Tuesday 13 June 2017

Chasing A Bubble

Before we left for America on the 1st May I'd updated The Storm In A Tit Cup Facebook page to tell you that I'd be posting loads of stuff while we were away. We then had a traumatic start to the trip which I shall tell you about shortly, then I wrote a bit and fell asleep. Then time flew bye and then Manchester happened and i just didn't feel like talking about myself. It's so trivial compared to what others are enduring. And now London has happened and the atmosphere is so tangible. There is  some kind of energy. Something in the air. I can't label it but I feel I could grab it from the sky, which I appreciate makes no sense or sounds strange. I'm not saying we are all running scared because we are British and that's just not how we roll, but there is a real sense of 'something' that is hard to pin point. Is it fear? Rage? Hatred? Or is it defiance? Strength? And the strongest of our emotions, love? 

I'm not writing this today to talk about the abhorrent murders that have taken place this year by a group of blood thirsty narcissists. (And yes, I purposely do not use the words 'Muslim Extremists.' They may think they are Muslims...they are not.)
I'm writing this because it's business as usual right? I feel sick for all the people that are hurting from what has happened....including myself. I don't know any of these people personally but these are my people. These are our people. These are British people. 
So FUCK YOU!! (Not 'you', you but YOU!) 

Lets crack on...

I'm going to tell you about the first day of our trip through 10 American States. 

This is the big one. 
In terms of 'bucket list' items this is the one that means the most to me. A road trip across America. Keith and I are huge fans of America. 
I always thought 'when I've got 8 year olds I'm definitely taking them on an American road trip' but then Cancer came to town and pissed on my 'future-living' chips. 
I'm not saying I'll have snuffed it before Noah and Tait turn 8 but just in case we thought it best to stop living in the future and maybe live now?
We are all guilty of 'future-living'....'when I'm 40 I'll go to Vegas', 'I'll fly a plane next year' 'I'll join the WI once the grand kids have started school' etc etc
What if my 'future-living' had been nipple tassels on my right boob'? I'd be screwed now. It's just a big flat floodplain where once a mountain stood. (A saggy mountain to be fair, but a mountain all the same). Hanging a nipple tassel on that now would be more like pin-the-tale-on-the-donkey. 
Now wouldn't that make a great hen party game? (I once got two of my friends to drink a shot of my breast milk at their hen parties so this would be borderline normal). 

(FYI Apparently I use a lot of brackets when I write stuff)((that's what happens when you know nothing about grammar))

Anyway, my point is, if it's something you want to do, do it now!!!!!!!!! No one slides into the grave congratulating themselves on how repetitive their life was and how they always applied caution to making plans. I think maybe they regret the things they didn't get to do? I guess that's the point of 'the bucket list?' Although the word 'bucket' just makes me think of a big baggy fanny to be honest. 

'Bucket list' comes from 'kicking the bucket' which I also don't understand? What's that got to do with death or dying? And now I'm imaging someone with their foot stuck in aforementioned big baggy fanny. 
Bloody hell....How my mind wonders. 

So, USA. We arrived on 1st May for a month of 'Funishment.'
The journey wasn't as horrendous as I was expecting with a 2.5 year old in tow. He did hurl all over the photo blanket my mates had bought me last year before the tit chop so when we arrived at the Gatwick 'meet n greet'  I had to stand in front of cars full of people scraping curdled milk and strawberry laces out of a fleece blanket covered with pictures of my face.
(FYI Gatwick, that horrendous stench in car park 4 was the aroma of a blanket gently marinated in sick slowly simmering in the boot of a black Toyota Prius. Soz.)

So Disney with a 2 and a 4 year old? Yes it's mental. 
May is a reasonable time to go as it's not rammed but the weather is great. 
As I'm a cancerous chemo muncher I qualified for fast pass tickets for me and the clan which did help a lot. 
You present yourselves at guest services and you're able to ask for a fast pass ticket due to a disability. Now folks this has me in conflict a little. 
I am apparently 'disabled'. I qualify for a blue badge and for free cinema tickets for my carer and shit, but it's something I have yet to apply for. 
Why? 
Well I'm not ashamed or anything like that. It's just I've never been more able in my life! I've never been more capable. I've never achieved so much as I have over the last 2 years. So I feel a bit weird having those privileges when I don't feel any different. I absolutely don't feel like I need them. 
The blue badge thing has drifted through my mind a few times when I've return to my car to pay for parking after chemo and it's another £7 as you can NEVER get a parking spot at the Bristol Oncology Hospital!!! I have chemo every 3 weeks, a pre assessment every 3 weeks, a heart scan every 3 months, an MRI every 3 months, a blood test every 3 weeks....that's a lot of parking money!!!! It adds up. Not to mention the amount of time I have to spend getting to and from appointments just so I can get parked. If I had a blue badge I could just roll up and dump my ride on the double yellows like a boss. But something stops me from filling out the forms. For now anyway.
But this time I thought fuck it!!! I'm getting me a fast pass. Because my mental health is at risk if we get to the front of a 1.5hr queue with a two year old that's just potty trained that needs a piss just before the Buzz Lightyear Ride!!! I can't be dealing with that shittery schizzle. 

Anyway, I got the passes and we headed into DisneyWorld. 
We decided to spend our first day at the mother ship....The Magic Kingdom. And as you're about to discover, for me, it was anything but Magical.

We entered the land where dreams come true and stepped straight into a nightmare....our son went missing. 

After exiting the first ride of the day where Peter Pan had declared 'no one ever grows up here', which basically made me think of Steven Kings IT, we were standing outside in what was a reasonably low crowd and wondering where to go next. Everyone was yabbering away about 'Peter pan' and why the crocodile had swallowed a clock (I explained that she'd probably been up all night with the baby and the last thing she needed was her husbands alarm going off at 6am for the bloody boxing....so she silenced it) and we stood to the side to examine our map and someone asks "where's Noah?". 
It wasn't an instant feeling of Vom because we'd been doing this a 100 times all morning...where's Noah...I've got him...where's Tait...in the pushchair you're pushing....where's Noah....oh he's on my shoulders. 
But this time I look up and he's just not there. All I see is a swarm of humans exiting 'the princess experience' (not as dodgy as it sounds) flying passed us. I looked behind me and see a shop and think he's probably just gone on the rob so off I go. 
He's not in there. 
That's when it hits me.....the feeling of dread. And as a police officer my immediate thought is 'TIME PACE DISTANCE'. Now this will sound extreme to you but this is exactly how my mind worked over the next few minutes... 

...how much TIME will it take for a peadophile/murderer to walk at a PACE that doesn't attract attention, the DISTANCE to the exit of Disney? I'm just north of the castle which leads back to Main Street and the exit. I would estimate in these crowds that it is no more than 8 minutes. Would Noah be convinced by a 'your mum's waiting in the car park' story...yes probably he's only 4 and very trusting. Will he be scared right now? Don't be silly he's going to be fine. A nice mummy or daddy will bring him to the staff. But what if it's the wrong kind of person that finds him? Oh god I'm going to be sick. What was the last thing I said to him? Shit what was he wearing? Where the fuck is he? I'm going to be the mother to two dead children. I can't have another one taken from me. This is all my fault. I'm a terrible terrible mother....

Now we are all running in different directions around the not-so-Magic Kingdom and every time we see each other we lock eyes in hope that there will be a smile. 
There isn't. 
We are running around telling all the staff who to be fair are so calm. I've remembered he's wearing a yellow t.shirt and all the yellow I see I start chasing. 
It's not him. It's not him. 
Now it felt like an hour had passed but in reality it was about 3 minutes. I told the staff it was longer because I know that gets shit moving quicker and it did. The radios start blasting off albeit calmly. Then a staff member tells me to wait where I am as my sister in law is coming over and I look up and see Noah sat on Keith's shoulders looking like nothings happened. Well that's when I go full leak mode. Crying, snot, swearing, I want to vomit again. The Disney lady hugs me and says "oh you poor thing, this happens about a million times a day and we always find them' and I wanted to say 'you don't know the half of it but I will give you my house and the clothes on my back if you don't mind the sweat'. I go over to Noah and I can't let go of him. I almost squash him. "You're squeezing me mummy. Ouch" And I asked "where did you go?" and he simply replies "I was chasing a bubble".

It turns out that when he was stood with us a kid with a Mickey Bubble machine trotted by and Noah ran after her. He was never more than 10 metres away from us but in that crowd....it could have been 10 miles. It was awful. I think we all just assumed that someone else had their eye on him. He evaporated into thin air.

After I'd stopped snotting we got straight on the 'it's a small world after all' boat ride. We travelled around the world listening to the song on repeat and staring at these smiling happy faces and observed the world living in complete harmony alongside each other. 
The the irony was not lost on me. 
I couldn't calm down. I was crying quietly and staring at all these smug/oblivious plastic expressions. Like nothing had happened. Everything was just fucking wonderful and there was peace everywhere. Life is a song and dance. Yippee. 

This was day 1 at Disney and things go massively up hill from here but wow, that first day I felt like a complete failure. 
I'd planned this huge trip across America. I'd been planning it since before I'd had cancer, before we lost our little girl, before Tait was born and even before Noah was born. It just took on a shit load more meaning over the last 2 years. I guess in some ways a lot was riding on it and that day I thought about the immense pressure I was putting on everyone to have the best time of their lives because I might be dead next year and we needed more memories. I felt selfish, scared and basically like a let down. 

Was I too just chasing a bubble? 









11 comments:

Unknown said...

Tell us more about the breast milk shots...? Scary stuff, a child going missing, not your gruelly lactate. Although that is as well. Bring on the next chapter please. C & H xxx

Unknown said...

Very good read. Maybe the bubbles are chasing us?

Unknown said...

Oh I've experienced things like that when mine were little, 35 years ago. But I had not been where you were floating in a pool of sorrow that was thrust upon you. You can't let it take you because you have two beautiful kids, not to mention your lovely Keith. They are your raft. You are an amazing and funny person and hope to meet you one day. Audrey Xx

hilsbury said...

Have fun and keep hold of your little monkeys!

Unknown said...

Im from South Africa and just saw Extraordinary Pregnancies,then I went to the internet to search you and see how you are doing now. Your story touched my heart. Just want to say strongs and love. You are a fantastic mother. Love. Lizelle Gibson South Africa

Denise Paulsen said...

This is just so powerful Heidi. You're a refreshing reminder of everything that's good and pure in this fucking shit happens storm we call life. And we're all caught in a sudden downpour from time to time. Huddle under your brolly with your beautiful fam and hold tight. I'm so glad you made it to the States Heidi. You're loved far and wide. (Denise in Toronto) xoxo

henryandpeters.com said...

Hi Heidi, thank you for your strength, for loving life, for not allowing the doctors to take life, for loving your family, for living the way we should all live, so many people will live a longer life, but will never live a day like you do. God bless you and your family, and the memories you have given them of an amazing mother. If you ever come back to the States, mi case es tu case.

henryandpeters.com said...

Hi Heidi, thank you for your strength, for loving life, for not allowing the doctors to take life, for loving your family, for living the way we should all live, so many people will live a longer life, but will never live a day like you do. God bless you and your family, and the memories you have given them of an amazing mother. If you ever come back to the States, mi casa es tu casa

Anonymous said...

HELLO VIEWERS DR. MAGGI CURE MY HERPES WITH THE ROOT AND HERBS, YOU CAN CONTACT HIM FOR ANY PROBLEM, OR VIA HIS WEBS:
https://maggiherbalcenter.wixsite.com/drmaggi.
http://drmaggiherbalcenter.webs.com

I am very happy today to share this amazing testimony on how Dr MAGGI the herbal doctor that was able to cure me from my Herpes Virus with his herbal medicine. I have been a Herpes patient for almost 8 months now and have tried different methods of treatment to ensure that I am cured of this terrible disease, but none worked for me, so I had to leave everything to God to handle as I was a Christian who had faith that one day God would intervene in my life, yet I felt so sad and desperate as I was losing almost everything due to my illness, A few months ago while I was searching the internet I saw different recommendation about Dr MAGGI on how he have been using his herbal Medicine to treat and cure people, these people advice we contact Dr MAGGI for any problem that would help immediately, I contacted Dr MAGGI and I told him how I got his contact and also about my disease, after some time Dr MAGGI told me to have faith that he would prepare for me a medication of herbal herbs, he told me I would take this medicine for a few weeks and also asked my home for home address so as possible for him to submit the medicine for me, so my good friends after all the process and everything Dr MAGGI actually sent me the medicine, I took it as I was directed by Dr MAGGI, after a few weeks passed, while on Dr MAGGI medication I began to experience changes in my body, I had to call my doctor at the hospital for some blood test after test my hospital doctor told me that I was no longer with the Herpes virus and my blood is pretty good, I can not even believe this, Friends well today i am Herpes Free and i want everyone to know that there is a cure for Herpes for those who will contact Dr MAGGI after reading my testimony, you can kindly contact Dr MAGGI on his email:Maggiherbalcenter@gmail.com or whatsaap him through his mobile} +1(312)767-3460.or call his mobile +1(662)967-1783 Thanks once again DR. MAGGI.YOU ARE TRULY A GREAT HERBALIST.

sharron said...

Few months ago I was Comfirm that I have herpes virus and ever since then I have been on research on how I will get rid of my Herpes but on one faithful day i saw someone testifying about Dr KEN and she Was saying that she was cured from herpes virus and also I quickly copy his email address and I emailed Dr KEN and he told me that I need to get some herbs which i purchased and he told me that he will ship the herbal medicine to me through UPS courier service and he also told that his herbal medicine is going to take five days to cure me from herpes and behold his herbal medicine work accord to him and i am free from herpes now and Dr KEN is a wonderful man and he is the best doctor I ever met in my life and he is the best doctor in Africa you can also email him via Dr.kenherbalcenter@gmail.com thanks Dr ken or WHATSAPP his number +2348147483812

david felps said...

I am really happy that i have been cured from (HERPES SIMPLEX VIRUS) with the herbal medicine of Dr Isibor, i have been suffering from this disease for the past 2 years and 7 mouth without solution until i came across the email of this doctor who have cure so many people with his herbal medicine, i also choose to give him a chance to help me and my husband, he told me what to do and i kindly did it, and he gave us his herbal medicine and direct me on how to use it, i also follow his instructions for use and he ask us to go for a check up after 1 week and 4days which i did, to my greatest surprise our result came out as negative, we are really happy that there is someone like this doctor who is ready to help anytime any day. To all the readers and viewers that is doubting this testimony stop doubting it and contact this doctor if you really have one and see if he will not actually help you. i am not a stupid woman that i will come out to the public and start saying what someone have not done for me and i know that there are some people out there who are really suffering and hurting their family just because of these diseases so you can to mail him on drisiborspellhome@gmail.com he also told me that he has cure for these diseases listed below . HERPES SIMPLEX VIRUS. .DIABETES .HEPATITIS Thank you for your time bye. Whatsapp him +2348107055231.