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Welcome to our Christmas Newsletter. If this is your first correspondence from the Livewires – enjoy!

All of the team at the RVH hope this finds you well and looking forward to the festive season – 1 hope the tree is up and all those presents are bought and wrapped by now!

The Livewires Summer meeting held in the Wellington Park Hotel in June of this year was again a great success. 140 guests signed in and enjoyed the evening. Our speakers included Alma on healthy lifestyle, Roisin discussed cardiac medications, Michael enlightened us on holiday insurance and Marlene encouraged us to take part in some lively chair aerobics. After “Question and Answer” time, supper was enjoyed by all - our thanks again to Bailey Medical / Guidant, without their financial support these meetings would not be possible.

Two of our members - Maurice Jobling and Errol Hutchinson have suggested creating our own website. In fact Maurice has been very industrious in this regard and has put a lot of work into the creation of a fabulous website www.belfast.net/mo

This is his personal website but has a Livewires section. This interactive website, written from a patient perspective, provides a wealth of information ranging from the technical aspects of ICD’s (in layman’s terms), to more light hearted topics such as a picture gallery, patient stories and experiences and a “frequently asked questions” section which provides a forum for getting those niggling queries answered. Maurice has created a tremendous site, with no small amount of effort, which is informative, fun, useful and relevant to daily life with an ICD. A visit to the site is highly recommended.

Good news on the driving front! When one of our members John Robinson applied for his licence to be renewed, he was pleased to discover that this was now granted for 3 years instead of one. John had his ICD implanted in 1996 with no therapy delivery since. N.B. each patient will have different circumstances so this will not be the case for everyone but at least things are moving in the right direction. John also had an enquiry regarding his ability to use a portable defibrillator as part of First Aid Training. With appropriate training, an ICD patient is not at any personal risk when using a defibrillator on another.

Christmas Crossword

Now a regular feature, the crossword is on the reverse of the newsletter. Thanks once again to Joan Mahood for her creative skills.

CHRISTMAS CAKE
Yes – it is that time of year again! You have made your Christmas cake (of course!) and covered it with nice marzipan icing. Now you are going to finish off the top with a snow scene. The answers to the asterisked clues are decorations you might use.

You can print this out and fill it in, and, for a bit of fun you can fill in all the black squares on the printout :-))

1	2			3		4		5	6

7			8
		9
10							11
						12
13	14				15				16
				17
18			19					20
		21
22							23

24		25

Across Down

1	I wish you a very happy one (9)	1	Preferences – almost the best (7)
5	An emergency – call in Morse (3)	*2	& 12 Down Topping! The Queen seems frosty (5, 5)
7	Love and kiss round an American city to get a semi-precious mineral (4)	3	Change name or become a grumbler (6)
8	Get mother to sing (like Bing) about a nice almond treat (8)	4	Old Russian ruler lowers head to become a shining light (4)
10	Through unscrambling oracles I find what makes me fat (8)	*5	Woman upset – kept poles apart – a cold fellow (7)
11	East m-mother for a Jane Austen heroine (4)	*6	Insect in South Africa comes bearing gifts (5)
*13	& 18 Down The Lone Ranger’s horse dances (6,5)	*9	Steer badly after 1 Across - usually firs (5)
15	Tea-time fare once upset in a ship (6)	*12	See 2 Down (5)
18	Vegetable – you might not have one after Christmas spending (4)	14	Calf-skin, perhaps - 'e is in soap suds (7)
*19	Sounds like wet weather, darling (8)	16	With assorted red tips – like a tiger (7)
22	Posh Hilda had got upset (3-2-3)	17	Comment on what a careless examiner may have to do – with A-levels?(6)
23	A way of thpeaking (4)	*18	See 13 Across (5)
24	Form of address in S Ireland (3)	20	Girl’s name – Heather (5)
25	Confused, a cad broke what will hold our crossword subject (9)	21	If it is compact it could be a sound investment (4)