GRATITUDE

Its almost the time of the year when we tiptoe cautiously towards the New Year and brace ourselves for what is in store for us for the next 12 months. This year I won't be tiptoeing. I can assure you I will be running. Nobody will see me coming cos I will be there before you even know it! Thats how much I want this year to be over!

But before I once again set my sail on a pathway where "somebody" claims I am being pessimistic, let me say that though 2013 has been bad, I still have much to be grateful for.

 “Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.” (A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh)

I'm a bit like piglet except that I know I have a big heart and therefore it holds even more gratitude than the very small one Piglet possesses. Here is my 2013 Gratitude List which I think is a lot more important than stupid resolutions which I know I will never keep. In no particular order I am grateful  for:

1. Every single staff member at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, Perth for looking after me, the husband and the girls in 2013. The love in that hospital is palpable. You can feel it everywhere and it makes a serious stay so much more bearable.
2. The skills of medical staff everywhere be they doctors, nurses, radiologists, psychiatrists etc. I still can't get my head around the brain surgery the FED has had. How amazing! And how amazing to have such  gifts and to be able to perform this work on a regular basis with such humility.
3. Family as they are the people who support us in every crisis. My family is spread around the globe and yet I could feel the care, the love and prayers from family everywhere - Malta, Scotland, Botswana and of course Australia.
4. My Living with Cowdens support group. Every day that the FED was in surgery I would wake to a message of support from someone in the group. I may never meet these people but I am so grateful they are in my life.
5. The husband - my love and my rock of support.
6. A faith that allows me to breathe safe in the thought that the good Lord is on the case.
7. An ability to collapse and pick myself up so many times. I am also grateful for people like my sister who enable me to do that.
8. My beautiful girls and the fact that the FED is doing so much better and the FYD is living her dream. I have so much pride in the young women that the husband and I have raised. They are truly good people.
9. The future no matter what it brings cos at least I have one.
10. Eleven years of doggy love from Harry - yes he is still with us and will hopefully hang in there till the FYD returns to us in the New Year.

If I have to make a resolution it would be to keep writing this blog and see where it takes me. I am truly enjoying bringing you my story.

Till next time/next year ...