Foot fall is up

Pad had quite a busy week of visitors, including a group of friends from Glantaf. About 6 of them crammed into his room to present him with a lovely momento: a framed picture of his friends surrounded by short messages from them and others. What was especially pleasing was the number of Bible verses on the notes (photo has a close-up of a selection of these notes).
Meanwhile, earlier today, Asher gave a good account of himself for Whitchurch Under 15's Hockey. He'd turned up as a sub but played all of both games because numbers were short. Asher faithfully attends the Tuesday night practice but the matches are mostly on a Sunday, and we have better things to be doing with that day.
Thankfully we have been able to keep on top of Pads pain today. One thing that's helped is a heated pad applied to his sore neck and being propped up a bit. We have buccal  midazolaml in the wings and that has a sedative effect so we've been glad to be able to forestall that until all the visits are done. It was great to talk to the medical team today, not least the palliative consultant who always ends his chats with us with 'God bless'. We remember back in 2008 when Pads was getting really bad pain at the start and the only thing that relieved it was inserting a 'shunt' to expel the CSF which was backing up in his skull. Although Pads was willing to have that operation to allay the pain, in conversation about it earlier, it is pretty certain that he's no longer well enough cope with it. Anyway, it is thought that pressure and pain relief can be achieved through medication, just as well as could be expected from a shunt op.
This morning we were reading in Revelation 2. Verse 10 has the phrase, 'Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer'. The 'early church' were under regular threat for their lives - they knew the cost of being a real Christian. Revelation was written to assure them of certain victory amidst the most horrific of ordeals. Yet the trouble would only be for a short time, symbolically stated at '10 days'. Which, as Pads said himself, is nothing compared to eternity.