HappyBelated New Year

My dears,
Please forgive me for my abscence. This time I have a frighteningly good reason.

On 6 January I got a tummy ache, just *boom* there it was. I was cursed with all the attendant misery of unhappy innards. I felt so bad I asked Mum to take me to the Emergency Room.

We arrived to discover that the ER was overflowing!!! After a 20-hour wait, I was finally seen, by which point the appendicitis (which had been silent at first) had degenerated to a ruptured appendix. I was wheeled off to emergency surgery, and had my insides joggled and cleaned and snipped at the same time.

For the next five days I was in an opiate fog, there was a morphine pump in place and I was regularly being scolded for not using it enough. I clearly remember the anaesthesiologist coming to check on me and saying, "You owe Dr. Anderson a very big thank you, he saved your life in there!"

If that wasn't quite enough to bring me up short, the fact that now, 12 days later I still am inpain and struggling to get around.

Through all of this I have been pondering, and what I ended up with is a deep and abiding sense of joy in everyday and simple things.

I am alive, well, and healing slowly. As I can sit for longer periods of time I wil get back in saddle and be an active part of Soul Food again.
Love, hugs and kisses,
Gwen