"I'm on tha highway to hell....."

Yesterday, I took the day off work because my son Kallam was due to have a prosthetic arm fitted. After reading that back to myself, I feel a back-story is going to be required here about Kallam, my only son. It was during the latter part of my ex’s pregnancy that doctors noticed that Kallam didn’t have a left arm from just below the elbow. It took us quite a while to come to terms with this, but eventually, we accepted it and carried on. It was suspected that a line formed across her womb and became tangled around his arm when it was first developing. It could have happened to anyone, although it is very rare. On 29th September 2007, Kallam Thomas Keenan was born and from the minute of holding him all doubts and worries went out of the window. He was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen and I fell in love with him straight away.

From that day on, Kallam continued to fill my life with joy and happiness, as every smile he made was beautiful in itself. I couldn’t imagine my life without him. He was like a part of me I never knew. He either recognised my voice from when he was in the womb or something, because every time I talked, he smiled and looked at me and even to this day he recognises my voice and knows for a fact I’m his father. It’s something that fills me with pride.

The months flew by and day by day he progressed and took baby steps to becoming a bigger and cleverer baby. Each advancement that took place, be it grabbing his dummy or making the tiniest of noises, made me the proudest dad alive.

In March 2007, me and my ex split. She had found someone else and I moved back to my fathers. This meant I only got to see Kallam of a weekend, which wasn’t enough in my view, but it would have to be enough. Since then, every time I see Kallam, he has advanced through the time I haven’t seen him and I’ve missed stuff that every dad should see and every time I realise that, I ask why me? Why do I get put in this situation when there are guys out there beating up their partner, drinking or doing drugs? Having said that, every time I see him smile when he first sees me when I pick him up, all those feelings fade away and I become happy again.

Now that everything is up to date Kallam-wise, I’ll continue. Yesterday, I took the day off to attend at a hospital near Liverpool to collect Kallam’s prosthetic arm. I had asked my ex if I could catch a ride with them, my ex and her friend Amy, because the hospital was so far away. I had to set off early to be at my ex’s for 9am on the dot, as she said that if I am not there by 9am, they will leave without me. So I made extra effort to leave early enough to take into account late busses. I got there with time to spare and waited inside for them to get ready. I was told that I would have to sit in the back seat in between two car seats. One for Kallam and one for my ex’s friend Amy’s baby Grace. It was a tight squeeze and very hot. I felt very uncomfortable, but it was a free ride and I didn’t complain.

Earlier this month, Kay had asked me for £50 to buy a car seat for Kallam, so I gave her the money thinking of Kallam’s safety. I knew they were going on holiday and I didn’t want Kallam to go without. However, when looking at his car seat. It was the old one we used to use ages ago, all tattered and stained. I quickly asked, “I thought you bought a new car seat?”. She replied “I had to return the one I bought because it was faulty”. I left it at that because I knew that if one wrong word was said by me, I’d be stranded somewhere or something. That is how my ex and her friend work, they have done it to me before. So, I let it slide. I’ll probably text her today asking her why or what did she do with the money. I may be paranoid or something, but I feel that she has a plan to ring out of me as much money as she can, but using Kallam as a tool to make me pay up. She always asks for money for milk and stuff he would need and stuff that I can't really say no to. Its frustrating. The £100 I pay monthly should really be enough for the entire month.

The journey continued and once or twice I feared for my left. My ex’s 21 yr old friend and someone I used to call a friend, Amy was driving all over the road and at one point veered close to the edge of the motorway all because she was looking at the shining reflection her hair band gave. She laughed it off and continued while I was there holding onto whatever I could and was in shock. On other occasions, she went the wrong way once or twice even though she had been there four times previously. All the while my ex and her were obviously making extra effort to seem as happy as possible often looking back to see my reaction. The odd sly comments were passed back to me and I’ve never realised how difficult it is to bite your tongue from saying something either defensively or from saying something bad yourself. I had to try my hardest from snapping back, but succeeded non the less, mostly because I was feeling nauseous from the bad driving.

We got there and decided to get some breakfast. I noticed that they paid extra attention to how much I spent while we were there, but they didn’t say anything and I didn’t speak a word to them for fear that I might cause some kind of argument and be stranded in this unknown place. So I buried my head in a newspaper and played with the babies.

Next was the appointment. All went well and normal, although I was shocked by the way Kallam reacted to the arm and felt my heart bleed at them trying to put on this fake arm and with him crying, seeing it as some kind of experiment. I am of the view he is far too young to have a prosthetic, he should be at least five years old before they do anything like that, but my ex decided to have one now after deciding to ignore my views on it. I will post pictures of it when I get the opportunity to upload them.

After all that was done, the journey home appeared to be the same as the journey there. They dropped me off near to where they were going and left me to get the bus home. I arrived home and just basically relaxed for the rest of the day with the exception of preparing our campervan for our holiday coming up to Scotland. It was filthy. We jet washed it and buffed it up and it looks band new now except for some rust spots. All of us, Me, Andy, my dad and his girlfriend are all supposed to travel in it up to Scotland, which should be fun. Again, pictures of it will be posted at a later date, most probably when I actually get back from the holiday. Lol

I’ll update this blog later on.

For now, take some time to visit a good friend of mine’s blog, called Emma’s Dilemmas and Great Expectations. It’s a very good read and has loads of interesting entries. Most recently, it has some really good advice entries in the blog. Kinda like the instruction book to life that I’m lacking come to think of it. I may have found it in this blog. Lol