Skin cancer -- we should all know

I have now finished studying infectious diseases and have started on my 2 weeks of oncology (cancer), so I'm seeing all sorts of cancers, all day long.


I had a study case to work on about melanoma (a type of skin cancer) and I thought I would share some important info I learned.

Melanoma is the number 1 cause of cancer deaths in women aged 20 - 30yrs and here are the 4 golden rules for assesing the risk of a mole potentially being cancerous

ABCD

A for Asymmetry
- One half is different from the other half.

B for Border Irregularity
- The edges are notched, uneven, or blurred.

C for Color
- The color is uneven. Shades of brown, tan,and black are present.

D for Diameter
- Diameter is greater than 6 millimeters.

here are some pictures.

and according to the American melanoma foundation, here are some other warning signs:

Other Warning Signs:• The appearance of a new bump or nodule• Color spreads into surrounding skin• redness or swelling beyond the mole• pain• tenderness• itching• bleeding• oozing• scaly appearance


I will never forget the girl that I saw last year in the emergency department.
She was in her late-20s, and came in with her husband, parents and sister.
I had no idea what was wrong with her before I went to see her, I was just told that over the last day she had started having some difficulty speaking...

it turned out that she had been diagnosed with melanoma about a year before, and it had already spread by the time they found it; she was just on chemotherapy to try and dampen down any symptoms...no hope of a cure.

The day before I met her she had been to visit her melanoma specialist and they did a CT scan and confirmed that it had spread to her brain...

...which may be why she now had the problem speaking.

So I think it was desperation that her family had brought her in to the emergency department.

They were all crying and so deeply deeply sad; her husband looked as if he'd been crying for the last year (probably had been); I will never forget it; it was like, for a few moments, I was a part of someone else's nightmare.

It made such an impact on me that I still think about her every few weeks.

She was also Catholic (it said so in her hospital notes), and she had had an abortion a few years previously.

That really struck a chord with me when I was reflecting on it last year.....what might've been different in her life if she'd had that baby?
Maybe nothing...may she still would've got the skin cancer...but maybe her family/husband would've been consoled by the child after she died...

or maybe the child would've changed everything..

it made me realise the importance of always doing the most loving thing in every situation, no matter how difficult, and trusting what God has given you, even if it's unexpected, because you don't know what else He has planned for you.


So this girl came in to hospital and the doctors decided to keep her in over-night to see if they could try and do something to help with her speech difficulties.

However, very very sadly she passed away barely 48 hours later.


I don't want to scare anyone; obviously there are also many many people who survive melanomas; they have them cut out and never have another problem again for the rest of their life...but obviously that is more likely to occur if it it caught early...so check your moles!!

ABCD

and please say a prayer for that girl.

God Bless


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Liberal Trendy Nuns

Yesterday I had a pretty upsetting experience with a liberal trendy nun during Mass in the hospital chapel (it’s actually taken me 1.5 years to realize that she is a nun (she dresses in normal clothes & the cross round her neck is easy to miss.) (I actually only realized for definite because her hospital chaplaincy badge says “sister…” on it)

Anyway, the reason for telling this tale is not to insult her, poor woman, she needs lots of prayers, but as an illustration of the lack of reverence and respect people have in their hearts for the Eucharist, and their lack of faith that it is truly Jesus.
So let us strive to love Him as much as we can, make sure we always do His will, and ask Him to help us with our own lack of faith and love…..all you have to do is tell Him that you really want to believe and love…or even that you want to want to! And He will help you.
Mary is especially gentle and loving at leading people to more perfect love for her son.

So yesterday during Mass the liberal trendy nun was the Eucharistic minister distributing the blood of Christ. Before communion she went up to the altar to receive the host and then the chalice.
The priest handed her the host, and it was half of his own big host which he had just consecrated (so it was a semi-circle shape).
He placed it in her hand, and then she took it, held onto it with both hands and really quite aggressively snapped it hard in half….and a big piece broke off and fell to the floor!

Oh how awful awful.

Thank God I was sitting on the front row; at the sound of the loud ‘crack’ as she broke the host in half I looked up and saw the piece of host falling to the ground….so I leapt forwards, picked it up and consumed it.
(I have seen enough accidental spillages of the blood of Christ, and dropped hosts in my time that I now don’t bother waiting to see if anyone else will sort it out, I just leap up and do it myself…but let’s not talk about spilled blood of Christ and other neglects of the body and blood of Christ, it gets me so upset).

So during communion I was thinking about what happened and realized that I couldn’t not say anything to the trendy nun after Mass…

I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt, maybe it was an accident and she was really upset that it happened…maybe she has some kind of medical problem and so *has* to break the host into a smaller piece (…but why so aggressively & violently? Couldn’t she be more careful?)

Anyway, after Mass I went straight up to her and said something like;

“Hi. I don’t know if you realized, but when you snapped the host in half a big piece broke off and fell onto the floor….please, be careful next time…if I hadn’t seen it it might’ve just been left there and someone might’ve stood in it….I don’t think you should be snapping the host in half anyway, but if you have to please please be more careful….that’s Jesus…”


As soon as I said “that’s Jesus” her mouth twitched upwards into the start of a smile…almost as if she was about to laugh at me because I said “that’s Jesus”.
Honestly, I’m not joking!

Her reaction was as if she couldn’t believe that I actually accept as true that “nonesense” and believed ‘that bit of bread’ was Jesus…and not just that, but that I’d actually SAID it out loud.

It was as if she couldn’t believe that I was actually so bothered about a bit of bread…

Her eyes even changed as if they were laughing…and then her mouth started twitching downwards as if she was still trying to suppress an uncontrollable laugh, as if I had just said something hilarious….

The immediate thought that flashed through my mind was “she doesn’t believe the host is truly Jesus. Keep talking about the Real Presence of the Eucharist because she doesn’t believe you…”

So then I said a bit more about why she should be careful, and how the host is really Jesus. I then said something about “love for Jesus” and she replied with “Oh trust me, I do love Jesus, I’m just not scrupulous.”

Not scrupulous?!!

What she means is that a bit of broken host isn’t important, it isn’t worth bothering about…it can fall to the floor, be stood in, be vacuumed up, who cares? It’s just a piece of bread; she’s ‘not scrupulous’ about things like that.

Not scrupulous?!
ABOUT JESUS’S BODY?!

HOW is it possible to be too careful, and too reverent and too respectful with God Himself?!!

That’s probably why she also broke the host so violently too.

How terribly terribly terribly sad. It’s beyond sad

Poor sweet Jesus, truly present for us as the most holy Eucharist and how neglectfully and indifferently we treat Him. Like He’s just a nothing.

We have to make up to Him for all the lack of love of the rest of the world; we have to love Him with our whole being, and love our neighbour profoundly, as He asked us to.
Let Him be proud of us, and let our heart be a place where He finds joy to dwell in because they are brimming over with joy.

Anyway, after this conversation I waited around in the Chapel and then I saw the Priest walking by so I decided to go and talk to him about what happened.
I couldn’t help myself but I soon as I started talking to him I burst into tears and just started crying. I was so upset at such lack of love. He said something consoling like “I know, it is awful.”

So let’s try extra hard this Lent to show Jesus EXTRA love, love that goes beyond our own selfishness; love that does MORE than just what we ‘feel’ like doing, what is ‘convenient’ and easy to do, and love that always always always places others first, before ourself….just as Jesus did, but putting US before His own life.


And let’s say a prayer for this nun, and the vast sea of people like her, and for our own lack of faith.
God’s mercy is infinite, and He always listens when His children call.


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I love St. Therese so much! I loved her instantly from the first moment I knew about her ( I found a random book on her on a book shelf while on a retreat), and I've always felt a special closeness to her for some reason.

I just found this describing the extent to which she practiced self-control even in the smallest things:

It's so lovely:

When Therese was ten-years-old, her father offered her sister, Celine, painting lessons, and then turned to Therese to ask her if she would like them also. Before she could answer yes, her sister Marie remarked that Therese did not have the same gift for it as Celine. Therese held herself back and remained silent, offering her great desire for lessons as a sacrifice. Later, in her autobiography, she remarked, “I still wonder how I had the fortitude to remain silent.”

Picture yourself in that situation when someone speaks out against you...it's a gut instinct to retort back with a sharp remark. What will-power it takes to keep silent.

She maintained this spirit in her years at Carmel. In the convent laundry of Lisieux, for example, she worked opposite a Sister who would splash her with dirty water while washing the handkerchiefs. She refrained from her inclination to draw back and wipe her face to show the Sister how much this annoyed her. This may seem very small, but the self will is as well denied and curbed in small things as in great things, and sometimes more so when they go against the grain.

I am failing so miserably at doing that.

Like just on Saturday for example, while rowing the girl behind me was out of sync with the rest of the boat so she accidently hit me in the back with her oar (it was pretty hard!)
So I exclaimed "OW!!"
She didn't reply from behind me.

A few strokes later it happened again! She hit me in the back, hard! (I'm sure it was an accident by the way!) So I exclaimed even harder "OWWW!! THAT HURTS!" just because I wanted to get a reaction of apology from her, because she hadn't responded the first time.

How shameful is that?

I should try to remain silent and offer it to Jesus saying "Jesus, you suffered so much for me, this is one tiny droplet of suffering I will suffer silently for you!"

St. Therese explained this “Little Way” with simplicity

“Far from being like to those great souls who from their childhood
practice all sorts of macerations, I made my mortification consist solely in the breaking of my will, restraining a hasty word, rendering little services to those around me without making anything of it, and a thousand other things of this kind.”

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Prayer, charity, fasting

...are spiritual weapons to combat evil

But why do we fast?

Let me hand over to Pope Benedict:

"Fasting, to which the Church invites us during this time, is not born from motivations of a physical or aesthetic order, but springs from the need the person feels for interior purification, to be detoxified from the contamination of sin and evil."

Benedict XVI said that fasting educates in "those healthy self-denials that free the believer from his 'I,' and make him more attentive and ready to listen to God and to serve his brothers."

I kinda mentioned this in my post about Lent and fasting a few days ago; denying yourself something you really want helps to strengthen your will, and is actually liberating; you are freed from being a slave to yourself, and so are more open and able to hear God's voice, you aren't blinded by your own selfishness, and have the strength to freely choose to do His will.

But along with fasting go prayer and works of charity.

We should especially try during the Lent time to be more charitable to everyone.

Force yourself to smile when you want to scowl.

Give people what they ask, even if you really wanted it yourself (the nicest looking steak, the bit of cake with that extra cream on top...)

and give more to charities...to your Church in the collection plate and to any good wholesome organisations (maybe like a monestray, a convent, a Catholic hospital, a pro-life group...be careful with big secular organisations because lots of them (even like UNICEF) sponsors abortions and contraception policies in the 3rd world).


"For this reason, fasting and the Lenten practices" of prayer and works of charity, in particular almsgiving, "are considered by the Christian tradition spiritual 'weapons' to combat evil, evil passions and vices," the Pope said.

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abortion; oh Lord have mercy

For a few years now I've been a member of the "Helpers of God's Precious Infants" - a Catholic Pro-Life organisation here in England. They pray in front of abortion clinics, do post-abotion counselling and offer practical help to pregnant women and new mothers (e.g. baby food, clothes, toys) and lots of holy charitable things like that.


I enjoy their frequent news-letters which always have wonderful stories in of mothers who chose life for their babies after having spoken with counsellors who were praying and offering help in front of the abortion clinics.

(but their bulletins also make me so sad, to hear of how many thousands of babies are aborted...600 each and every single day in England & Wales).

Anyway, I got their most recent bulletin yesterday, and it was all about a big international Pro-Life conference that was held in Fatima, Portugal that many of the members of "Helpers of God's Precious Infants" attended.

In this bulletin they tell the story of a group of Austrain Pro-Lifers who came to the conference from Austria with their own 6 foot steel cross...made from the medical instruments used in abortions.



click to enlarge


click to enlarge

Thanks to the power of prayer, an abortion clinic in Austria had to close down and it was bought by a pro-life group and became a pro-life centre.
But the abortionists had left a bunch of their abortion-instruments behind....and so the pro-lifers used them to make the cross.

Chilling to think of how many thousands of innocent babies were killed with those instruments.
May God have mercy on the people who used them, and may they convert and repent.

They are the holy innocents of our own time.

In the centre of the cross you can see a crucifix and a model of a baby to be aborted (may need to click to enlarge)

Just thinking about abortion makes me feel sick to the pit of my stomach.

Let us pray pray pray for an end to this horrendous evil.

But it's not just abortion....all chemical methods of contraception (the coil, and all types of contraceptive pill, the morning after pill, the contraceptive patches) work by preventing an embryo from implanting into the lining of the womb....

[an embryo being a the start of human life...not an egg...an embryo is .a new person]

so sure, 600 abortions a day take place in this country, but how many thousands more humans are killed by all contraceptive use?

Poor Jesus.

We must console Him.

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NFP Effectiveness rates

There are at least 30 studies that I can think of out there that show that NFP has an effectiveness of about 99%+ at preventing pregnancy.

But another big huge study has just come out from Germany today showing exactly the same thing. (it was published in the journal of Reproductive Medicine which is very very prestigious)

Here is a BBC article on it.

I don't want to come across like someone who thinks that NFP is "Catholic birth-control"; I obviously don't see it as that at all.

However, living in a world where 99%+ of Catholics use artificial contraception, part of the reason why they don't want to use NFP is because they are afraid.

Afraid that it will "fail" and they will get pregnant.

(sure they also don't understand the Church's teaching, and don't care enough to understand it. That's due to a lack of love for Christ, but it's a lot harder to teach someone that).

I think it is really important to try and show these people NFP is very very effective at pregnancy prevention.

Then, once they trust NFP as a method, and start using it in their marriage, the mere act of using it will, I wholeheartedly believe, transform their entire perspective on sexual relations, and on children, and so through it, they will become more open to life (and probably end up having more babies!!).


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Ask the Pope

Wonderful Pope Benedict went to visit a seminary in Rome, and some of the seminarians got to ask him questions.
Here is one question & answer that I especially liked. It's about how you hear God's voice...


Q- how, among the thousands of interior voices, can one discern the voice of God speaking within ?


A- "God speaks," Pope Benedict replied, "through other people, through friends, through our parents, ... through the priests who guide you," above all He speaks "in Sacred Scripture" which must be read "not as the word of a man or a document from the past, ... but as the Word of God which is always valid and speaks to me."

"It is important to remain attentive to the other voices of the Lord, to let ourselves be guided also by people who have, so to say, experience with God and help us along this path. ... In this way our discernment grows, our personal friendship with God grows, [as does] the capacity to perceive, in the thousands of voices we hear today, the voice of God, which is always present and always speaks to us."

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Lent

This is such a great quote!

"Do you fast? Give me proof of it by your works. If you see a poor man, take pity on him. If you see a friend being honored, do not envy him. Do not let only your mouth fast, but also the eye and the ear and the feet and the hands and all the members of our bodies. Let the hands fast, by being free of avarice. Let the feet fast, by ceasing to run after sin. Let the eyes fast, by disciplining them not to glare at that which is sinful. Let the ear fast, by not listening to evil talk and gossip. Let the mouth fast from foul words and unjust criticism. For what good is it if we abstain from birds and fishes, but bite and devour our brothers? May HE who came to the world to save sinners strengthen us to complete the fast with humility, have mercy on us and save us."

St. John Chrysostom

Abstaining from foods we like can be pretty difficult to do, and it is indeed very very necessary; if we can't control our self-will over a little bit of food, we won't be able to control ourselves when it comes to the seriously big things that really really require self-control.
We need to strengthen our will in order to be dead to the world, so that we will live only for God and always do what we know to be good and true and right, no matter what the consequences.

However, as St. John Chrysostom says:
"For what good is it if we abstain from birds and fishes, but bite and devour our brothers? "


What am I giving up for Lent....

well, today during my rosary prayer group we were meditating on the sorrowful mysteries (as one does on a Tuesday), and it suddenly came to me that the theme for my Lent this year should be the 4th sorrowful mystery.....Jesus's carrying of the Cross.

I am going to try and spend my Lent thinking about everything to do with that event...of Jesus carrying His heavy cross...His self-denial...His perseverance...that extreme love He had for us...the pain of seeing His sweet adorable mother in agony, yet still having to carry on and do what He was meant to do...Simon of Cyrene being force to help Jesus carry the cross, and how that was probably Simon's salvation..


So yeh, I am going to try and think about my every action in light of Jesus's carrying of His cross.

I'm also going to meditate on the day's Gospel reading from Mass, I'm giving up biscuits and cakes (I don't like chocolate really, but have a serious soft-spot for all things biscuity), I'm going to try and reduce the portion of my meals and I'm also going to give up surfing blogs (except on Sundays). But I'll still be blogging here--just not surfing other blogs during the week. (oh man! That is gonna be SO hard! See that blog list on the right...well, imagine a list twice as long as that...yeh...that is what is saved under 'my favourites' on my internet explorer! and I check them all pretty much every day (frequently more than once a day!))

anyway, hope you all have a blessed, holy and fruitful Lent!

with lots of love!
-x-x-x-

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kinda cool!

I was in a cancer clinic the other day and one of the doctors was trying to get onto the internet on a computer in the main doctor's room. The Dr. I was with then said "Oh, I don't think you can get on the internet from that computer any more.....last week myself & one of the nurses were on youtube watching the video of that guy who won the Guiness book of world records by wearing 155 t-shirts.....and I don't think the computing department were very happy, so they may have taken away our internet access...."

In Clinic. An Oncology Specialist. Watching a youtube video. Of someone wearing 155 t-shirts.

This I had to see!

So I went and found the video!




( I think the Clinic was going through a bit of a quiet patch when the Dr was watching the video!)

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Poor Clares

One of my dear sweet wonderful friends is hoping to enter the Poor Clares just after Easter.

Please say a prayer for her as she has her psychological interview next week (a day and a half of tough interviewing to assess her suitability!) and then the community has to vote her in.

I was just browsing their website, and found some really inspiring quotes from some of the sisters:

"Materially, I had everything, but I was resisting the call. Once I entered, I felt such peace descending and all my restlessness went"


"I expected it to be hard, because I knew I was leaving everything familiar and forever, but I also expected it to be a happy life. It was just as hard as I had expected, but also, it has brought joy beyond all my wildest dreams."


"joy beyond my wildest dreams" -- that is pretty powerful!!


"St Francis' inspirational words to the Lord " You are all my riches" gave me a deep insight into what our poverty is."


. What are the vows?

We take four vows: chastity, poverty, obedience and enclosure.

Consecrated Chastity:
each sister is seeking the Lord always with an undivided heart.

Most high Poverty:
freeing our hearts from being tied down by possessions

Obedience:
lived in imitation of Christ who became obedient to the Father unto death.

Enclosure:
to love totally the One who gave himself totally for our love.


"It has often been said to us "what a wasted life." True- Jesus, too had to contend with those words "why this waste?". But love doesn't count the cost. Love is its own justification."



What breath-takingly beautiful love for Christ.


Q. Why did you enter an enclosed order such as the Poor Clares ?

"For a life lived totally surrendered to God. Only prayer can reach where no words or actions can."


"To be with God, in union with Him, praising Him, thanking Him and interceding with Him for the whole world and trying to imitate Christ and His Mother."


Enclosed religious, like the Poor Clares, spend their entire lives interceeding and praying for the whole world. They are like power-houses of prayer that sustain the world. I once read somewhere (?I think it was in St. Faustina's diary) that these convents and monestaries brimming over with love and prayers, are what keep God's hand from destroying the world, with all our horrendous sins, and neglect of His love and will.










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Abstinence & contraception education programmes

Imagine that parents taught children to form healthy relationships
with this line of reasoning: The best relationships call for honesty, generosity and mutual respect. Your chances of finding happiness, security and fulfillment in such relationships are very high; however, they require you to exercise self-restraint.

Since you're probably not capable of self-restraint, here are numerous ways to form relationships in which you and another person consent to
use one another for your own selfish benefit. These relationships require you to take careful precautions to ensure your well-being, but they are just as acceptable as the first kind and much more common.

Choose whichever you feel is best.

It may not make sense, but this is precisely how proponents of comprehensive sex education expect to teach young people to form healthy sexual relationships.

read rest of article here


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VIOLA or VOILA

I don't think they meant "viola"!

hehee!

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no way?!!

So a couple of blogs out in blogworld have been writing about how they were nominated for some category in the Catholic Blog Awards.

I'm not really bothered about that kinda thing (sometimes I wish noone read my blog, with the level of drivel I put on here!) so I haven't really been to the catholicblogawards website.

However, I eventually decided to log-in (& avoid learning about vaccinations) ..


and OH.MY.WORD....someone nominated my wee blog for an award?!!!!

WO?!!!!!!!!!!
huh?!!!
how?!!!
who?!!
what?!!
I am still in shock!

MY pathetic blog?!! for an award?!!

I couldn't beleive it when I saw my blog name up there!!

Apparently it wasn't Chris who nominated me, so whoever it was...thank you! I am exceptionally touched!



I actually got nominated for "Best Political/Social Commentary Catholic Blog"; and was up against some pretty huge blogs like Jimmy Akin & the Curt Jester!

My blog is totally not worthy of winning any award when compared to some other fantastic blogs out there, but thank fully the voting is already over!

and I got 4 votes (out of 702!).

I know that may not see like much...but 4 people actually clicked on my blog and picked it as potentially worthy of the award!

FOUR WHOLE PEOPLE! That's quite a lot really!


*sniffs & wipes away a tear* I feel so loved!! Thank you!!

*huge grin!*


ps- here is the list of blogs


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so 6 months on

Yesterday Chris said to me "Can you remember ever living at home?" (which was where I lived till I got married 6months ago).
I thought about it...and I could vaguely remember what it was like, but in a sortof far-and-distant-memory oh-yeh-that-did-happened-a-long-time-ago kinda way.
He said that it seemed like years and years since he was living in University accomodation, even though he only left at the end of July, and had been there for some 6 years!

So yeh...we've taken to married life like ducks to water!!
It just all seemed like such a natural step and I have certainly benefitted from being married.


So poo to all the people who spent last year exclaiming "Getting married?!! At your age?! While doing medicine? Are you sure that's a good idea...?" (while clearly showing that they didn't think it was a good idea!)


I wish I could say something profound about what I have learned about myself in the last 6 months of married life, but I'm not very good at saying profound things (as you know if you've been reading my blog long enough! That's why I resort to so many quotes from Saints; because there is no way I could say something as meaningful as that!)

Also, I feel like I was very well prepared for married life, that nothing really has come as a shock to me.

And that wasn't because we lived together first, or because we had sex to see if we were 'compatible'; we didn't do either of those things, becuase those things don't prepare you for a lifetime with someone.

It must be so awful to have a sexual relationship with your boyfriend before marriage. I would've hated it; it just takes away from actually getting-to-know them. I have heard so many times girls say that whenever they argued with their boyfriend, they then just had "make-up sex" and hey presto -- the argument was covered up. It never actually got resolved, they never actually spoke about it. The boy doesn't care anyway, because boys aren't really "into talking"; as long as they can have their physical gratification with no strings attached (contracepted sex with their girlfriends), they are mostly happy to leave it at that.
and it's the girls who suffer because they have been used, and are emotionally unhappy.

(yeh, I know I'm taking an extreme sterotype, but I'm basing it on real attributes I've seen in people).

and then what happens (I've seen this MANY a time too), because you've been together a while, you decided to move in together to "test-drive" your relationship for marriage.

It must be awful because a lot of the time you get stuck...stuck in a situation that you're not totally happy with (otherwise you'd just marry them)...but because you've invested so much of your life with them so far, have a house together, have had sex etc etc...you get stuck in a situation with someone who's not so ideal for you...

and then what seems to happen now-a-days is eventually people have their first child out of wed-lock, then decided to get married when the kid is 2 or 3, and then maybe have another child, stick together for a few years, and then get divorced.

whoopy! that must suck. ( I can think of quite a few people I know in this exact situation)


Chris & I were dating for 3.5years before we got married; we spent basically ALL our time together talking.

That's all we did...talk talk talk talk talk talk talk. We talked about everything; from the most ridiculously trivial (plenty of that!) to the more important. There was basically no topic that we didn't talk about, no topic that didn't come up; if we ever argued we couldn't just cover it up with 'make-up sex' (as people call it now-a-days), we were forced to face each other and talk some more about it, and our feelings and thoughts and so learn more about each other and ourselves.

We grew so much in those pre-marriage years. We helped each other grow emotionally ( I was pretty insecure), and more than anything, we helped each other grow spiritually and grow in a deeper relationship with God (seriously, I'm not exaggerating when I say our relationship changed so dramatically when we both started saying the rosary every day. Honestly!)

so I felt that I really knew who I was getting married to, and these last 6 months have been more a growing-together and strengthening-what-we-have than a getting-to-know each-other.


Hm, so maybe I have learned something profound..

When I was 21 I used to get so impatient sometimes, and was constantly focusing on "when-can-we-get-married-Chris?" "What-will-life-be-like-when-we-get-married?!" "Chris-won't-it-be-great-when-we-get-married?!"

It was all "when-we-get-married this" and "when-we-get-married that".

Looking back now I realise that it was THOSE exact days which were forming me for my marriage NOW.

Live the life that has been given you today, and don't focus all your energy on tomorrow's life.
If you correct your ways today, and try to change and imporove yourself today, it will make tomorrow better.

I guess everyone is like that to a certain extent aren't they?
Always focuing on "what's next?". What am I doing next in life? Now what?
Instead of actually living the day you have been given today to the fullest, and then trusting that, just as God clothes the beautiful lillies in the fields, He will give to you what you need.

(that obviously doesn't mean don't pray about the future...just don't obsess about it).

(I speak from much personal experience!)


anyway, enough rambling.

If I don't start my revison today I will fail my exams in June!!


Chris & I started going out waaay back in November 2002 (I don't have any photos from 2002), but here is Chris & I throughout the years..

2003 - in Venice




2004 - Christmas


2005 - the over-night vigil in the airfield at World Youth Day in Cologne (that's why we're looking a bit haggard!).
( sorry it's a bit blurry -- I had nicer ones of Chris & I at WYD but they all had other people in, and so I decided not to post them).

2006 yeh. speaks for itself!

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contraception & abortion..one small step...

"That same selfishness that wants to prevent the child by contraception
will grow until it wants to kill the child already conceived"

– Blessed Mother Teresa.


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Harry Potter...

From the Ironic Catholic

IF JK ROWLING CONVERTED TO CATHOLICISM AND WROTE BOOK 7

I thought it was really funny and it made me laugh out loud!!



(thanks to my dearest friend for posting it on his facebook wall!)


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Guardian Angels

Drink at the clear fountain of the Acts of the Apostles.

In the twelfth chapter, Peter, freed from prison by the ministry of Angels, comes to the house of the mother of Mark.

Those inside will not believe the girl, who says that Peter is at the door.

"Angelus ejus est!" 'It must be his Angel!' they said.

See on what intimate terms the early Christians were with their guardian Angels.

And you?

– St. Josemaria Escriva, The Way, #570

Guardian Angel Prayer

Angel of God, My Guardian dear
to whom God's love commits me
here.
Ever this day be at my side
to light and guard and rule and
guide.

Amen.

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If I have grievously offended You, my Redeemer, let me not offend You even more by thinking that You are not kind enough to pardon me.

– St. Claude de la Colombiere
















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The folly of God's love.

Pope Benedict's Lenten message yesterday was beautiful; "Christ on the cross shows God's desire to be loved by humanity"

God's love for us is so profound that the extent to which He goes to demonstrate it is "Eros gone mad".

"Eros is indeed that force that does not allow the lover to remain in himself but moves him to become one with the beloved. Is there more 'mad eros' than that which led the Son of God to make himself one with us even to the point of suffering as his own the consequences of our offenses?"

"It is in the mystery of the cross that the overwhelming power of the heavenly Father's mercy is revealed in all of its fullness," the papal message reads. "In order to win back the love of his creature, he accepted to pay a very high price: the blood of his only begotten Son." "On the cross, God's eros for us is made manifest,"

This Lent, "let us look at Christ pierced on the cross!" the Holy Father exclaims. "On the cross, it is God himself who begs the love of his creature: He is thirsty for the love of every one of us."

"In all truth, only the love that unites the free gift of oneself with the impassioned desire for reciprocity instills a joy, which eases the heaviest of burdens."

"The response the Lord ardently desires of us is above all that we welcome his love and allow ourselves to be drawn to him."

"Accepting his love, however, is not enough," Benedict XVI continues. "We need to respond to such love and devote ourselves to communicating it to others. Christ 'draws me to himself' in order to unite himself to me, so that I learn to love the brothers with his own love."

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I just think that is so beautiful!

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What I woke up to!

Aww! Thanks Chris!! -x-x-x-

Mmmmmm....Fererro Rocher...how well you know me!!

It's only 10am, and there are significantly less Ferrero Rocher in that box than there were when I took the photo an hour ago..!!

The proof of love is in the works. Where love exists, it works great
things. But when it ceases to act, it ceases to exist.

– Pope St. Gregory the Great

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Blog Wedding!

Only 3 weeks till my dearest darlingest blog-friend Carmel gets married to the wonderful & charming Jonathan.

Carmel is a pure sweetie-pie, and my first every blog friend waaay back in 2005!

Please say a prayer for her and her family as they fly from their home in Australia all the way over to America in the next few days for her wedding!

My prayers are with you Carmel during these last few weeks before your wedding day, and the start of your new life in the good ol' US of A!!

-x-x-x-

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more on the HPV

I know I have been going on about the Human Papilloma Virus quite a lot in recent weeks, but I am currently studying "Infectious Diseases" and have just been doing about "sexually transmitted diseases" so I'm coming in contact with it daily (...hopefully not actually in physical contact with it though!)

There has also been some talk amongst the doctors about the new HPV vaccine that I was yabbering on about a while ago. (Clinical trials show a 100% success rate at preventing girls from getting infected with the HPV6, 11, 16, 18 virus and so stops them from developing genital warts and cervical & vulval cancer (almost all of which is caused by these virus subtypes)).

So anyway, I was just doing some online Q&As for my sexually transmitted diseases course and we had a case study to work through about a woman with had genital warts due to the HPV virus. and one of the questions is "How are the HPV viruses transmitted" and here is the model answer that the doctors give:

The virus is transmitted as a result of direct contact with epithelial lesions, epithelial surfaces infected with the virus with no apparent clinical warts, or contact with genital secretions containing infective virus.
This usually occurs during intimate sexual contact, but may be as a result of mother to child transmission or digital contact during bathing etc. particularly in pre-pubertal children.

I just thought that was very interesting that they mentioned the possibility of childhood infection via non-sexual contact.

I have no real purpose in mentioning this!
I just came across it and thought it was interesting and seeing as I have mentioned the HPV virus on my blog a couple of times recently I thought I would share what I found!!


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Conversion

Check out Danny's conversion story over at Irish & Dangerous.

He was an Episcopalian Anglican and converted to Catholicism last year.

His conversion story is very though-provoking.

My personal favourite part..

Thinking back on my journey, I also remember starting to pray the rosary a little bit after I got married. I felt it was something that Anglicans should be doing and we should not reject Mary as Our Mother. I didn’t do it regularly, just off and on, but that was enough for the Blessed Virgin. She only needs the slightest openness to her and she takes full advantage of it in order to wrap you in her motherly embrace and present you to her Son, Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Mary Most Holy looks for any opportunity to act as our advocate and plead for our souls to her Son. All we have to do is show her the smallest bit of cooperation and she will do the rest. Our Lady doesn’t desire any glory of her own, rather she directs us at all times to Christ.

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my motivational posters

okay, so I made these up myself...I'm not very good at being creative...so don't laugh!

I think that one speaks for itself!

I like the fact that the sunglasses are so clearly 21st century! It just emphasises the fact that the Church's teachings (as represented by the Vatican reflection) are God's teaching...and so are relevant and applicable to all people, no matter when in history they live!

Cohabitation....a cheap imitation of marriage.
Basically wanting all the good bits of the marriage, without having to invest or make any long-term comittment to the other person.
Not a nice way to treat someone else, or allow yourself to be treated.

Plus it then takes away from the specialness of marriage if you do get married (to them, or someone else).

I made all the posters here

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Inspirational Posters I found online

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Snow, flowers, whining, sexually transmitted diseases, rosary

(in a nut-shell, that is the content of this post!)

little bird foot-steps in the snow!

So today it snowed!

woohoo! It was only about 10cm deep though, nothing excessive and by the evening quite a lot of it had melted..but it was snowing pretty consistently as I was cycling to the hospital this morning (and ouch do snow-flakes hurt when they hit your face!)

But everyone was enjoying the snow...some teenage kids had rolled a 1 metre high snow/ice ball into the MIDDLE OF THE ROAD and cars were swerving pretty dangerously to avoid it.

So (like the good UK citizen that I am) I stopped as I was cycling past and pushed it with all my puny strength to the edge of the road to prevent the occurence of any major road traffic accidents.

(ah, teenager vandals, you get 'em everywhere).

I also had to phone Chris this morning at his lab to ask him someone's phone number...he sounded very excited and bouncy when I spoke with him and he said "Guess what we've just been doing?"

me: "...I don't know..."

Chris: " We just made a 50cm high snow-man and put it in a box, and put it on someone's chair who arrived in late to work...and he just came in and found it...!!!"

oh, to be a care-free PhD student spending your morning making snow-men and/or videos of exploding lego-men (re: see post in Decemeber!)

* says stressed out medical student as she looks at her enourmous pile of books, and starts to hyper-ventilate about the seemingly infinite amount of revision that needs to be done*

My brother also made a snow-man with some friends; say hello to Reginald Kingston:

haha!

In other random non-snow-related news....look at the plant that I got for my mum at Christmas!

It was nothing but a bulb 5 weeks ago and now look at the beauty it has blossomed in to:

I went to my parent's house today, and I exclaimed "wow, that's a nice flower! Where did you get it from?!" and it turned out it was the one I gave her!

That was a good purchase!

Everything else with me is okay; I'm kinda tried, stressed, lots going on....the washing machine in our house is broken (it's not draining the water away, as we discovered the other day when we opened the door and 10 Litres of water poured out all over the floor)....our shower is still an 'electrical hazard' and they haven't been to replace it yet, so we are forced to use the bath-tub and a pan to wash ourselves (well, except Chris, we uses the amazing showers in his boat-house after rowing. It's just me who has to wash my hair using a pan to pour water).

Otherwise work is okay....I have so much to revise and study it's not even funny any more.

Why do antibiotics have to have such silly names and such random uses and side-effects?! I can't remember which bacteria/virus/protozoan produces which clinical disease, which bacteria is resistant to which antibiotics, what quantity of what antibiotic is given to different age groups under different circumstances for different diseases....waaaaaa!!

Also, it is seriously shocking how sexually promiscuous people are out there.

I mean, I knew that some people had sex with just anyone, but I don't think I actually truely believed it....sitting in sexual diseases clinic has been a bit of an eye-opener in that respect.

It's just sad really how little worth people attach to sex, and how much they use each other's body, and allow their own precious body to be used by others as objects for transient gratification.

not to mention how much disease is spread.

All I have to saw is...EW.

If I wasn't a Catholic I think sitting in a sexual health clinic would be enough to make me never want to have sex outside of marriage with anyone other than a virgin. There are a lot of sexual diseases out there.

Also, that reminds me...a few posts ago I was going on about the HPV vaccine (human papilloma virus). Well, if you are interested....one of the sexual health doctors told me that they did a study in their waiting room at the hospital. They swabbed the chairs, magazines, door handles etc and tested for the HPV virus, and he said that they found it "everywhere" in their waiting room.

(fun! I try not to touch anything any more!)

He also said that there have been case reports of babies and toddlers getting HPV 16 & HPV 18 which are the subtype of the virus that is normally transmitted sexually. He said to me that they believed these infants got the virus from the hands of their carers.

Honestly, I'm not making it up, he did actually tell me all this the other day.

So yeh...I'm washing my hands a lot more these days!

Finally, I am glad to be home and able to go back to Mass & our daily rosary prayer group.

(you may remember I was away from home for the last 4 weeks).

Although I did say the rosary every day by myself, it is just so much more infinitly wonderful to be able to go to Mass several times a week, and also to say the rosary with exposition of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament (as happens daily in our Church.)

I really feel, in my soul, like I was missing something...some nourishment...a closeness...a friend....it's hard to put in to words.

It's not like I was drifting in my faith or anything serious like that, but by the end of the 4 weeks I was starting to feel like my roots were becoming a bit looser, and I didn't have that intimacy with God and our Lady as before (probably because I wasn't seeing Jesus as often, because I was only going to Mass on Saturday & Sunday, and not during the week).

I dunno, it's hard to describe.

Either way, I am over-joyed to be back home and able to go back to Mass several times a week and to pray the rosary actually in front of Jesus.

That reminds me....I really really really recommend praying the rosary daily.

From the bottom of my heart; pray it.




In fact, if I could give everyone one piece of life-advice, it would be to pray the rosary every single day.

I was thinking the other day just how much my life changed when I started praying the rosary every day ( a few yrs ago). I kid not, I changed SO MUCH when I started praying the rosary every day, in so many ways. My personality, my outlook, my temptations...I suddenly (over a few months) became so much more acutely aware of my habitual daily sins, my temptations, my weaknesses, and so much more aware of my need of God's grace to help.



I know that praying the rosary every day can be difficult, but just persevere, and don't give up.


Mary is such a sweet loving gentle mother, and Jesus loves her so so so so much, and she loves Him more purely and perfectly than we could ever hope to.

Let Mary take you by the hand, and show you her son, and teach you how to love Him as she does.
See the rosary like you are give Mary beautiful roses with every Hail Mary; roses which she will then give to Jesus Himself on behalf of you.



Yeh...so pray the rosary, it's the most beautiful prayer, and it will (beyond any doubt) help you to cultivate a relationship with Jesus which is so much richer than you can imagine.

anyway, hope you are all well! I should get going to bed!

lots of love to you all!

-x-x-x-





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heehee!

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back to the real world

*warning, this post contains some details of a sexual nature which I myself find gross, so if you are young and/or as easily scandalised as I am, just skip down a few paragraphs*


So I am now back to the real world. I finished my 4 weeks at the hospital an hour from my house, and am now back at home and will be based at our local hospital for the next 5 weeks. I then spend 6 weeks at a different hospital again away from home, but that's okay because

a- I'll be doing paediatrics & I am sooo looking forward to it (little kiddies! how cuuute!)


b- It'll be just before my horrible horrible horrible scary exams in June so I'll need to be isolated from society (and most importantly, the time-wasting internet!) in order to revise.


So I have just finished heart and lung medicine, and now will spend 2 weeks doing 'infectious diseases' and oncology (cancer medicine).


The infectious disease is gonna be kinda gross because, as well as learning about things like diseases you catch from infected water in Africa and stuff (which I don't mind), we have to learn aaaaalllll about sexually transmitted diseases.
I can cope with that, but it's just that we also have to learn a bunch of communication skills in order to elicit a 'sexual history' and talk with people all about their gross distorted sexual behaviour

e.g.


"How many sexual partners have you had recently?"

"Were they male or female?"

"What type of sex did you have?" (OH GROSS. that one always makes me feel ill)

"What protection did you use?" ( I HATE the word 'protection'; do people not understand that if they are engaging in a behaviour which requires 'protection', it's probably somewhat foolish to engage in that behaviour?!)


anyway, enough of that for now! I am sure I will rant some more about it over the next two weeks!

In other news....our new house is starting to feel more and more like 'home'.
It was kinda hard at the beginning because the house hadn't been cleaned and the people living here before us were....well...let's just leave it at 'dirty'.

So we had A LOT of cleaning to do over the first 10 days...every surface was sticky and stained, every drawer, cupboard, shelf needed cleaning, the fridge had hair and bits of food in it (*shudders at memory*), we shampooed and vacuumed the carpets, we steralised the bathroom, we painted a wall....

so it was all a bit difficult at the beginning because we had so much to do before being able to unpack, but now we are starting to get settled in nicely.

By the grace of God the owner of our old house let us take ALL the furniture and kitchen appliances with us for FREE !! Thank God too as this new house had a bare kitchen, a microwave full of rust, a chest of drawers where the drawers had collapsed and were falling to pieces ( I could go on!)......so to get a bunch of nice furniture and all kitchen appliances for free was a real grace and a huge huge help.

But on the plus side, this new house is actually a pretty big house (bigger than our old one) and the rental agency is installing a new shower for us (let's not talk about the state of the original shower that the house came with...!), so I know it'll be super great once it's all done!


In other news....Chris is so wonderful!



I know I go quite a lot on here about him being so great (one of my friends the other day described my blog as a place where I spend all my time complimenting Chris!!)...but I can't help it if he constantly behaves in ways which leave me outstanded at his wonderfulness!!


Like today, where he yet again spent 3 hours coaching and coxing my rowing boat because our coach was ill, and then even after I left early he stayed on for an extra 1.5 hours to coach the rest of the crew....even though he then had to rush to his own rowing race.

and not one word of complaining or self-pity or resentment! Not even a mild flicker of negative emotion from him.


I mean, he doesn't have to spend his entire Saturday mornings coaching & coxing my women's novice boat; he not connected to the club I row for in any way and he already has loads of his own rowing & rugby commitments, but yet he is always there to help out, and re-arranges his own rowing committments so he can come to help out my boat. and he never ever ever ever ever complains.


But that is just one small example. He is so consistantly an amazing example of patience and self-sacrifical love, and I am always amazed by the extent of it, and the perpetual joy that permeates everything he does for me.
He never complains, he's NEVER EVER resentful, he's never selfish with his time or energy....it's such a stark contrast to my own innate behaviour that I honestly can't help but sing his praises!!

Oh, and that picture is of him in Italy 2 years ago when he gave my parent's entire appartment a new coat of paint, just to make it look nicer. He wasn't asked to, he just thought it would be nice to!

(I sat on butt the whole day while he worked...)

(and yes, my parents were delighted with what he did!)

and now the final part of this mish-mash random post...this girl has been in the news recently; a 13 yr old who paints increadibly well and says that God talks to her and inspires her to paint.

I obviously don't know the extent to which Divine Intervention influences her paintings, but she certainly has an unbelievable gift to paint.
Here are two of her paintings that I found particularly thought-provoking:


"On my knees"

" Here is young Jesus by the moonlight talking with God. By the same moonlight he will be praying at the Garden of Gethsemane many years later. Both as a child and as an adult he depends on the guidance of his Father in Heaven. "

"The Forbidden Fruit"

" After my prayer I began painting a young woman’s portrait next to a branch of fruit. Suddenly I felt God say, blend all the races, because this is Eve, the mother of all mankind"

Here is her site again

anyway, hope you're all well!

God Bless!!

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Let each one remember that he will make progress in all spiritual things only insofar as he rids himself of self-love, self-will, and self-interest.

– St. Ignatius of Loyola

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