Hoochiemumma

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Tag: hope

She’s at it again.

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Today is Cystic Fibrosis awareness day and I just can’t seem to let it pass without writing or sharing or giving it some recognition because for years I thought this stupid disease would change our family forever. I thought it would take our son away. I thought that he might not reach adulthood. Crazy thoughts? In hindsight yes, but at the time it was very real.

18 years ago, life for kids with CF looked a lot different than it does now. Being born in 2005 with CF certainly held more hope than previous years, and the prognosis was definitely getting better and better as time went on, but for new parents it was hard to see any light at the end of the tunnel.

I vividly remember carting my precious baby around the Women’s and Children’s Hospital, side-eyeing the skinny young teenagers I’d see who were muffling coughs with hunched shoulders. During those early years, there were some familiar teenage faces who would be strolling the hallways and riding the elevators. I never knew them by name, but I knew that these were “CF’ers” and I was staring at my baby’s future.

We continually hoped that he would be one of the “lucky ones”, the ones who hardly went to hospital and barely caught a cold. There doesn’t seem to be much rhyme or reason as to who gets chosen to be a “lucky one”. It’s pot luck in a pretty shitty competition.

As I clutched my son, literally and figuratively, through the early months, I honestly thought that our life, especially my son’s life would be dictated by this disease in the most horrible ways. I also thought that I would never be able to leave him or be away from him, that I could never go back to work, have a hobby, an anything. So overwhelming was the prospect of what this disease could do, I was crippled with fear of the future.

But as it does, time marched on, and my deluded thoughts and anxiety for the future settled, while we rode the roller coaster of CF. We navigated our way through some pretty hectic kid juggling phases and at times, some worrying moments but amongst that, life trotted along beautifully. In the background though, there was a cloud – a cloud that hovered without us ever knowing when it was going to rain. It was unpredictable – sometimes it was a brief sprinking shower and other times a lightning storm. A lot of the time it caught us by surprise.

Fast forward to 2022 – A magic little pill called Trikafta finally became available for people living with CF in Australia. I was cautious in my excitement and didn’t want to pin all of my hopes on it, while I simultaneously pinned all of my hopes on it.

Luckily for us, this little pill turned out to be pretty magic. It’s been just over 12 months since Mac started Trikafta and it’s been just over 12 months since he’s needed antibiotics. The cloud seems to have lifted a bit. It’s still there, but it seems to be a fair weather cloud these days and the future looks very different than it did before.

In saying all of this, Trikafta isn’t a cure for CF. Mac has definitely drawn the long straw when it comes to having such a fabulous improvement taking this medication. Some people with CF don’t have the right genotype to take Trikafta and some can’t take it due to rare side effects. For others, it’s simply a case of it just not working as well for them.

So until a cure for CF is found, I’ll continue to do my annual awareness shout-outs. I’ll keep wishing for the same thing each year as I blow out my birthday candles as well as cross my fingers that CF will one day mean Cure Found.

M

A case of gastro and mother love.

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I’m sitting on our couch on Sunday night, which is now the early hours of Monday morning. I’m watching my little boy sleep, in between hurling his ringer up and wriggling around with the pain that comes with gastro. I’m poised with a bucket, tissues, Powerade, Spray & Wipe and hand gel. I’m contemplating a hazmat suit.

It’s gonna be a long night.

I apologise in advance for the fact that Mr Spewmanti was at basketball, two birthday parties and bingo over the weekend. He likes to get around. 🥴

I read a quote once that said having a child means you now watch your heart walk around outside of your body.

It’s corny but true.

In between wiping up spew and rubbing Elliot’s forehead, I’m reminded of all the women I know who are riding or have ridden the wave of motherhood when mothering is brutal, and I’m not talking about a sleepless night with a case of gastro.

Brutal is when your heart can be tearing apart and you wonder how the hell you’re going to get through what lies ahead. Somehow we muster up a kind of “super mother power”. We’re like Wonder Woman spinning into all of her glory while we chant “we ain’t got no time for that shit.”

Tonight I’m thinking of my beautiful friend who is currently sitting a bedside vigil in ICU with her son who was in a horrific car accident.

Tonight I’m thinking of a local mum who is preparing a memorial service for her son who was tragically taken in an accident on the way home from school.

Tonight I’m thinking of the mums I know whose children have been diagnosed with chronic illness.

Tonight I’m thinking of a friend whose teenager is trying to find himself and his identity.

Tonight I’m thinking of the mums I know who have lost children to cancer and the mum who has only recently found out.

Tonight I’m thinking of a friend who helped her child navigate his way through addiction.

Tonight I’m thinking of another whose child has been diagnosed with Autism.

Tonight I’m thinking of the mum whose daughter cries herself to sleep because she doesn’t think her body is the right shape.

I’m also thinking of the mums who are just having a crappy time for no other reason than that life can just suck giant turds sometimes.

Motherhood isn’t for the faint hearted. It also takes a tribe to keep us sane.

I’m lucky to have a circle of amazing women in my world. They’re the ones who have lifted me up when things in my world get a little sketchy. They check in, send a message, call for a quick chat that turns into hours of world problem solving. They lend a hand, make me laugh and have my back. They’re real, they’re raw and they don’t pretend to be anything but who they are. They’re all fabulous for many different reasons. They accept me and my foibles and teach me a lot.

So to all of the mums out there who are catching spew in buckets, researching teen behaviour, driving kids to appointments, wiping away tears, sitting by a hospital bed praying or simply managing to get the kids off to school on time without losing your mind….

You’re amazing.

Mums are incredible.

Don’t let anyone tell you anything else.

Disclaimer *Yes, dads are incredible too, but this blog is called Hoochiemumma not Hoochiepapa 😉.

M

D-Day

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Tomorrow is D DAY. Its a fundraiser for the Cure4CF Foundation. Yes, I’m at it again…. Yes, it’s probably annoying. I know how I feel when I see people over share the same thing. I eye-roll a bit and think “yeah yeah we get it”.

When you’re on the other side though, and there is a cause that you’re passionate about, especially one that involves your child, there seems to be motivation to be annoying and speak out.

Sometimes sharing too much can come across as attention-seeking perhaps? I have always struggled with this balance. There are plenty of people out there branding their existence with having a child with an illness. Usually, these people are giant pains in the arses and sometimes their kids are too.

I would give anything to not have this as a topic to write about. But here are.

We all have struggles through, a hurdle, or some kind of challenge that life throws at us. Every one of us. I’m sure you’re thinking of yours right now. When I think of my family and friends I can easily identify something going on in their lives that is, or has been stressful, hard, or sad. It’s called life I suppose.

Most often, struggles have some kind of silver lining. One of the positive things that having a child with a chronic illness has brought me, is being able to put things into perspective. It’s really easy to get hung up on the small stuff and I certainly do my fair share of that at times. Like this afternoon when Scarlett dobbed on Elliot for being a bit of a dick on the bus.

Did I speak to him about it.. yes.

Did he deny that he did anything wrong…of course.

Did he run away to his room while I was mid sentence, yelling “you just don’t get it mum, stop going on about it”… yes.

Did I see red and turn into psycho Sally and tell him that I will ban him from the bus myself and also used the “f” word twice in one sentence. Also yes.

So OK, sometimes I do sweat the small stuff.

Anyway… I digress.

I have often wondered what kind of parent I would have been if not for the experience of having Macauley. I have also wondered how different he would be too. Those early years were tough and I was fairly intense and controlling when it came to trying to keep him well. It was the only coping mechanism I had to make it feel like I had some kind of handle over something so uncontrollable. I was pretty much kidding myself, but it made me feel better at the time. Because his health was my number one priority, everything else kind of took a back seat and priorities shifted a little. I think I definitely had it in me to be competitive and compare. What a joy sucker that is. (Just a tip for new mums too….you soon forget the age they start crawling, or if they walked before they were one. Plus, once you have more than two kids you get them all mixed up and refer to those early years as “well one of you stated walking a bit late… I dunno which one of you it was now?”)

So by the time he turned 5 and started school, I didn’t really care that he couldn’t hold a pencil and write his name yet. Was he meant to? Besides sending me bat shit crazy, I didn’t worry too much that he was stuck on level 3 reader for what seemed a 100 months of Sunday’s. And who knew that being able to tie a shoelace by a certain age was a milestone to be aiming for? Just buy the velcro shoes people. They’ll get it one day. All of these things are important to a certain degree, but I kept thinking how lucky we were that he was at school, that he was born in the new millennium. If he were living in the 60’s I could have well been preparing his funeral, not his first day of school.

Which brings me to my point of being an over sharer. It’s due to people making more noise and fighting for funding and raising awareness that has led to some amazing medicines and research being done in science land. Sure, big pharma is probably all the horrible things that people say it is….to what degree I wouldn’t know. All I know is that without “Big Pharma” my big kid wouldn’t be here. As evil and horrible as people make them out to be, big pharma develop and provide my child with medication he literally cannot live without.

Organisations like Cure4CF Foundation raise money to provide funds for exciting developments and research focused on a CURE. I see it like a giant jigsaw puzzle where all of the new bits of research from around the world get tacked onto the older bits and are pieced together to solve the puzzle. I am hopeful that the puzzle of CF will be solved so that Macauley and many others can breathe a little easier.

Literally.

M

PS….As always, if you can give, please do or simply share to make aware. 🌹

 

 

Operation Secret iPod Confiscation – The jig is up.

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For the punters playing along at home….

The cat  is out of the bag.

The can of worms has popped.

The beans have been spilled.

The game has been given away.

Mr. Hooch couldn’t help himself. Damn him.

Let’s just say there’ll be some more literary pursuits occurring in the top bedroom.

Operation Secret iPod Confiscation has officially concluded.

The results are hazy.

(If you have no idea what I’m talking about.. head on back to the last post “Liar Liar Pant on Fire”).

I’m sure when she is 25 years old and I give her the iPod back, she will appreciate the life lessons I am trying to instill. Yeah, that’s right, TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OLD…. I actually said that. It’s OK though because, by the time I got to that part of my monologue, I’m pretty sure her eyes were rolled so far back into her head it had turned off her ability to hear.

While I was imparting my wisdom upon the pony-tail wearer, there was a little 7 year old loving the absolute shit out of seeing his sister getting ripped a new butt-hole. It wasn’t ripping actually….more like a carefully planned surgical incision. He had a surgical butt-hole procedure only last week, so he was simultaneously tender and gleeful as he watched on with eyes as big as saucers.

As our daughter made her way back to her room, with her new butt-hole, to spend some time “reflecting”, or possibly making a voodoo doll with red curly hair, I wondered if my stealth operation had any more value than pure entertainment for myself. This parenting gig is hard, and I’m lucky because my kids are pretty awesome kids. I have probably made Miss iPod sound like a right little turd, but she’s not. She is the bees knees and despite my rant, I, of course, adore her. She is kind, smart, clever and reliable. She is thoughtful and caring. But she’s also a kid, learning her way through childhood at the same time we are learning our way through parenthood. How’s that for twisted irony? I am the first one to stick my hand up and recognise that I stuff this job up all the time. If I had a boss, I’d be on a permanent Performance Management Plan, mainly for inappropriate language I suspect.

I hope something gets through to them when I launch my monologues of wisdom. I hope some kind of lesson was learned, or re-learned. I hope for so many things for our children.

Mainly, I hope they don’t turn out to be raging morons.

I hope they turn out to be good eggs – honest, kind and thoughtful.

I hope they know their worth.

I hope they live a life of purpose and meaning.

I hope they have back-bones and speak their truth.

I hope they find happiness.

The list is endless.

But mostly, I hope they know they are loved, because, without that, nothing else matters.

M