Naturally, after coming out of a funeral of someone elses son, the fear of losing someone most dear to me was terrifying. Again, I was left hyperventilating with fear, baby in one hand and inhaler on another and the phrase calm down, calm down kept spinning in my head.

Our friend who just died, had an eye infection 6 weeks ago. After seeing an opthalmologist, his eye didn’t heal and immediately after, he had a swollen leg. He was urged by his family to get a blood test done just to be safe. It was found that he had leukemia. The doctors admitted him immediately for treatment and after 2 weeks, he got better and was discharged home. During his 4 days home, he contracted some infections and had to be readmitted but this time, he went straight to our neighbouring country. There, the disease took his organs one by one and by last Saturday, he’d had a brain hemorrhage and passed on. He leaves behind 2 young boys whom I’ve known for 10 years.

With T1, it could have been just another ‘bump’ on the head but after being in such a vulnerable state and learning of Natasha Richardson’s ‘bump’ on HER head, I wasn’t taking any chances. The woman was completely fine after her fall and it took FOUR DAYS before she had any symptoms. And then she died. And that is why I brought T1 straight to the hospital to be checked out.

It was so painful, not even a feather could touch it.

The hospital sent me home after the X-Rays showed no skull fractures but wanted me to observe her closely for the next 48 hours. They told me if T1 wasn’t back to her old self, to come in again for another check. They had prescribed her with 5 days of antibiotics, some anti-inflammatory meds and an antiseptic cream for the bruise to prevent an eye infection.

The next day, T1 was not her usual self but I owed it to her being heavily drugged. She could still laugh and talk, just not all out animated T1 style. I also thought she was a bit slow when she did some counting as she was usually quite fast but I told myself it was my paranoia. By 5pm that evening, she complained of mouth pain and didn’t want to finish her dinner. She also told me her stomach hurt but the pain came off and on. I was starting to get a little worried. Then she said she wanted to go to sleep. THAT was an alarm bell for me. If you knew T1, sleep was never on her agenda. No matter how tired she was, she would fight her tiredness until she got second wind and then partied all night long till she literally slept standing in a Ben10 fighting pose.

So I tucked her into bed and that’s when I realised she felt warm. The Hubs was still at work so I waited for him to get home but by the time he got home, her fever had disappeared. We were all pretty tired that evening but by 11pm, her fever was back. I wasn’t feeling comfortable after googling about fever after a head injury but we were both so tired and really didn’t want to go to the hospital.

The Hubs had a big presentation happening the next day and already being so stressed about not having a job, he felt that he had to try really hard not to miss the presentation. I supported him in that decision simply because we have big monthly expenses. T1 was fast asleep. T2 was fast asleep. How were we going to bring her in anyway? I couldn’t carry both kids in, and T2 would wake up to look for the boobs at some point. We mmmmed and aaahhed for the next hour, yeah, can you believe it?

We told ourselves perhaps she had a virus or perhaps she was just soooooo tired and traumatised by the impact of the rollerblade on her head that her fever was just out of pure exhaustion. But I couldn’t sleep.

So I decided to call the hospital and they said to bring her in immediately. OK, that was a problem. We decided that the Hubs would stay home with T2 and just wing it if she woke up and go to his presentation in a state of blur. We didn’t think so far ahead that T1 would be admitted. We thought they were just going to check her out again just to be safe and then send us back to bed.

I was wrong.

I had to get poor Uncle Ben and Nana out of their comfort zones at 1am to join me at the hospital whilst they performed more tests including the CT scan, of which I must say, she was so, so brave and good. Apparently, they have to do it several times with kids her age but T1 was a champion. Perhaps stoned from the drugs. They only had to scan her once. I had read that CT scans were known to be bad for children because they could cause cancer and asked the Doctor why she hadn’t wanted to do it yesterday but needed to do it today and she said it was absolutely necessary now as T1 was running a fever and they weren’t going to take any chances.

It was 4am when I left a crying T1 with Nana at the hospital and my heart was just wrung like a wet T-shirt on it’s way out to the clothesline. She needed me. She didn’t want anyone else. She really needed me. And I had to leave her because soon, the Hubs would be on his way to work and I had to pick T2 up from home to bring her to the hospital. Nana had a full day too so there was no other option. One could say that this was an important enough life and death situation for everyone to drop everything, but really, it wasn’t that simple.

I must say that at this point, I had never prayed so hard. On one hand, I was calm and positive, knowing she would come out fine. On the other hand, I was preparing myself for the worse because the Doctor had said, “Fever following a head injury is a possible sign of internal bleeding and I can find no other reason for her to have a fever.” Those words stabbed at me until I could barely breathe. I felt my body being sliced continuously with a sharp knife forming an abstract art canvas of blood lines.

The Hubs was going mental and I saw a part of him I’d never knew existed. He truly LOVED this little girl to death. And so did I!!! And for the next hours that went on, the Hubs and I sat in stone cold silence, each with our own private thoughts, each with our own prayers and heartache. I felt it was my fault, he made me feel it was my fault even without words, because I had allowed my child to control me against my saying no.

Those were the most painful moments. He acted as though life was no longer worth living if we lost T1. I already felt life was no longer worth living. Oh, the agony!!! It’s amazing what your mind does to you at 5am in the morning after 2 days of hardly any sleep!!

…….To be Cont’d

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Who is Mamapumpkin?
Mamapumpkin is a former Design Architect turned Multi-Million Dollar Digital Entrepreneur. She sets out to prove to all that you can have anything and everything that you want; if you have that fire of desire burning within and the drive to work hard. Even better with much love.

Mamapumpkin has not only grown corporate businesses successfully in the past and doubled her salary 5 times over 5 organisations but has grown THREE BUSINESSES to 7 FIGURES within an 8 year period. She now shows others EXACTLY HOW after retiring her own husband from employment. He is now the official dog walker, family driver, chef and THE BEST FATHER to their two girls and THE BEST HUSBAND to the woman who CHOSE HIM!

Mamapumpkin is the girl who has nothing but fights for everything including YOU. She is idealistic in her desire to put unbelievable amounts of money and extrardinary happiness into the lives of good people so we can change the world together believing in happiness for ALL. She strives to impact lives authentically wanting to reduce poverty cycles and enable quality education for all and always supports the voiceless. She believes we can all have a life of our own desires to enable real contribution into the world. But first, one needs to understand what this all means.

A beautiful life without limits.

If you wish to learn how to propel your life forward guaranteed, be brave to take action. Mamapumpkin's purpose is to build people. Her gift is to help them UNCOVER their HIDDEN GIFTS. She operates fairly and always leaves an impression. You either love her or not and she is alright either way.

She is a living testimony that women really can have a lot. Being financially and time free has enabled her to travel the world anytime, anywhere, doing anything with anyone, as she spends most of her days with her children, having fun, supporting others wherever she can. Also having fun.