Hospital is full of surprises, you never know who is going to walk through the door to see you. Remember that I had lost my passport? To report one’s passport missing, one has to physically walk into a police station, which in my condition I was not capable of doing. Ironically, after informing the police that it was missing, I would have then had to go back to Munich, pay around £100 to have emergency documents, then get a new passport when I got back to England. A lot of faff and expense that was stressing me out in my time in hospital.

One day I got a call from my parents, telling me that my passport had been found! It had been handed in to the consulate at Stuttgart, autonomously in an envelope. Luckily, I had my parents’ phone number written in the back of the passport, so the consulate had been able to get in touch with my parents, and from them ascertain my whereabouts.

That very afternoon, a woman from the consulate came. She was lovely, not only did she bring me back my passport, but she also brought be a scrumptious chocolate teddy bear to eat!   The teddy bear did not last long, but fortunately the passport has been in posession ever since!

I want to thank everyone who is reading my blog posts! I just wrote this for closure, to help me to deal with the experiences and to move on, I never knew this would be so popular. I have had almost 200 views so far, and it was nice to hear from Daniel Waddington yesterday! If you have any questions or criticisms about these posts, please get in touch.

Relentlessly, hours turn into days, days turn into weeks and weeks turn into months. In the outside world, the real world – there is crying and disappointment and commitments and responsibility and life going on. The occupy movement begins, Steve Jobbs dies, summer ends and folks go back to school.

I have 6 more operations. With no good news and no end in sight. They say I just need to have some tissue grow on top of my bone – it never happens. I am told my 4th operation has a 50/50 chance of being the last one. Always just a week from getting out there. Same procedure every time – go to the anaesthetist and have the same old drugs perscribed to me the day before my op, then the day of the OP go without food and water, then have my body shut down and cut open.

This blog post will be just disjointed occurrences and thoughts. I will not apologise for this. My minutes. My days. Were just disjointed occurrences and thoughts.

I appreciate everyone who visited me during this time. Friends from church. People from work. My parents. I just loved being visited, it was nice to chat to you all, and for any practical help you gave me. Cards were much appretiated too! I will not name names here, there are too many, but I love you all dearly. I gained a new motto in life: be nice to everyone, you never know when you might need someone to clean your underpants for you. Oh, underpants. It is one thing to claim that you trust in the Lord for everything, quite another to have enough underwear to last only a week and to have to trust in the good Lord that he will provide you with fresh pants everlasting, wardrobe without end.

I was once slapped by a nun. A nun took me between changey bed place and the operation room, I kept on telling her I couldnt speak German. So (this was a few minutes before I was going to be put under), she took it upon herself to slap me.

I once had to beg an anaesthetist to have him speak english to me. I almost cried.

Hospital staff would go on holiday, come back and be surprised that I was still there.

When I had not been in hospital long, an old man was put in with me , who would sit in the corner and stare at me. One morning he tickled my feet. Bless him.

I read a lot. In my entire time at hospital (not just up to day 41), I read the New testament, Psalms, Proverbs, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, a couple of John Piper Books, Trick or Treatment, Freakenomics, Super Freakenomics, The Glory of Christ by Peter Lewis, The Man in the High Castle. I watched a lot of film and TV too.

Every other sunday I went to the chapel, where they did a protestant service. I didnt understand any of it. For most songs, I wouldn’t even understand the number I was supposed to turn to in the hymn book. During the church service we had communion and held hands. During the week I liked to read  in here; sometimes the nuns would practice playing the organ and singing songs. Weird to think that sometimes I have not gone to church because I was feeling tired, or because I had some homework to do. Whereas here I didnt even have, most weeks, the luxury of choosing whether or not to go to a place where a church meets.

I like hugs, but here there was no hugging. Only handshakes. Constant handshakes.

I was moved rooms a lot. In the hospital, if you were able to move, they moved you a lot. A lot of patients were very old, and so for them moving was a hassle. I was once with a man who was so old, he snored loudly when he was awake. Once they moved everyone in the whole ward to a new ward, on the day of one of my operations, so they could renovate the first ward I was in. It was very disconcerting waking up and rediscovering the world again, having to discover a way to the lift and eventually the exit.

In the first ward, there was a common room. I liked to think of it as the common room of hope, joy, peace, fun and excitement.

One day I was going to have an operation. I had no food or water all day – and it was only at 6 pm I was told that there would be no operation happening for me that day , due to too many emergencies. I had to go through the whole palaver of not having food and water again the next day, naturally.

Once I was being operated on in a theatre I had never been operated in. Being so tall (or “gross” as the Germans’ call me – it took me a while to realise this wasn’t an insult) , they managed to put me on a bed, with my head, shoulders and half my back not supported by anything. When I was moved around, I swung wildly, it took a while for someone to notice. It did not give me much confidence in the cutting-up for which I was about to recieve.

There were many men and women in the hospital who were there to have nose jobs. I found their bandages disconcerting. I called them the rabbits, they looked watershipdown-esque.

A month after I entered hospital, I had two nights in a row where I dreamed that I committed suicide – I was very glad that this did not continue on to a third night!

At one stage I counted 10 reasons as to why the NHS were not able to take my blood (are there any countries apart from England that will take an English person’s blood?)

“Did you learn any German words recently?” “I learned the word heute today” “When did you learn it?”

“What is this beeping?” “It means your pulse is dropping below 45″ “Well I am so sorry, I do apologise”

Sometimes I vomitted when being put under or when waking up. That feeling of retching is the worst feeling I have ever had in my entire life. At such a level of consciousness, it filled up my entire universe and I felt like I was going to die vomitting my guts out.

Most days, the highlight of the day was brushing my teeth and combing my hair.

Eventually, the metallic taste I got when having IV drips lingered in my mouth throughout the day, and when I ate food, it was all I could taste.

In English and German, the word “stool” has the same two meanings. We got asked every single day if we have any pain, and if we have had a stool that day. One of my roomates tried speaking English in front of me, and told the nurse that he had, that day, indeed done a “floor chair”. The same man began every question with the word “Question…” , in close proximity that never got annoying. The same man complained about everything, to the extent that I began to dread meal times as he would moan so much about that event, starting with the temperature of the cutlery.

That’s the truth, even if it never happened.

When I came back , I was shown to my hospital bed. I also met my roomie at this stage – he gave me my first indication that , in German hospitals, not everyone speaks English. (This was going to be a very large theme in my stay in hospital).

The room was clean and white. Everything white. The 4 walls, the beds, the wardrobe, the uniforms of the workers, the bedside tables. White everywhere. There was also a crucifix in the ward, as the hospital was run by the Catholic Church. It was quite nice to have the crucifix there. Man of Sorrows. I was given, at some stage during the day, pills and also had a needle stuck into me so antibiotics could be driven straight into my bloodstream via an IV drip. (I didnt have an infection at this point, it was just preventative). The IV drip gave me a strange metalic taste in my mouth.

The next day I was woken up at 6am to be given a thrombosis shot in my leg. I was told that I would not be having surgery that day, as they had quite a lot of other surgeries to do. I realised at this point that it was probable that I would just miss my flight back home, which was scheduled for a weeks time. I was, that day, visited by a few friends I had made at church, they had brought me many yummy treats, and a couple of German-English dictionaries. They also snuck me out of the hospital and helped me pack all my things out of where I had been living (being me, my room had of course gotten very messy, and of course I had lots of washing to be done (gross), which they very kindly helped me with).

On day 6 I had my first operation. I was given a few tablets before hand to calm me, and I was also given very fetching hat, disposable underwear (I LOVED the disposable underwear) anda very fetching gown. With me being 6′ 4″, the gown did not go very far down my person and left very little to the imagination. I also had to take my glasses off, without them I can only see for a few inches, so this added very much to the disorientation of the experience. I was wheeled away to a room to be put on a new bed, by someone who didn’t speak any english. There I was met by a elederly nun-lady, who also didnt speak any English. Not knowing what was going on, the bed transfer was a very disconcerting experience. I was placed onto a table, which slowly slid away from me, and I was deposited a couple of inches below that onto the bed, but because I didnt know the bed was a couple of inches below me, I thought that when my body was leaving the table I would be going down to nothingness. I was then whelled to the operating theatre, where fortunately one of the guys working there was American (called Kevin), so was able to talk with me. I was given a water-drip, as I had not been allowed to eat or drink all day. Then they put a mask on me. It was just oxygen, and made me feel a bit light headed. Then they injected the general anaesthetic into me. In Donnie Darko, the protagonist is perturbed by the fact “that every living creature on earth dies alone”. Thats what went though my mind as I was being put under. I had never felt so alone in all my life. I was practically naked. Unable to see much. A stranger in a strange land. In a cold, clean, clinical environment. Possessionless. Trinketless. No friends or family in the room. No control over my own person. Just my mind, metal and chemicals. Not entirely true – I still had my faith. In the few seconds that it took me to go under, my mind sang the familiar tune “Amazing Grace how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me”.

I blinked.

Kevin was speaking to me. I said something to Kevin. He told me that he wasn’t Kevin, he was Stefan. Apparently 3 hours had passed, my operation had happened and I was in another room. The medication made me feel so loved up and gave me an overflowing feeling of oneness with the universe. Painkillers were dripped into me whenever I felt pain. Eventually I felt more with it, and I was wheeled back to my room.
There was a haemotoma. I had cut open a vein and it had bled into me, all the way down to the bone. They had removed all the tissue all the way down to the bone. And put on a vacuum pump to encourage new tissue growth. I was told I would have to have one more operation (to remove the pump then sew me back together again), and I would be in hospital for another week.

That night I slept quite well.
The next morning (day 7) I had to walk. At first I was too tentative, and thought I would need crutches. Walking seemed completely out of the question. After a few steps, however, I found I was able to walk perfectly fine, without pain.  A doctor saw me, and I found out that I could be in hospital for another 10 days.
I will end this post with some notes I jotted down that day:

“

• I find it easy to say I am open to God’s plan for my life, and that I really do want to know what it is. I mean, I have no idea what I will do after my masters year, and that is left in God’s hands. Yet I am a fool for saying that this year I plan to do a masters, this year I plan to live in Nottingham. I am even a fool for saying I plan to tidy my room at the weekend, or wash my dishes this weekend – I need to be able to be used by God right here and right now, God might have other plans for me this weekend or this evening (hence my room needs to be tidy now!! :p) .
• I really do not read my bible or pray enough. Today I have read all 28 chapters of Matthew, it really didnt take all that long. Its sad that this amounts to what would normally be weeks of reading for me. Furthermore, I procastinate way to much – I really do need to keep a better stock of how I invest my time.
•  I really need to be more willing to help people in their hour of need. I have appreciated the help I have received from friends this week, there have been plenty of times when others have been sick and I have not visitied. I need to act more like a sheep and less of a goat.
•  This life is such a frail and sacred thing. There really is not point being mean to someone, as their life could be taken away tommorrow. The cliche is true, this “life is too short”
• God has forgiven me much. I need to forgive others more quickly of the wrongs they have committed against me.
• There are some sins in my life that I just wallow in, repeat and make excuses for. I just need to stop being so childish and cut myself off from them.
•  I do not appreciate and look after the body that God has given me enough. I need to be less lazy and gluttonous.
• God is  good all the time. And all the time, God is good.

“

I was based in Stuttgart, Germany, doing a little internship in a lab. On one saturday, I had planned, on the Sunday, to go to Strassbourg, but because I didnt wake up so early I decided to go to Munich (passport still in pocket). To get a cheaper fare, I took local trains, changing at Ulm. I had plenty of time to catch my connecting train in Ulm, so I wasn’t running. There is a bit of a gap between the platform and the train, and also steps going up to the train – I dont know what my feet did exactly, but I misplaced them somehow and I landed – THUD!- onto the hard, but flat, floor of the train. When I got up, the first thing I realised was the left knee on my jeans had been torn. Lifting my jean-legs up to inspect for damage, I saw that my left leg was fine, but by right leg had been grazed. I went to the train lav to clean it up, and didnt think much of it. I was, however, very annoyed with myself for ruining a perfeclt good set of jeans. At one point, a nice german lady sat near me and game me some plasters. Eventually, I got to munich and I had a lovely day walking around seing the delightful sites. By late afternoon, my graze had a fair bit of bruizing around, as was a bit of a bump, but I went home thinking things were going to be alright, and that I would be able to go to Strassbourg the next day.

The next day, I woke up, and decided that I could not go to Strassbourg, because at that point I realised that at some stage I had lost my passport. A few hours later I also made up my mind to go to see a doctor, because my leg was quite bruised, swollen and painful. But, being Sunday in Germany, all the doctors in Germany were shut. Eventually, I called 112 (Germany’s version of 999 / 911) , explained the situation, and they directed me to the nearest hospital. I went to the nearest hospital, where, of course, I had to beg and plead to be seen to because I did not have my passport with me. Luckily, I have done so much Cas Sim with St Johns Ambulance, I was able to fake a couple of convincing swoons, and the receptionist took pity on me and let me be seen. All that happened was I had an x-ray taken, and I was told to see a doctor or nurse during the week to have it re-bandaged. And I was given 6 ibuprofen.

The next day (a Monday), I went to my internship as usual. I saw the nurse there. She said it was the worst bump she has ever seen, and she had worked for decades in a ward where there were many patients with bumps. She told me of a good english-speaking doctor not too far away. I tried to go to that doctor in the morning, but I had a transport-map reading fail, so I ended up having to go back for the afternoon opening hours. The doctor saw me and immediately told me that I needed to go back to hospital, but as it was so late in the day that I needed to go to there the next day. It was at this stage that “surgery” was first mentioned…

2 Samuel
“47 “The LORD lives! Praise be to my Rock!
Exalted be my God, the Rock, my Savior!
48 He is the God who avenges me,
who puts the nations under me,
49 who sets me free from my enemies.
You exalted me above my foes;
from a violent man you rescued me.
50 Therefore I will praise you, LORD, among the nations;
I will sing the praises of your name.”

God alone is worthy of all praise. God alone is the one constant, we can trust in Him alone in all times. Is this something that we do? I know for me personally, it is easy to turn to other things when going through a bad time, or when I am feeling down, sometimes I turn to food, sometimes to television, sometimes I look back on my past achievements. Really, what I should do is seek the face of God, and cast my burdens upon Him – allowing Him to remind me what He has achieved. He achieved my salvation, what a glorious Saviour he is. No matter what my foes or enemies appear to be, whether they be people, or maby something more abstract such as circumstances, I need to remind myself that God is and has proven to be, so much larger and powerful than all the bad stuff that life can throw at me. Ultimately, he will one day wipe away from this earth all the pain, suffering, disorder, and everything that causes pain and suffering now and all will be perfect. No ,not only will these be wiped away but He will be seen to act justly and punish those who have lived their lives as His enemies.

What should be my response to this? This is clearly not something I should keep to myself, this is something that should cause my heart to overflow – both with love for my God, and love for the people I meet and the people I have yet to meet. My love for others should cause me to be concerned for them and their well being, ultimately I should be concerned that their relationship with this God is good too, and that they too do not remain as an enemy of Him.

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[500 55 150 16], ‘String’,'TEXT TEXT TEXT’)

this little beauty will draw you a box at the bottom of your graph, with the text in it! Is’nt that wonderful! Not in the plot itself, but below it and the axis, play around with the 4 numbers too change the position of the box and the size of it.

“Does ‘political’ involvement distract from the gospel?” – 1 hour. Specific issues – 40 minutes, Q& A 20 mins

Britain has contributed so much to the world. e.g English Bible, Tyndale, KJV, English common law.
There a 5 Wrong views, and 1 right view.

1) Government should compel religion

Forced religion. Number 1 is no longer advocated by any christian groups in the world.
a) Jesus distinguished between realm of Caesar and god (Matt 22:21) 2 spheres, distinct. 1 shouldn’t rule or interfere over another, although there will of course be influence. This is different to Old Testament theocracy.
b)Pattern of Jesus not to compel, but to invite. We have to decide to follow Jesus. True faith is voluntary. Christians should use persuasion, conversation, reason dialogue. The implication is we should insist on freedom of religion and oppose governmental compulsion.

2) Exclude Religion from government and public square.
Freedom of religion is not the same as freedom from religion. View 2 wrongly restricts valuable freedoms that are essential to human dignity.

Romans 13:3-4 (English Standard Version)

3For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, 4for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.

View 2 removes any concept of good and evil from civil authority. In the Bible, God’s people gave guidance to secular rulers. The Bible is the word of God for all people for all time. Acts 17 – all men everywhere are called to repent. Whether people accept God’s standards now or not, they will have to give an account. If people dont accept the Bible as God’s word, they can at least listen to its reason, its wisdom and its goodness.

Dan 4 v 27, ruler called to break off sins. Luke 3 v 19, John Rebukes Herod “for all evil things”. Acts 24 Paul reasoned about righteousness, with the passage written in a way to suggest a back and forth discussion e.g with Paul commenting of individual decisions made by the ruler. Esther is another good example. View 2 in extreme would lead to a destruction of belief and moral disintegration.

3)All Govt is demonic.
Greg Boyd advocates this in “The Myth Of a Christian Nation.”
The Claim is backed up by Luke 4: 5-7. Where the devil shows the kingdoms to Jesus. The view is wrong because it is believing Satan. Jesus didnt need to respond to the Devil on every point he made to tell him it was a lie. John 4v 24 it is said of the devil – There is no Truth in Him. The Bible says the opposite: Dan 4v17 God rules Government. Romans 13 v 1-6, 1 Peter 2: 13,14. Government is God’s servant. View 3 claims “power should be under, not over”. But government has power over evil. God has two means to restrain evil – evangelism and Government. E.G drunk driving, we need the gospel but the main way we combat this is arresting people. God has given us both to restrain evil. During slavery, the gospel was proclaimed throughout the south of the USA, but it was only defeated after military action from the North. There is good and evil in everyone’s heart. We are able to use physical force (e.g to defend wife and kids, to stop an attack).

4. Do evangelism, not Politics. Having view 4 is to have too narrow an understanding. ‘All that Jesus commanded’ is the entire Bible. The gospel is good news. Jesus transforms lives and society and governments. 1 John 3 v 8. God calls different people to do different things in addition to evangelism. Do good for others. Matthew 22v39. If I love neighbours, I will want laws that protect ….[insert phrase here]… We are to seek good laws to protect our neighbour and society. Galatian 6 v 10. In 1830′s USA, >2/3 of abolitionists were clergymen. Matthew 5 v 17. If we are living in end times, why dont we just give up? We dont know what is coming. We hold Matthew 24 to be true, but I dont know if that will happen in 1 year or 100 years from now. But we should live in obedience to God’s word. Revival could be coming. Does politics distract from the main task? – God has called different people to put emphasis on different things. But we are not all called to be silent on political issues.

5) Do politics and not evangelise- if we pass good laws a nation will be saved. This view neglects the need for a transformed heart.

6- RIGHT VIEW!) Significant Christian influence on government. We are to bring witness of God’s truth. Jeremiah 29v7 – seek the welfare of the city. So many of the prophets in the bible are speaking to the surrounding nations, calling them to give account for their sin. E.g Amos Ch 1-2. We must allow the freedom for people to build mosques etc.

How much should Pastors preach on this issue?
It is up for them to decide.

One book I read recently and struggled greatly with was “Quantum Physics and Theology”. I’m sure it made many excellent points,  however the author is far too intellectual and myself far too dumb to even follow a sentence, let alone an arguement. I think perhaps a couple of things I grasped from it was light has a wave/particle duality and christ has man/God duality. We dont need to understand fully how and why, we just need to accept this, and move on and let it affect the way we relate to other subjects in our worldview. Also, both are an excersise in tying to grasp truth, both through examining physical evidence thats we have and through personal contemplation. I would not recommend this book to anyone I’m afraid.

What else has been happening in my life? My cat died yesterday from kidney faliure, after living 12 years. Also, I have been made president of the physics society.

On the internet there are many blogs and internet sites detailing the heresies and lies contained within the book, which deal with the issue better than I could ever do. So I’m not going to outline the negatives, but  my favourite is page 120 - God: “I don’t need to punish people for sin.” I do, however,  think that it dealt well with exploring the need for us to have a personal and loving relationship with God, give up any notion of trying to earn salvation through our acts, the need for us to forgive each other and show love to one another. The book expresses that God will be our judge and we have no right to judge other people or God – we have no “rights” for anything. A theme which is also common throughout the narrative is that we have to put our trust fully in God and give up our independance.

What else is happening in my life? Yesterday morning was the astrophysics mock, a complete cakewalk and I finished it in half the alloted time. Yesterday evening was my first 1-2-1 session, which lasted for a very impressive 3 hours. It was mostly spent discussing our lives and where we are in our relationship with God. I can’t say I opened up much, but I did talk more that I was afraid I was going to. From it, I took that I do need to be doing more evangelism, not drift away from NUCU and be spending more time in fellowship with people my age. For next week’s 1-2-1 we will be reading the first section of Humility by Mahaney and discussing that. Tommorow will be a maths exam, so until then revision will be on the cards.