford where Ray is now training to be a vicar!!. If you would like to be kept in touch with our latest news, then email us on captain.rayman@gmail.com

Thanks for all your support and prayers. We still them and the legal case is still ongoing!

Ray and Caroline

News so far

Sorry for not keeping you guys up to date.

Caroline is continuing to progress at a good rate. She is now working 2 mornings a week, but she still struggles with her strength and stamina.

Legal Case

We have a barrister whom we trust and respect. Caroline has had a consultation with another expert in nutrition and he is horrified at the lack of after care and monitoring that Caroline has recieved. He feels that with proper care she should be able to gain another half a stone in weight and increase her BMI from 18 to 21. His report should contain a costing for this aftercare which will form part of our claim.

In addition Caroline will see a specialist pyschologist who will give her an assessment.

All we want from the NHS is a reasonable level of compensation and costs to try and get Caroline to where she was before the operation.

Family News

Nathan and Bethany continue to do well.

Nathan is much more settled at school and continues to do well academically. He recently got a merit on Grade 5 Trumpet and is a member of Streatham Swimming Club. He has decided to grow his hair long - is this the sign of an emerging goth??

Bethany continues to be happy in all that she does. She is learning the flute and I think she has the makings of a performer!! (takes after her dad). She is a bit sad at the moment as her favourite Goldfish died!

Ray is doing a mid life review. Trying to see if he should continue to do what he does and what should change.

We would like to wish you all a very happy Christmas and we will try to be a bit more regular with the blog.

The downs and ups and ups!

Disabled Living Allowance (DLA)
When Caroline left hospital, we discovered that the only benefit she was entitled to was DLA. This came as shock when you consider that for most of her life she has paid her National Insurance, but it is only the last 3 years that count and as a part time worker, she did not have enough benefits.

Caroline has been doing so well that she did the honest thing and found out that she is no longer entitled to DLA, which is the up, the down is that she is still not well enough to go to work! She does go one morning a week, but she finds that exhausting. Especially when Ray is away.

She is planning a slow return to see how she goes.

Health - what do you take for an upset stomach, when you have no stomach?
Caroline is putting on weight and getting use to eating small quantities. Her stamina is also improving, but she does overdo it on occasions.

She managed to put on 1kg in a space of 4 weeks and then lost it overnight with an upset stomach. This was very disheartening, but what was amuisng was what is she allowed to take? There was no-one we could ask and NHS Direct would ring us back at 2am!! Caroline decided that sleep was more important.

We since discovered that she could take most off the shelf treatments.

The Legal case
The good news is that both Health Trusts have admitted full liability and have written to our solicitor to say that the only legal issue is to decide on the level of compensation. This is a huge relief to us as it means that things may not be that protracted.

We did discover that the lab had made a similar mistake with another sample prior to Caroline's case. We can only surmise that some kind of managerial incompetence meant that they did not act soon enough or efficiently enough. Doh!!!

We are still very chilled about the whole legal issue and trust our solicitor to get on with the job, so that we can get on with as normal life as possible.

The Children
Nathan is doing exceedlingly well at school, despite the disruptions from his classmates. It would seem that being in the top stream does not mean you have fellow pupils who are motivated to learn. We are hoping that this may be resolved when classes/ streams are reshuffled in year 8.

His whole class are being punished for one child who let off a stink bomb in a French Class. So there is no active breaks until that child confesses!!

He has recently joined a swimming club, which means that Ray can go to the Gym, when he is in class.

Bethany is doing well and is her usual bubbly self most of the time. Her friendships have changed as she is finding this difficult to cope with, but I am sure she will get there in the end. She is learning the recorder and doing Caparerio.

Ray
He has had a slight change in work. He still doing the recruitment stuff and is planning a review of the selection process. He is also coordinating special events for Church Army. This means the planning, staffing and admin of Church Army's presence at large events.

At the end of June he is off to Belfast for Summer Madness and at the end of August he is off to Greenbelt. So even more time away, but he is loving the challenge.

Summimg Up or is it down?
As you can see loads of ups and downs. Life has settled into some kind of routine, but it is very different to life before the operation. It would seem that we have to say goodbye to our favourite camping holidays for the foreseeable future and hopefully seeing Caroline getting back to work.

Thank you all for your continued prayers and thoughts.

Please continue to pray that we will get justice and have the joy and strength to keep on going.

Some sad family news

The husband of Ray's mum, Alan committed suicide last week. Ray's mum, found him hanging. She is shocked and upset. Alan was not well, he was not eating properly and neglecting his medical support. This is a very sad time for us.

Thankfully Alan's daughters have been very supportive of Ray's mum and has helped her to sort out a lot of the funeral and personal finances. The funeral is next week Friday.

Do please pray for Ray's mum and Alan's family as they cope with this loss.

Latest news from Legal Aid

We have recently found out that we are not entitled to legal aid, our solicitor is going to check their figures, but there is no right of appeal!!

Our insurance policy requires us to use a solicitor of their choice! We personally find this irritating as this was not stated when opened the policy. Our solicitor is going to see if he can still funding from them - so please pray about this.

Happy Epiphany

Happy Epiphany

Ray has always had a soft spot for the season of Epiphany. It always feels the poor neglected cousin after Christmas and Ray has a soft spot for those who feel neglected. Epiphany, celebrates the Good News coming to the Gentiles, in the guise of the 3 wise men. The outsiders too can find Jesus! It is so much about mission and yet it is often forgotten in the church. One day Ray will get his dream of singing "We three Kings" on the 6th Jan at a special Epiphany service. So Happy Epiphany, may you find what you are looking for in the face of Jesus.

News

Nathan

He had a lovely 12th Birthday with some friends. We took them to the cinema to see Eragon and then they ate pizza and played monopoly for most of the night! What makes this impressive is that they had the choice of the PS2 and computer!

He continues to do really well at school, working hard and doing his best. He recently did a trial for the local swimming club and has got a place, but he has to wait for a while for a vacancy. This club meets twice a week and has some excellent coaches, so we are hoping that he will really develop his talent for swimming.

Sadly his scout group closed. The scout leader's work meant he could not be there every week and they were encountering problems with the venue.

Bethany

Still remains as lovely as ever. She is really excited because she is going to learn to play the recorder at school, the first step to her musical ambition - the flute!!.

She is involved in a local theatre group South London Theatre Company (http://www.southlondontheatre.co.uk/). She is appearing in a small show called Green Inc. a production on environmental issues - a green activist at 8 eh!

Ray

Work is at a manic stage with the build up to the Selection Conference in February. He still needs to see 3 candidates - one in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Surrey!!

Caroline

Continues to do well. She was feeling very tired and they discovered that she was anemic - a hefty course of Iron tablets have improved her energy levels. Her stamina is still not there and she still gets tired over the routine domestic stuff.

Court Case

Nothing really to report, except that our solicitors are progressing with the funding options for our case. This includes an insurance policy we have as well as Legal Aid. Prayers appreciated for this.

YEAR ONE

We are coming up to the period where all the first anniversary's have or will be happening. The 20th February will mark a year since the operation. A year ago we did not have the assurance of how long Caroline would be with us. The battle then was cancer, the battle now is making sense of a huge mistake, by people we trusted.

What we have learnt is the importance of trusting day by day and holding on to what we know, instead of what we do not know. What we knew was that we were surrounded by love and support; that we were together for the now and a trust that no matter what the future held that all things would work out for those who trusted in God.

We are planning to celebrate these anniversaries as a family - it may sound morbid for some, but for us it is a celebration that we have a future.

Meeting with the Solicitor

We have met with the solicitor and have appointed him (or whatever the word is!!).

He thinks we have a very strong case to proceed against both hospital trusts. The first phase is to get legal aid and he is managing the application. The legal aid we are applying for is for investigative purposes. This will include getting all records; obtaining independent expert witnesses to give an opinion on the extent of the negligence and the possible long term consequences.

We would very much appreciate your prayers in ensuring that our application for legal aid proceeds in a swift manner, that way we can get things going.

Pre Christmas News

First of all sorry for not being as regular as we hoped - it has nothing to do with out fibre intake, just being busy!!

Caroline and Ray decided to take up the services of a counsellor at our GP surgery, just to check out that all was going well. After two sessions we felt assured that emotionally and mentally we were OK!

Caroline
Caroline continues to put on weight, she is now 41.5kg all she needs is to put in another kilo and her immune system should be running at 100%. We saw the doctor and a dietitian and they seem happy with her progress. She is eating the right kinds of of food and her weight increase is due to muscle density and not fat. (despite all the chocolate, cream and cakes!)

She still feels uncomfortable at times, still needing to sleep upright. Whilst she is able to eat small meals with ease she does still experience some discomfort. Her physical stamina is slowly improving and she visits work for a couple of hours each week and is helping with the nativity on Sunday. She still finds this exhausting, but she enjoys meeting the children and reconnecting with the staff.

The good news is that after such a long wait, she finally got her Disability Living Allowance and a backdated payment which has come just in time for Christmas. This is a real answer to prayer.


Ray
Ray was getting to the point of exhaustion before the October half-term. We are not sure if it was a combination of stress and a build up of pressure of making life work for the family over the last couple of months. Thankfully Church Army gave him some time off and some money that enabled us as a family to take a holiday in the Peak District in Derbyshire. This really recharged the batteries and we think stopped him from having a breakdown.

Ministry is going well, with Ray being featured in the Church Times!! (he must be getting respectable!). It was only a small feature, but he facilitated a 24 hour consultation with youth workers, who worked with Minority Ethnic Young People in the UK. It was a great time and we learnt some significant lessons that will assist this work a great deal.

Ray has also completed a qualifying course to report and feedback on Psychometric Tests. He is not too sure how he ended up being amongst a group of high powered (but lovely) HR types, but he enjoyed the course even though it was very intensive.

Currently there are plans to develop a Global Gap Year with Church Army and Ray is working alongside an old friend, Phil Clark to make this happen. The big pressure coming up is the Selection conference at the end of February, there are potentially 8 candidates and he is still waiting for 5 reports to come through!!

Hopefully he will have a couple of weeks off during Christmas.

Nathan
Nathan is thriving at school and is getting really good reports on his effort, attitude and grades. He seems to be coping with the consequences of being in an inner city school really well and has developed a good peer group around him.
He played the trumpet in front of the whole school and at a school concert. He seems to have grown taller this term and is about 1cm smaller than mum! He has also grown in independence and we are very proud of the way he has taken all these changes in his stride.

We are a bit concerned about his life balance, he seems to be spending a lot of time on an online game RuneScape, it is getting close to the point of an addiction, but not yet. We are encouraging Nathan to plan and monitor how he spends his time, ensuring that he gets enough physical and mental stuff. In January he is doing a trial for a local swimming club and we are hoping that this will inspire him more. Unfortunately his scout group is closing down after Christmas and we are not sure what will happen with him and scouting which is a shame as he adores the camping and challenges. We are also hoping to find him a trumpet teacher really soon.

Bethany.
She is displaying some real academic gifts and is in the top group for Maths and English. She is also a school councillor. She continues to show her artistic talents, and is a member of the school gospel choir and does drama at a local theatre group. What amazes us is her maturity. She recently told us how upset she was that mum went through all the pain for nothing and gets angry about this (you really wouldn't notice) and sometimes feels like crying, but she doesn't.

She is going to King's to see if her hearing is all OK. We are hoping that she will not have any anxieties about going to the same hospital that made the mistake! Her actual hearing is fine, we have noticed on occasions that she seems intolerant to loads of noise and sometimes does not hear words correctly so learns to say them wrong eg 'Hoodwinked' became 'Woodwinked', and this could be due to her sinuses or a narrowing of the nasal passages, which make the sound echo in her head!.

The legal Battle
Thanks to a good friend we are going to see a Christian solicitor on the 13th December. His firm has a good reputation with medical negligence and we are hoping that we will build bonds of trust with him. Our main concern as regards compensation is not to be punitive, but to get what is fair and right. This is our first foray into the legal system and trusting our solicitor is crucial, if we are to get through this. We are aware that this will be a long battle and could take up to 3 years to sort out (mainly because documents have to be collated and independent experts sourced). We have no desire for this to become a big focus in our lives, our main focus is to get Caroline back on her feet and for life to be as normal for the children.

Christmas
This Christmas we are at home and Caroline's mum and dad will be staying with us and Ray's mum will be having Christmas with us. Nathan will be 12 at the end of the year and we are hoping for a relaxing and refreshing time as we recall God's love embodied in the possibilities of an infant.

Thank you for all your prayers and support, without them we would not have made it.

May God bless you and your families this Christmas with peace and joy.