I think my task this week might be to gain a little more empathy with those who live with chronic pain.  I wouldn't be so bold as to term what I am experiencing pain - more stiffness, aches and discomfort (though it's a bit odd feeling your skull is stiff!) - but it is making me appreciate more what life might be like for those who live with chronic joint, bone or muscle pain.

Now, lest you worry I've gone all holy and Pollyanna on you, no I don't think this happened so I could learn empathy, just that given it did happen, by default I do.  At least, a little bit - in a few days my aches will pass and normality will resume, and I only have to experience this twice more in the next couple of months.  For some people it is day and daily - every day they ache, each morning they hurt, each night they wince... I can't imagine how people who experience chronic pain say so positive, yet most do.

I am fortunate, the aches I am experiencing are 'lower grade' than most of the injury pains I've sustained over many years of hiking, and I am not reduced to pill-popping simply to get by.  There are many people for whom this cannot be said, every movement brings pain and struggle.  So for a moment, I pause to enter the edges of their world, glad I can soon slip back to my own...

A week away from work - well as much as I can manage without physically going away - has been pleasurable and due to being week 3/1 of a chemo cycle meant I was able to enjoy most of it with normal energy levels etc.  With my drug change I was promised joint/bone aches - and today there are the first hints of their arrival.  I am amused in a perverse way as the aches feel very like those caused by serious hill walking, albeit located in my bones rather than my muscles.  The sense of being a bit seized up or doing what my walking friend and I term 'the old lady shuffle' when I move off from rest make my metaphor a bit more realistic.  So far in this cycle my energy levels are holding up - another similarity to 'real' hill climbing.

Back to work tomorrow and the beginnings of Advent preparation.  I love Advent, and I love the excitement it brings for children.  My kitchen is full of ingredients for our Advent Sunday evening service, and I am looking forward eagerly to the two services that day which I will co-lead with others (mysteriously planned in to our scheme even before any of this reality was known to us ... cue spooky music).

I'm glad to be back to whatever passes for normal just now... and looking forward to being back with my lovely, lovely people at church on Sunday for worship and our Advent lunch for students.  God is good, and as Advent reminds us, God has come, is coming and will come...