The Next Update.

Due to family illness, the next LIR will be on Monday February 7. My thanks for your understanding and sympathy at this difficult time.

Just to clarify a little, in response to the many who thought that I was the one taken ill. My almost 88 year old mother who lives with us, suffered a stroke at 7.30 Wednesday morning. I was able to get her into a hospital, and being treated by the stroke team, by 8.30. The CAT scan was completed by 9.00 and all the other testing and treatement by 11.00. It wasn't a conventional TV program type of stroke, but I knew enough not to wait around. The medic's were here in 10 minutes, and after checking to see if it was diabetes related, put into effect their stroke procedures, stabilising her and having her on the way to the hospital just after 8.00. Though it was rush hour and the hospital is on the other side of town, traffic parted like the Red Sea. As Catholics, she was given the last rites in the resusitation area of Accident and Emergency, the UK equivalent of the Emergency Room in North America. Now it is all down to God.

Your prayers and messages are deeply appreciated by myself and the family, and we are deeply grateful for the exceptional response of the free at the point of use National Health Service.

Graeme Irvine & family.