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.