Socialized Medicine/ Faith...etc.

Ah....yes...a few things to chat about today.
Number 1:  Socialized Medicine...known here as the NHS (National Healthcare System)  This is the concept that everyone deserves to get medical treatment and where the rich insurance companies don't get richer.  Where people, all people, get to have the needed medicine they need and get it just as fast and free as the rich.  Now...I have grown up in the states where people pay crazy amounts of money for healthcare and insurance.  Neither is well done or fair.  I have waited FOREVER to get an appointment back in the states and usually wait another hour in a waiting room to only see a nurse ( I love you nurses and you are most likely smarter than most doctors) but still.  It is not the nicest waiting room and usually the nurses are so over worked that they aren't always the friendliest and 9 times out of 10 you only see the doc/nurse for about 30 seconds.  We all have waiting room stories or have left more agitated then when arriving from a doctors office.  Well, I am here to tell you it doesn't have to be that way!  Now yes, they pay higher taxes here, but, they actually have a system that serves its people.  I wanted to have some blood work done to see what is up with my system (whole different story all together) so I called on a late Tuesday afternoon.  They had a choice of appointments for me to pick from for the NEXT day!  My jaw about hit the floor...when I went, the staff was extremely friendly, I didn't have to fill out some 10 million crazy forms where you never know exactly if you are doing it right.  I saw a doctor who apologized profusely for being 2 minutes late...2!!!  We had a conversation...she took her time...and when she agreed I needed some blood work done she asked if I minded waiting 15 minutes to do it.  Now back home you would have to make a whole other appointment!  The lady who drew my blood apologized for my less than 15 minute wait.  I told her that this experience was truly bliss.  She smiled and said we get that lots from people who come over from the states.  I asked her some questions while she was drawing my blood.  She had worked in the states as well, as a nurse, and she was shocked that we hadn't come to have more socialized medicine like here.  I just can't tell you how great of an experience it was.  For all of you people who think socialized medicine is bad....look at it again with new eyes.  I really am impressed with it here.  And maybe it would help even the ever growing gap of rich people and the average American.  Just a thought.  Nothing political just my experience.  (And once again a shout out to all you nurses...I def. think you should get paid more! Along with teachers of course ;))

Number 2:  Church...in particular the song Shout to the Lord...aka My Jesus, My Savior.
So on Sunday morning in church we sang that song.  It brought back SO many memories.  It took me back to my senior year in high school when I learned the song on our youth group service trip to Mexico.  I got to think back to what I thought life would be and where I would be in the "future".  I thought about all of my friends who were there and where they are in life now.  I remember singing it in front of church for Marty and Deanna's last Sunday...um totally emotional.  I remember singing it at college and then again back at WSBC.  The thought that I was now singing it so many years later with my husband by my side and in England, none the less, was just an extra ordinary moment for me.  It was like a flash back of my life as I sang and then the thought of WOW what is God going to do next?!  When the chubby girl who saw everyone else get married thought "God are you really going to give me my dreams of being a wife"...he answered in His time and provided such an amazing man.  And when I said "God are you really going to get me through this whole moving ordeal"...He provided.  It was just so cool.  These words can't fully describe what I felt or even what I feel now but man thank you God for it.  It gave me hope and an awesome feeling about the future.  And just this peace that God is in control even when I think man what is He doing now?!?  It just was a God moment ya know.  And what a great song!

So yeah...lots of ramblings...some other side notes.  The dead flowers I got for Valentine's Day got fully reimbursed from Intraflora with a very sincere apology letter no questions asked.  Impressed!  I ran the longest I have ever ran 3.5 miles...no stopping and was pretty pumped about that last Sat.  I get the results from my blood work on Monday...so that should be interesting.  And...if you made it this far you must be as bored as I am.  LOL  Sorry this was a long one.  Hope all is well.  Later.