Feels like time travel...

I've been back in Europe for almost a month and the many events of summer in Africa are gradually receding into the past. As well as working on regular ministry tasks like coaching and curriculum writing, I've had time to do things like get my car fixed (the wing mirror was broken), get my cap fixed (the tooth had been problematic for weeks on end, and finally had to be broken off and replaced) and get my cat fixed.

The latter has been very encouraging. Since the surprise news of Teddi's completely normal thyroid reading, it really does seem that his coat is getting softer and fluffier again; it feels like going back in time, to how he was a year ago, before the hyperthyroidism started making him so greasy and unkempt. All three vets are stunned and, rather than risk being negligent and leaving his condition untreated, they've proposed I bring him back and re-do the test in five or six weeks time - just to check whether there's been any change.

In the meantime, both he and his sister (Tobi) seem glad to have me home, and take advantage of every opportunity to snuggle, or to spread themselves across any book or Bible that I try to read or write in.

Medical misadventures, medical mystery or medical miracle?

Since moving to Spain, I've never been away from home for such an extended period of time. The longest trip in the past was three or four weeks, and my house mates were always at home while I was gone. This year, I was in Africa for two full months, the longest time I've ever been away from the house and the cats. I was very thankful for the array of Scottish house sitters, who came to Spain for some holiday, and were able to look after the house and the animals while I was gone. Various people sent me photos of Teddi and Tobi sitting on their laps and being petted by the guests.

And so I wasn't at all prepared to see Teddi looking so poorly when I got back. He's always been a big boy, and so I got a shock to see him looking so thin, and with such a scruffy coat, even though people had been looking after him and giving him his medication for his thyroid and kidneys. When I weighed him, I discovered that he had lost two kilos; that's a huge amount for a cat. (See top photo.) And I began to notice that he wasn't really eating, but was simply walking away and leaving his food in the bowl.

After a few days of this, I knew I had to take him to the vet. I seemed to have a cat who was starving himself to death and it was horrible to see him so poorly (see previous post, on 6th July, about diagnosis grief.) I prepared myself for blood test results that would show that either his thyroid or his kidneys had deteriorated… but no, what did show up on the blood tests was a new problem - a problem with his liver - and that's when we worked out what had probably happened.

One of the symptoms of hyperthyroidism, because it affects the hormones, is that the animal will become more "emotionally attached" and affectionate towards its significant others. After losing a lifelong feline companion (his mother, Tamba) before the summer, and then inexplicably losing his lifelong human companion (me) over the summer, it seems that Teddi finally got depressed and stopped eating normally. The house sitters, although they took good care of the cats, had no way of recognising that his behaviour was abnormal or that he was losing so much weight (a quarter of his body weight!) The sustained anorexia started to affect his liver, which tries to store fat when the body is losing weight (hepatic lipidosis) and, by the time I got him to the vet two weeks ago, she couldn't get him to swallow any food, even when forcing it into his mouth with a syringe. 

I was told to give him daily fluids, antibiotics and phosphorous, and to force feed him to eat tiny spoonfuls of a special tinned food for urgent care. Time would tell if he'd recover well or if the starving was too prolonged and has irrevocably damaged his liver. Needless to say, I was feeling horribly guilty at having to give "critical care" to a cat who was diagnosed with possibly depression-induced liver disease. 

This reminded me so much of how the enemy will always try to steal from us. I went to Africa because I believed it to be God's will for me this summer, and we all saw God do such amazing things though our ministry this year. It was horrible to come home and see Teddi looking so ill, but I knew I had to trust God with this situation, just the same as I had had to trust him with my own health challenges when travelling in Africa.

Little by little, I began coaxing Teddi to eat again, just a tiny mouthful at a time. I also had to give him antibiotics and minerals to help his liver. After a few days, he began to look less subdued, and gradually began to eat a little more again.  Soon he was behaving more like his old self but, because he'd lost so much weight, and some mysterious bald patches were appearing on his head, the vet thought it might be best to do the hyperthyroid blood test again.

And this is where things get a little weird. When the results came back, Teddi's thyroid reading was far below what would be normal. A normal T4 reading is between 19 and 50. When Teddi was diagnosed in May, his thyroid reading was a horrendous 320… and this stabilised to a more normal 34 once he was on daily medication. Last week, the reading was only 6 - strangely and inexplicably low. The vet told me to stop his medication immediately and bring him back again this week for yet another blood test.

Despite the strange little bald patches on his head, and the fact that he's a lot thinner than usual, it really seemed to me that he was looking better from day to day, and that his coat was becoming fluffy and silky - more like it used to be be before the hyperthyroidism starting making it greasy this year. We did the blood test on Tuesday this week and the results came back today….

This time the reading was 30, which is well within the normal range for feline thyroid… and that's without giving him his daily medication. The vet is completely baffled; it's unheard of for hyperthyroidism to go into remission, and yet this cat appears to be suddenly and inexplicably "healed" of his thyroid condition. I did confess that I'd regularly laid hands on his little body and prayed for it to be strengthened and healed; other than that, there's no medical explanation for the sudden change in the blood test.

All the vet could say is that he seems to be fine (as far as the thyroid is concerned) and doesn't need to take any medication for now (except for his kidney supplement) …. but we should perhaps test him again in a month or six weeks, in case this is only a temporary remission. She says it's truly unprecedented for a cat's thyroid reading to normalise like that.

So we'll see. For now my boy gets a reprieve from his daily pills… and none of us have any explanation for what has happened. Perhaps we've experienced a feline medical miracle!

A different kind of season...

The past six months were full of action and adventure. March saw me heading to Hawaii to meet with the KKI international leadership team and work on the preparations for summer ministry in West Africa. A bad bout of pleurisy made the following three months rather challenging, but I was nonetheless able to be fully involved in this year's Leadership Development Course (LDC) in Malaga. After a shorter course (B2b) for younger leaders, I travelled to Africa for the Fortify leadership workshop, the Planting Together outreaches in Senegal, and the KKI international leadership assembly (ILA) in Ivory Coast. Six months that were fairly intense, but also very encouraging and fruitful.

In contrast, the coming season will be slower paced, allowing me to refuel and work on a variety of different kinds of projects. My daily and weekly schedules will be more flexible than they've been over the past six months, and here's what I'll be involved in:

Coaching
Several hours per week, I'll be doing follow up coaching with ladies from this year's LDC, as well as beginning coaching with trainees for this year's Foundational Coaching Skills (FOCOS) course.

LDC Admin
I'll also work on the ongoing email communication and application process as people from around the world apply to attend next year's LDC.

Curriculum Writing
In this quieter season, I'll also have time to work on some Bible curriculum for young people. The first project I want to do is to take the Bible Reading Challenge booklets that I wrote in 2013 - 2014 and edit them to make them undated, so that they can be uploaded to the KKI international website and become available for download by young people and youth workers around the world.

Reaching out to my Neighbours
September will also be a month when I can catch up with my neighbours, drink coffee with them, walk the dog every day, etc. I continue to pray for Juana and Matilde in particular, that their hearts will be open to the love of God.

We aren't running any seminars at the retreat centre this month, but we will be hosting a short leadership retreat for a team of twenty Korean missionaries.That will be from 24th - 28th September. They'll mostly be responsible for their own programme, but we'll prepare the accommodation for them, do the cooking, take them to and from the airport, and have a couple of times of worship and prayer with them.

Thank you for your prayers during this September season in Spain. I value your interest and your partnership.

Back in Europe

The title of the blog is correct: I'm back in Europe, after spending two months in West Africa - in Senegal and in the Ivory Coast. Please follow this link (click here) if you'd like to see more photos and read more news of what God was doing in our midst over the past eight weeks. You can also read many encouraging testimonies and stories of answered prayer in my September newsletter, which probably already reached you this weekend.
I'm back in Spain now, and will post more on this Europe blog during the autumn months.

Summer in West Africa

Of deaths and diagnoses

It's a well known fact that death usually brings grief in its wake. Most of us have experienced the death of a friend, family member, or even a beloved pet, and been aware of the sense of sadness and loss that it brings. And grief doesn't only happen when we lose a person or pet. We can also experience grief when we lose a place; when I left Cape Town to return to Europe, I experienced a strange feeling of grief and loss that kept popping its head up over my first few years back in Europe. It took time for Spain to become my new home, so that the grief of leaving South Africa gradually faded into the past.

What's not so well known is that, apart from the normal grief that's caused by a death or a loss,  there's a similar kind of grief that comes from a diagnosis. Hearing that a parent has Alzheimer's or that a friend has been diagnosed with cancer, brings a different kind of grieving that's linked with the uncertainty of not knowing how much longer we will have that person in our lives. It's a sort of anticipated grief. Or if you yourself happen to be person with the diagnosis, there's a grieving that comes over you as you accept the loss of the life you used to know, and embrace the reality of your new situation: that you'll never walk again, that you're slowly going blind, that your cancer is terminal…. or whatever the diagnosis happened to be.

I recently came to realise that I've experienced a double case of diagnosis-grief over the past month: one to do with my cat and the other to do with myself. When I went to the doctor because the cough and chest pain of pleurisy seemed to be lingering on, I honestly didn't expect to hear that the cough might never go away completely and may be just a symptom of my underlying lung weakness. I didn't expect to hear that the chest pains I experience when I lie down in bed at night may have nothing to do with my lungs, but be yet a further symptom of the arthritis that has affected various parts of my body over the past twelve years. And I certainly didn't expect to hear that I possibly have a problem with high blood pressure…. when I've been known for my unusually low blood pressure throughout my whole lifetime.

I feel almost embarrassed to admit that it was the blood pressure diagnosis that provoked a deep sense of grief. It seems so insignificant compared to someone who's diagnosed with cancer or with multiple sclerosis. But, for some reason, it just felt like one thing too much, on top of the lung issues, heart murmur, and osteoarthritis with fibromyalgia that I've learned to deal with over the years. Everything within me just seemed to shrink away from the idea of having to take blood pressure meds on top of everything else, and the tears seemed to be welling up at the most inopportune moments. I needed to lean on the Lord and remind myself that a diagnosis is not the same as a death. I honestly don't know how things will develop with my lungs, or arthritis or blood pressure….. and so it's important for me to live life to the full, right now, and not waste my sorrows dwelling on what further limitations I may experience in the future.

And the same thing goes for my pets. I didn't experience too much death-grief when I had to put my Tamba to sleep last month. I'd been expecting it for a while and when I discovered she had diabetes and kidney failure, I knew that it was the kindest thing to do for her. But I realise that I've been experiencing diagnosis-grief since having Teddi's blood tested and discovering that he had hyperthyroidism. Having made the decision to treat it with medication, it was a relief to see his thyroid levels return to normal… but then came a new experience of diagnosis-grief on discovering that the condition had already begun to have an effect on his kidneys. He's a relatively young cat, full of life and fun, and it's sad to think that he may not be around for much longer. On the other hand, he could live quite happily for another couple of years. You just never know with renal insufficiency.

I've watched people grieve for years when a family member, human or animal, is given some kind of terminal diagnosis. It's a normal response, as we feel sad for "what could have been" and begin to anticipate the loss of that person or place or pet. But there's a danger of letting our attention focus so much on the sad future that we fail to enjoy the joy of the present.

I well remember the day in Cape Town when the vet called us into his office and sat us down to break bad news to us. In a scene reminiscent of  informing a patient's relatives in the hospital, he told us that our border collie, Zola, at only two years old, had very severe arthritis. We already knew that we weren't going to put her through invasive surgery, and decided instead to make the most of the years we had left with her. In fact, little Zola lived happily for another four years.

I don't know how much longer my Teddi will live if his kidneys have begun to fail. I feel at peace about treating his hyperthyroidism with medication, as this will help protect his heart and kidney function…. but I know that, in one sense, the countdown has begun and he's not going to live to be an old cat. However, I don't want my diagnosis-grief or anticipation of loss to cause me to miss out on the fun that I can have with my boy in the present. And so we've decided it's time to upload a new video to YouTube and let Teddi show off a little with some of the new tricks he's been learning. Here, for your entertainment, is one of Teddi's latest tricks. It's called leg- weaving. Hope you enjoy it.

Giving your all… while doing things by halves

This morning, reading in the second half of Acts chapter eight, I came to the account of Philip and the government official from Ethiopia. What, I wondered, would God have to show me today from such a well known story?

As I began to read, the first thing that stood out to me was that Philip left an exciting revival in Samaria and went to a desert place - for the sake of just one man. We never really know how important one individual’s response can be in God’s “big picture.”

I remember, some years back, my housemate Ada, said to me that if God had brought me to Spain uniquely for her sake, then it had been worth it. And I’ve also thought at times that if my being in Spain would be the catalyst that brings one of my neighbours to know the Lord, then it would all be worth it. Spain feels like home now, but it felt like a desert place of exile in the early days of missing South Africa.

So Philip's experience speaks deeply to me when I think of my plans for Africa this summer. An unexpected change of international scheduling meant that there was a date conflict between the Planting Together outreach in Senegal and the Fortify leadership workshop in the Ivory Coast. I confess that I felt some reluctance about flying up to Senegal right in the middle of Fortify.... and then having to leave in the middle of Planting Together to fly back down to Ivory Coast for the end of Fortify and the start of leadership meetings. I’m not someone who likes to do things by halves and I would never intentionally plan to be at only half of something, as there’s a kind of inner frustration provoked by not being there for the whole thing. I won’t even watch a movie if I’ve already missed the first ten minutes of it... or if I know that I’ll need to leave before the end!

So I considered not going to Planting Together this year, even though I’ve been one of the pioneers of it and have been involved from the very beginning. Opting out wasn’t really a viable option, however, as I had made a commitment to be the programme director for the orientation camp.... and circumstances meant that I was now the only French speaker in the leadership team, and was needed for several days of meetings with government officials, even before the participants arrive for the camp and outreach.

At the end of Acts chapter 8, the Holy Spirit “snatched Philip away” as soon as he had finished baptising the Ethiopian; he wasn’t even able to hang around a little longer in order to disciple the man further. A sober reminder that everything depends on God and not on us.

And so, faced with the unavoidable reality of “having to do things by halves” this summer, I guess I can take heart from the example of Philip and know that it’s possible to give my all, even when doing things by halves! God can always take and use our 100% investment, even when circumstances make us feel as though we're betraying our life philosophy. He did it for Philip, so I guess He can do it for me.