Dear Friends and Family, 

I hope this finds you all well!

I can't quite believe it but it's now been a year since the operation!
The year has definitely had it's ups and downs. Including what can only be described as a type of post-traumatic stress following the operation for me, the ongoing wait for the return of Owen's driving licence, but also the marvelous recovery that Owen has made!

At Easter Owen had follow up scans and tests to see how he was recovering from the operation, and also to check that they had managed to remove the whole tumour. 
The scan that he had immediately after the operation showed a white patch around where they had removed the tumour. At this stage they didn't know whether it was scar tissue showing up or whether it was a small bit of tumour they hadn't managed to remove. 
The scan he had at Easter showed that this was now completely clear! Praise the Lord!! All that you could see on the scan image was a hole in Owen's brain where the tumour used to be. Very odd looking! 

After the operation Owen had been having some side effects which meant that he struggled a bit with communication and remembering the right words for what he wanted to say. In those few months after the operation I had been quite concerned about it, especially as the surgeon had told us about another teacher he had operated on who had to leave teaching because he could no longer communicate effectively to teach. 
As we got closer to Easter these side effects in Owen were getting better and better. He went back to work full time and started to play cricket!
When we told  the surgeon all of these things he seemed surprised! 
The nature of removing a brain tumour is that tumour and brain look exactly the same, there is no visual difference between the two. They remove the tumour purely by using the scan images on computer screens around the room and through Owen's responses while they ask him questions through out the 6 hour operation. If Owen couldn't answer a question or responded strangely they knew they were starting to touch on brain rather than tumour and needed to pull back. Basically it is an unbelievably delicate operation. But the fact that Owen's side effects seemed to be getting better led the surgeon to say, "Do you know, I think you might make a full recovery from this?!" 

Oof! What a miracle!!

I can't explain to you the relief and thankfulness I feel. Praise the Lord I am blessed to keep my husband and for him to be making a full recovery with no lasting side effects. 
I am praying for those of you for whom the situation is very different. 

For me, I am glad to be past the anniversaries of a year since the seizures, and a year since the operation. These have both certainly brought back some extremely tough memories, even to the point of suffering with a couple of panic attacks, which I have never experienced before, and also physical and emotional effects of the stress of it all. I received a couple of sessions of counselling this year, after all that's happened, and I can't recommend it highly enough after such a traumatic time. 

And yet here we are, a year later. Owen is doing well, back in to the swing of things at work, and hopefully driving again in the next couple of months (if you pray pleeeeaaaaase pray for this!). The kids are doing great and have come through the last year so well and even, I pray, come to see God at work in our family through it all. 
We'd also love to share with you the news that we will be welcoming little baby Joyce No.3 in April 2018! God is good!! Maybe we should name the baby miracle...?! 

He is good! And His love endures forever! 

Please do ask us more about it and our trust in our God if it all sounds a bit crazy to you! 

Praying His Blessings on you all. 

Thank you for walking with us through this. 

Much Love

Rachael xx

Yes to 2017!

Dear Friends and Family,

Happy New Year to you all! I hope you all had marvellous Christmas and New Year celebrations.

It's been quite a while since I last wrote, partly because it just didn't feel right and partly because I didn't really know what to tell you. This week it suddenly felt right to update you again, something to do with the new year I think.

So, Owen went back to work 2 weeks before the school Christmas holidays. 2 weeks turned out to be a perfect amount of time for Owen to slowly get back into work before having a break again over the Christmas holidays. I have no doubt that this was God timing. Given that the date for the operation changed a couple of times and we had originally expected it to be in the summer holidays, it was only when we were given the date of the 27th October that it actually felt right. It felt like that was the date it was always supposed to happen but that human plans kept getting in the way.

Owen managed well with those first weeks back. He is in for 4 hours a day to begin with.  He felt tired at the end of the day, but the kind of tired you feel at the end of any busy day. He needed to rest in the afternoons but he wasn't falling asleep, just having down time. This was a relief for me as I had been uncertain about whether he was ready to go back to work. I was quite worried about him overdoing it and if you know Owen well you'll know that in the past there would have been significant risk of that! I have been pleasantly surprised about how well he has paced himself, how well he has been able to sense when he has needed to rest. Long may this continue! 
He has been back for a little over a week and will continue to work at 4 hours a day until the end of the month when it will increase to 6 hours a day.
Physically and mentally Owen has recovered well, the scar is looking amazing and his hair has grown  over it so that you can barely see it's there now. 

 There has been so much positive in all that has happened and I hope that has come across in my writing. We have a lot to be thankful for. However....I will say that I have never been so unbelievably glad to see the end of a year! (As I am sure many people will understand, many of you have through extremely tough years also!). It's a strange, exhausting and heart wrenching experience watching your husband go through this kind of experience. I can't compare it to anything I've ever been through before. It so completely consumes you and as we approached Christmas and new year I felt such a huge relief at reaching the end of the year. Relief and a range of emotions. I wasn't completely prepared for this, it kind of hit me all over again what we had faced over the last year and how incredibly blessed we are to be in the position we are now in with Owen recovering well. I cried. It helped! We can now put it behind us, it is so last year! Praise God! 

I think there will be one more update on this chapter of our lives, after Owen has his next scan and appointment, but after that I will be drawing this to a close. Drawing a line under it all so we can truly put it behind us. 

All that remains to say is....Bring on 2017!! I'm genuinely excited for the year ahead, whatever it may bring. I now know with absolute certainty that whatever comes our way God will see us through it with all that we need and way more. I'm so looking forward to what he has planned, it's gonna be good! 

I pray that the year ahead brings many blessings for you all.

Much Love

Rachael xxx