Hello, hello and, as this appears to be my first posting on our joint blog, I'm probably just as excited as you are to finally have made it thus far!

As some might know already, I've been battling a disappointment in health over the last many months called polycystic ovary syndrom (PCOS for short)and after a brief stay in hospital in May I was finally given an appointment to see a Gynaecologist (this is after struggling for years with symptoms and being told by previous doctors just to put up with them). Yesterday was the long awaited appointment...and the most positive thing about it I have to admit was the magazine I read in the waiting room (not that it was anything special, just one of those real-life stories with a happy ending). I had read almost everything I could about my condition (on the internet)and had a fairly good idea of what the doctor was going to say and suggest as treatment.I had made my mind up which treatment option to go for and had close friends and family praying faithfully that all would go well. I'm not trying to suggest that it did not go well, or that prayers were not answered.....I think I had merely got my expectations of this appointment screwed so high that only the top Gynaecologists in the world would have made the impression and desired effect. What I got in the end was this: a junior doctor under obvious time pressure. No empathy or even interest in knowing my individual concerns, questions or symptoms. She was obviously working from analysing what medical remedies can she perscribe for PCOS and do I meet the criteria. She had her two minute assesment, perscription and closing letter to my general practitioner done in five minutes and even though I answered her question of , "Is that all I can do for you?", with, "Well, actually I have been struggling with several other symptoms and was wondering if the medicine you perscribed will deal with these as well?", she shrugged it off saying that there is no medical evidence for any other symptoms to be related to PCOS, though many patients affected by it have complained of these. A zero fat diet and regular excersise helps to relieve the symptoms in some people but for many people it does not......and with that she showed me the door and said that I need not be followed up by the consultant in the future, the general practitioner could take over the care again.

Disappointment? I was quite depressed actually. After a long walk down to my in-laws and a short chat to get things off my chest, I regained courage and went down to Sainsburys (the fancy, American style, overpriced but get almost anything you can imagine grocery store, that Jonathan REALLY dislikes)to look for zero fat alternatives to butter, olive oil and ice-ceam! What I found was: diet margerine (75% less fat than butter), olive oil spry light (50% less fat but only one calorie per spray)and zero fat flavoured yogurt which I've frozen (since the american version of frozen yogurt as a desert ice-cream variety hasn't caught on to our spot in the world yet)to use as an alternative to ice-cream....though I actually had a taste of it this morning and it was pretty awful. This is actually the worst time of the year to go on such a diet as there are so many birthdays in the family and I love making chocolate cakes! Today was supposed to be the fist day of my zero fat diet. Breakfast was fine, cereal and low fat milk (my aim is to go on to skim milk...but not just yet!), then came lunch and I decided to go for fish on German black bread with tomatos....and as I was trying to think ahead and beat my mid afternoon craving for biscuits and tea I had my fill of fish. Jonathan was going to be out all day and evening so he arranged for me to have the evening meal with his parents. I had told Joy (his mother) about my diet and eagerly anticipated what we would be having .......need I say...we had fish (and I'sm sorry Jonathan, but I think we won't be having fish again for another few weeks!)!