The Twelve Days of Shitmas

Where to start? I swear the universe has a personal vendetta against me. If I submitted my life story as a plotline for Eastenders, it would be guffawed at for least likely to actually occur in anyone's reality. The last few weeks have been challenging; no real change there. Constant battles with systems that are meant to provide support, but realistically induce nothing but mammoth anxiety and frustration. Increased seizures-fuck knows why. A thousand meetings. Oxford deadlines looming. Tricky behaviours. Tired over-Christmased children (yes, I know it's still mid-shitting-December). Anyway. The usual. 

And then a curveball. We recently attempted our first family holiday in two years. It's always a case of taking the kids out of school since we rely on charity funding which only stretches to an in-term break. Well, that plus the nightmare of taking B anywhere at full capacity. One of the B's many perks is being able to pull the chronic life limiting disability card; there aren't many schools ballsy enough to refuse authorised leave of absence on those grounds. 

The inaugural five days at Center Parcs. Don't misunderstand me, in any sort of best case I’d avoid Center Parcs like the plague. It feels like sanitised, contrived countryside for city types who want to pretend they’ve breathed country air for a while. Expensive, fake ‘wild’ complete with Starbucks and a sub tropical swimming paradise (and so many incompetent cyclists who clearly only ride a bike once a year!)

BUT. It’s the only place we can feasibly take all our kids safely, with any decent shot at them having some sort of fun time. The girls are just about old enough to go off by themselves, and totally LOVE the swimming pool and all its fun rides and flumes. And swimming is literally the only activity that holds B’s attention for more than three seconds. So it’s a win-win. Without help though, I’ll be honest, it’s fucking exhausting. A day in numbers for your pleasure:

1: Tits exposed (mine) when B grabbed my cossie in an unfortunate place as he tripped down some stairs. Lucky punters.

37(ish): Apologies made to random people in swimming costumes who B just couldn’t resist swiping as we passed.

12: Round trips looking like a dick walking B up the steps to the tiny baby slide he took a fancy to, and running like fury back down the steps to catch him again at the bottom. Trying not to take out random small people en route.

3: Seizures in pool. We have to literally hawk eye him at all times, so when he has a tonic and his head goes down and arms go stiff, I am on hand to pull him out of the water and prevent drowning. Phew.

1: Incident of terror when we took BH the daredevil on the raft ride. She hated it and cried all the way down, unusual for her typical daredevil self. We tried hard not to laugh while comforting her poor traumatised self.

1: Extremely poor parenting award. See above.1: Pair of swim shorts borrowed from the eldest. For when ‘tuck the baccy in the pouch’ just doesn’t quite cut it.

3: Ragey meltdowns directed my way, complete with resultant scratches and slightly less hair than before he pulled a fistful out.

1: Comedy photo of a lady whose scarf tassels were somewhat unfortunately placed (see pic)

0: Fucks given by B with regard to the pretty fairy lighted Christmas trees.

BUT...

4: excited, (mostly) happy and (definitely) exhausted children.

I digress. Back to that curveball. Three days into the five day holiday, I started feeling rough. Not the usual snotty run down rough. Like, serious dog's arse rough. It snowballed, and within a few hours I was throwing up, fevering, shivering, in unspeakable pain and feeling like I might imminently meet my maker. Long story short, my epic sister came to get me after they wanted to admit me to hospital in the arse end of Somerset, and I argued my way back down to Poole. By the time the hour and a half journey was through, I was not in a good way. I sat in Majors in A and E; flustered, incoherent, sobbing and hot (so. damn. hot) while they got blood and started me on IV magic. They admitted me that night with a nasty kidney infection which sounds much lamer than it actually was. I spent the next few days hooked up to drips and feeling like shit. Not your typical rock and roll weekend.

S stayed in Center Parcs with the kids so they didn't miss out on the last couple of days of holiday- ROCKSTAR. I'm now home and wiped. B has been in hospital today which was meant to be my job, but funnily enough I didn't want to go back there just yet. S again stepped up and took the B-boy for sedation, bloods and EEG lead application. The EEG is 48-hours and necessitates massive labour intensive attention to ensure a-no leads are pulled off/end up strangling B, b-every single tiny detail is recorded in rich description so the nice neurophysiologist can correlate the EEG trace and the real-time goings on of the boy. We're both so exhausted from the past few days we delegated that job and handed our poor hungover boy over to a very lovely carer with inappropriate levels of delight earlier this afternoon. Yes, i feel like a shit parent. But *newsflash* this shit is difficult when we're all well and life is going swimmingly - we barely treading water on a good day. But then throw in an unexpected event and it all comes crashing down. We have no family support network, no people to call on in an emergency who'll come running (excepting my most excellent sister), and no safety net for when this kinda shit gets flung our way. And I don't own the stats on this, but hazarding a guess, it's somewhat above average. 

So to end this rant, I summarised with Christmas cheer. Who doesn't love a bit of festive fun? My take on 'The Twelve Days of Christmas'. You're welcome. 

The Twelve Days of Shitmas

On the first day of Shitmas the universe sent me: a surge in seizure activity 

On the second day of Shitmas the universe sent me: two major bumps, and a surge in seizure activity

On the third day of Shitmas, the universe sent me: three arsey girls, two major bumps, and a surge in seizure activity

On the fourth day of Shitmas, the universe sent me: four futile meetings, three arsey girls, two major bumps, and a surge in seizure activity

On the fifth day of Shitmas, the universe sent me: five IV drugs, four futile meetings, three arsey girls, two major bumps, and a surge in seizure activity

On the sixth day of Shitmas, the universe sent me: six jobs-a-chasing, five IV drugs, four futile meetings, three arsey girls,  two major bumps, and a surge in seizure activity

On the seventh day of Shitmas, the universe sent me: seven tubes-a-feeding, six jobs-a-chasing, five IV drugs, four futile meetings, three arsey girls, two major bumps, and a surge in seizure activity

On the eighth day of Shitmas, the universe sent me: eight professionals-idioting, seven tubes-a-feeding, six jobs-a-chasing, five IV drugs, four futile meetings, three arsey girls, two major bumps and a surge in seizure activity

On the ninth day of Shitmas, the universe sent me: nine (thousand) B-boy meltdowns, eight professionals idioting, seven tubes-a-feeding, six jobs-a-chasing, five IV drugs, four futile meetings, three arsey girls, two major bumps, and a surge in seizure activity

On the tenth day of Shitmas, the universe sent me: ten randoms shouting (see ninth day), nine B-boy-meltdowns, eight professionals idioting, seven tubes-a-feeding, six jobs-a-chasing, five IV drugs, four futile meetings, three arsey girls, two major bumps and a surge in seizure activity

On the eleventh day of Shitmas, the universe sent me: eleven stressors stressing, ten randoms shouting, nine B-boy meltdowns, eight professionals idioting, seven tubes-a-feeding, six jobs-a-chasing, five IV drugs, four futile meetings, three arsey girls, two major bumps and a surge in seizure activity

On the twelfth day of Shitmas, the universe sent me: twelve months repeating, eleven stressors stressing, ten randoms shouting, nine B-boy meltdowns, eight professionals idioting, seven tubes-a-feeding, six jobs-a-chasing, five IV drugs, four futile meetings, three arsey girls, two major bumps and a surge in seizure activity.

Merry bloody Christmas.