Overall the year’s been good but I don’t think I’ve ever had such a rollercoaster of a ride in my life.

February seen the mother of my children & I say ‘I do’ in front of our family and friends in a church. The Old Parish Church in East Kilbride was the only church I would agree to be married in and we managed to have a fun day. Many folk didn’t know quite what to think when the pink hummer turned up with the bridal party in it, but it fitted the day perfectly. And beside we couldn’t fit the bridal party into anything else without breaking the bank for 3-4 cars for them. The night ended with our babysitters backing out at the last minute and my parents taking #2 son for the night leaving us with #1 daughter sharing the bridal suite with us as well as the 8-9 folk that came back for more drinks after the bar shut and everyone else went home. It was a good day.

In April I started my new job at work. With the civil service headcount cuts hitting the service sectors pretty hard we were hit bad. It was something like a 33% job cut across departments from the service staff. So effectively we ended up with something like a 40% cut from our division. After reapplying for my own job as well as several other posts I ended up with nothing. Not even a temporary post to see me through until I could find something else with DFID. Eventually after my line manager pushed for me to be reconsidered I ended up with a 12 month temp post which is almost up and yet again I have nowhere to go.

At the end of May I struggled through a chest infection which wasn’t killed off by the antibiotics I was put on. It eventually spread to the lining of my heart and on the evening of the 3rd June I spent the night in pain. It felt as though someone was sitting on my chest and I struggled to breath. After painkillers I eventually got some sleep but it came back during the bus trip to work. Thankfully/unfortunately the hospital is directly across the road from my workplace so a quick call to my office saying I may be late as i was getting it checked out in A&E was the order of the day. Two hours later I was still in the hospital high on morphine with my ECG results showing a possible minor heart attack. Turns out I had a dose of pericarditis and spent the night in the hospital. It was another 4 months before I was back at work and I’m still feeling the pain at times even now. In fact my echocardiograms and ECG’s have still been coming back with abnormalities.

Apart from a few days last December to London we have never been on holiday as a family. In July we finally managed it when we went to France on a camping trip. Health problems seen us return home a few days early but it was well needed and very much enjoyed by everyone.

In October I got a dose of the flu. you might not think that as being notable but as I had never had my bloods checked after all my problems they ran a full panel of blood tests on me. The results came back with elevated bilirubin levels which couldn’t be explained and so I was off painkillers and alcohol until very recently. Three blood tests later and the results are still elevated but dropping, and all the specific tests and ultrasound haven’t found out what’s wrong. I’m a medical conundrum.

It sounds like I’ve had a bad year but I’d disagree. I’ve enjoyed my year. 

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