Dead Wrong

My mum is awesome! 

She's called Ange. Well Andrea actually. She's also been known as Flange, The Crow and The Old Bag/Bat etc. 

She's a pretty remarkable women.

She brought my brother Jody (yes it’s a boys name too) and I up alone. We both turned out exceptionally well by the way....all credit to her.

My brother - Jody (with a ‘y’) Loughlin 

And me - Who said alcohol and chemo don’t mix?

Mum worked 3 jobs so she could get us stuff and feed us, we went from living in sheltered housing to our own home with a mortgage! She took us to really awesome places across the globe and ran her own business. She even jumped out of a plane last year from 15000ft at age 66!

She did all that. 

She's brilliant. 

Remarkable.

But WOW she can't do technology for shit!

Watching her type a text message out on her flip phone circa 2002 resembles a one eyed robber typing a code into a safe.

Now she has retired she has made the brave decision to catch up with us younguns and get an iPad!!!!! I thought she must have soiled her TenaLady when she made that brave decision. 

I took her to the Mall a few weeks ago and told the Apple hipsters to give her the most basic IPad with really good memory and none of that fancy shite. She left with her fashionable drawcord double lined white bag muttering about ‘what was a wrong with a normal carrier’ and then promptly tells me that I’ll need to teach her how to use it!

Ok I think, I can do that. I have zero patience, no free time whatsoever and am unable to filter sarcasm even in the most extreme of circumstances....this’ll be fantastic!!!!

So the next day she bowls into my house with a 50/50 mix of excitement and fear hanging around her jowls, sits down with the iPad and says “ok, what do I do next?” And I say “well you obviously need to switch it on first you pillock” but she doesn’t move and continues to stare at me then says  “ok” and stares again.

What is she looking at? I quickly glance over my shoulder...clear. I run my tongue over my teeth....clear. I waggle my finger in both nostrils...pretty clear.

And it slowly dawns on me she doesn't know how to turn it on. 

SHE DOESN'T KNOW HOW TO TURN IT ON!!!! 

Remain calm....breathe...you can do this....you’ve bossed life with incurable Cancer....don’t let the old bird give you a heart attack....breathe I tell myself. 

So I remain calm and show her.

Me - “Press here and enter a password.” 

Flange - “What’s the point in that?” 

Me - “don’t ask questions unless it’s extremely necessary and we may both survive this” (End scene)

Then flash forward and hour and she's still slamming the screen with her sausage fingers every time I shout "the home button! The button!!! The fucking home button! THE BUTTON! It's the only fucking button on there for fucks sake!!" And I realise that although the odds are that I'll die from Cancer....there's now a bloody good chance I may be claimed earlier via an aneurism from old lady technology induced stress!  

“Mum, I'm signing you up for a class at the Library for iPad wankers. It starts on Wednesday”

And off she goes. Bless her.

Anyway, what's this got to do with anything I hear you shout?

Well I tell thee...

Mum can now use google and she wanted to read my blog. Isn't that nice? (She'll have forgotten how to find it by the time this ones posted so don't worry) 

So she says one day whilst whipping out here iPad (that’s now incased in a picture of a Giraffe wearing pink accessories)....'look watch me. I do it like this. I press the compass thing (she means safari) and then the colours come up (she means the actual word ‘Google’) and I click the white line below it and I type what I want to search for.’

I'm actually rather impressed. Good ole Brian at the library... that geezer deserves a medal....and probably a month in The Priory. 

So she says ‘I'm searching for you’ and she types in 'Heidi Loughlin' and do you know what comes up my friends? The first search...as in the one people do most? Is this:

‘Heidi Loughlin Death’

Well bless my mum, she says "you're not dead" and I say "I know! The flipping cheek!" 

And I start wondering why people have searched this? 

I mean there could be a million answers. 

It could be that people are looking for pictures of my sarcastic corpse?

It could be that people have seen me on a live feed somewhere and think I speak so loudly because I’m overcompensating for hearing difficulties (and they, like me, can’t spell and/ or have bad grammar) 

Or maybe it could be that people have noticed I’ve not written much this year and have decided I’ve snuffed it? Now I mention it ..I did have a few inbox messages asking if I was dead, to which I replied "Yes. Yes I am. I'm so sorry to be the barer of bad news, I died 4 weeks ago. PS I'm in your wardrobe".

I wonder if people think that because I've got an incurable and aggressive strain of Cancer (inflammatory breast Cancer) that I must have died by now. 

I guess it’s a fair assumption.

But, I'm not dead!!!  I’m very much alive....look here’s the evidence....

Celebrating Tait’s 3rd birthday in style

Coming second to last with our quiz team at the school but drinking through it....

....and innocently climbing the kids wall on the way home.

Spending time with my favourite man on 4 legs.

Winning Inspirational Mother of the Year at the Butterfly awards.

Halloween dinner party....all very civilised....lots of red wine

Later that night after I’d spewed off my face paint

1 firework every 5 minutes....that’s old school.

Oh and if you want dated proof of life.... here it is....

FYI that train line is never happening 

Let me tell you what I did a few weeks ago....I canoed 22 miles for Stand up to Cancer. Yeah I did that AND I have treatment everything 3 weeks. I had the drugs two days after the canoe trip actually. 

Here are the pictures as proof that I canoed alive. AND I was still alive at the end.

A few days before I headed up north for the challenge I said to my mates that I was a little concerned that I wouldn't be able to do it because I hadn't trained and actually it was a really long way and all the others had trained or were really fit generally as they are celebrities and keep their shit together. 

My mate Emma (who seems to come up a lot in my blog posts and is a hard core spinning instructor) said 'that's bullshit. You'll be absolutely fine because that type of endurance is mental strength and you are the strongest person I know' and you know what, she was bloody right. 

I actually became stronger as the day progressed and finished with a tonne of adrenaline coursing through me. 

I know my little girl gave me an extra push and was egging me on from the start. And I know my boys, although back in Bristol, were also fuelling my determination. 

You see I gather strength from all things around me. The short life of my daughter Ally still gave me some very happy memories, the knowledge that my boys are safe and well and need me as there mum, my husband that would continue to send Noah to school in the wrong coat if I wasn't around, my friends that always say the right things, my brother whose sarcasm and stoicism rival my own and I’m a tough act to follow and my Mum, who keeps going regardless of the obstacles and will one day be able to type like a normal person. 

Heidi Loughlin Alive

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx