Vicki Cockerill - NICU MUM Blog

A brave lady who I met via the wonderful world of Instagram @heartwarriorwill has recently opened up about how hard she is finding the wait for her son’s surgery is. This is something I know all too well. I suppose it one of my biggest regrets in how I dealt with this at the time. I look back on those 6 months of waiting for Elijah’s op date and although we were very lucky in having our son home with us they were so tainted.   Tainted with the feelings of uncertainty, anger, resentment, denial and anything else that was thrown into the mix for good measure. It’s one thing to deal with your son needing a potentially life threatening operation, it is quite another to try and cope with the fact you know this is coming, but you do not know when. We should have counted ourselves lucky we knew Elijah needed to have surgery within the first year. This is when the success rate for the op is at its highest. Normally it is in the first 6 months. Elijah was a very well and hea...

So here goes, as many of my work colleagues know I have a guilty secret. It's one I am slightly ashamed to admit but there. I read the Daily Mail online. I love it. The pointless articles on 5 stone cats, the bad spelling and grammar all at the same time as feeding my daily stalker obsession of the Kardashians. There it is I have said it. Even Kim cannot escape the meltdown. In particular I have a good on perusal of my secret shame at work whilst eating my sandwiches Greg made me the night before. I came across something that made me and another mum colleague stop and have a good old chin wag about. This then in turn led to me sending it to my fellow Mum Bestie. A sign of something blog worthy me thinks. It was about a lady who reported on Mumsnet of all bloody places that she didn't like her friends child and should she stop hanging around with her friend? Or doesn't want to meet her when the kids are present. It then caused an uproar and divided the r...

I have been a very busy little bee and have written a guest blog piece for the Too Much Mothering Information series #MumdayMonday. I am the Heart Warrior Mum. Please go over and check it out, and while you are there check out the other great posts from this wonderful lady!!! click here to go to toomuchmotheringinformation.com

We were back. April 22-28 2015, a year ago this weekend. In just two short weeks since we last went down to London. We had to go down the day before and check in and have another blood test. As all of the forms had been signed last time, we were out again within an hour or so. Back to the same family accommodation, in a different room and with a lot less luggage. Something felt different this time, although I didn't want to believe it was going ahead in the event it was cancelled again, deep down I knew it would be. The morning of the surgery I knew how I would feel as we had been through this all before. I didn't want to go out for a meal so we ate in the hotel room watching ch5 rubbish after Elijah went down in the travel cot. Its odd that through the whole pre admission, cancelled op and the actual operation I can remember what shit we watched on TV and what we ate for tea that night. One of those weird things that just sticks in your head. Sort of like when you remem...

I have written a guest post which the lovely Mummy Somniac has featured on her blog! check it out here!! Have a great day!! xxx

 I have learnt a lot this weekend. Including the fact I should not keep fish as I have now killed them all of. Yep, 6 fish in 4 months. That I do not have much patience when tired. That I cannot stand Justin's House, and living with a toddler who is on one is bloody HARD. They constantly need feeding, even though whatever you give them will not be the right thing, they are always are whining, and there sole mission from waking up until they go to bed (and afterwards) is to make sure you cannot get a single thing done. And sometimes I don't really like my child.   So with it being Elijah's OP anniversary (part 2 coming soon) I am a tad on the emotional side as it is (Greg has been keeping me pacified with Galaxy, Bad Girls re runs and Die Hard) but my lord its like Elijah has turned into a full blown little (insert your choice word here) 'darling' leaving a trail of sleepless nights, crumbs and mess in his wake like a herd of effing wildebees...

Elijah's OP Part 1 Sitting here and looking at the photos it feels like just yesterday. The feelings are still raw, slightly dulled but still fresh. It has now been 12 months, 365 days since we first went down to London for Elijah's Tetralogy of Fallot repair. We had been waiting for this for 6 months. 6 long tainted months. Now it was here. We had the date. We were ready, well as ready as we could be.   I've been told again and again not to dwell on the past. To not sit there thinking, this time last year we were packing for London, this time last year we were taking him down for surgery. With the anniversary coming up I cannot stop myself thinking like this. The emotions are still there eating me up. It's hard to explain that although I have a healthy, funny and clever little boy that I can still be sucked into the past again, but I can remember everything about this time last year.   We had known the op...