SCIATICA ! - and the Gift of Time!

On the morning of my planned departure to the Lake District
I awoke at 5am with an absolutely excruciating pain in my left thigh.
I phoned NHS Direct - 0845 4647 - who took some details and
passed my case to the on-call Doctor at my local surgery.

The upshot is I probably have a problem with my Lumbar
Spine - could be a prolapsed disc compressing my sciatic
nerve. Maybe I'm a bit of a wuss but I have to say I have
rarely ever had such pain before so I'm thankful to have
been prescribed Diclofenac, Dihydrocodeine and Paracetamol
(aka Acetaminophen in the USA), along with some Diazepam.

In all of this there are mercies I can truly thank Jesus for;
[1] that it hadn't happened the next day when I would
have been stuck on a campsite, or [2] worse still to have found
myself immobilised by pain on a mountain....taking up the
valuable time of a mountain rescue team.

Although my mobility is severely curtailed, I have been given
the valuable gift of time having been signed off from work. All
the books I've never gotten around to finding time for I can read
now. Also during the night when I've been unable to sleep I've
listened to some great audio-books - Bill Bryson's "A Short
History of Nearly Everything", Tom Holland's "Persian Fire"
(a gripping account of the war between ancient Greece and Persia)
and Robert Harris' "Pompeii". [Amazon.co.uk are going to do some
great trade with me over the next few weeks!]

I read Alister McGrath's "Dawkins' God: Genes, Memes
and the Meaning of Life" in one sitting.....that is a cracking
book from a Christian perspective - well argued in both
senses of the phrase; thoughtful and gracious! [I wish more
Christian literature was like it!]

Time is a precious gift - maybe I have been given the
opportunity to come good on all those past New Years'
Resolutions I usually end up forwarding!