Memory: Kayleigh Bartlett

This post was written by Kayleigh Bartlett, Kayleigh's older namesake who was friends with her at Calwell high. Kayleigh spoke often of 'the other Kayleigh' and was so happy that they were friends.

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When I was in year 9 I still thought I was the only Kayleigh in the school until someone told me a girl named Kayleigh Stamp is now at our school I was so excited to meet this new Kayleigh I've been hearing about. After a week or so I was still hoping to see her until one of my friends introduced me to her. Me and Kayleigh would talk for ages I gave her the nickname of Mini Me as she was exactly like me in many ways:

• south east Londoner
• Interested in Sport
• Blonde Hair
• Same Interests
• ETC (There's too many to explain) 

We talked for ages and we got to know each other so much, we past each other in hall ways and we talked occasionally I was late to class but it was worth every minute spending with her. When I was down she looked after me and told me everything will be okay and I said the same thing to her when she was down.

When I heard she past away I couldn't get my head around things for weeks because it was a shock, when they talked about it on the Monday at school I was away I had an x-ray and so many people called me asking me if I was alive I turned up to school and so many people were relieved, they knew my last name was Bartlett but somewhere like thinking of me as  I've been there longer, when I heard I cried for hours and I couldn't believe it Mini Me has past away and my mummy hugged me and said everything will be okay, I'm sad I never came to the funeral but I was at work and I was at a funeral a week before hand and I didn't think I could handle going. 

I miss mini me each and every day and I have her bracelet (which I received for my birthday) which reminds me of her and how she was full of energy. I Love you Mini Me forever and always I will miss you 

When I have no one to turn to

And I am feeling kind of low,

When there is no one to talk to

And no where I want to go,

I search deep within myself

It is the love inside my heart

That lets me know my Angel Kayleigh is there

Even though we are miles apart, You help me through whatever.

Care Bears

I grew up with a Care Bear - which I still have today, so when Care Bears made a re-appearance again, I bought both Kayleigh and Natassja one for their birthdays. Natassja got a purple Share Bear, and Kayleigh got the green Good Luck Bear (green was her favourite colour back then). I think it was Kayleigh's 8th birthday.

Kayleigh and Natassja played Care Bears games with their care bears and my Secret Bear, until poor good luck bear ran into some bad luck by a dog named Jade. Jade was Nanny's dog that we were looking after. Kayleigh had been playing outside with her care bear when we had to go out. We told Kayleigh and her siblings to go to the car through the back gate as we had already locked the house up. Kayleigh still had her Good Luck Bear with her and she asked her older half-brother what to do. He told her to leave it in the backyard and just go. BIG mistake.

We got home 2 hours later and Kayleigh went straight to the backyard to get her Care Bear. All I heard was the scream. The poor Good Luck Bear had been beheaded, de-legged and only had one arm left. The stuffing was strewn from one corner of the backyard to another. Jade still had a piece in her mouth. Kayleigh picked up all the bits and put them in the bin while crying. She was so upset for weeks after. I promised her that I would get her a new Care Bear, which I did, but I could never find another Good Luck Bear - only Cheer Bear or Friend Bear or one of the others.


Good Luck Bear



Spaghetti Girl

This post was written by Jess Chapman, A friend of Kayleighs from Calwell High.
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Kayleigh was always bringing little cans of spaghetti to school. almost every single day she would have spaghetti. One day she came to school with a tin and she had forgotten her little fork. She was so hungry that she ate it with her fingers! we all laughed with her about it :)

She was hence forth called spaghetti girl. She never heard of this nickname as this only happened a couple of days before she went to hospital. I will always love you, Spaghetti Girl  :)

Memory: Jess Chapman

This post was written by Jess Chapman, a friend of Kayleighs at Calwell High
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It was one of the last days I had with Kayleigh. It was a school day, and we were heading out to lunch like usual. One of my friends started randomly spinning around in circles and doing cartwheels. We all just sort of copied her and all started doing our own little tricks. Kayleigh of course was running around, doing flips and cartwheels and handstands that beat all of ours and being the sporty girl that she was :)

It was one of the best days of my life, luckily my friend Y, had caught some of it on video. Kayleigh looked very pretty, the sun in her blonde hair. I'll never forget this memory. I Love you Kayleigh.

Last Conversation

Warning: Some people may find this post upsetting.

I have been asked many times what happened the morning Kayleigh collapsed. I have gone through this time over and over in my mind to try and see what went wrong, why we didn't see what was happening and the truth is that given the time over again we probably wouldn't have done much different as there was no warning that Kayleigh was about to go into cardiac arrest.

Kayleighs last conversation was with Natassja. It's about 4:15 to 4:30 in the morning and Kayleigh has just thrown up which has woken up Natassja.

Natassja: Kayleigh, you just threw up on my bag - what am I supposed to do to go to school
Kayleigh: empty out your bag and use mine - I won't be going to school tomorrow cause I'm sick

Natassja empties out her bag and puts it in the washing machine, and turns it on. She returns to the room where Kayleigh is sitting on the end of the bed. Kayleigh is wheezing but not struggling. Terence tells Kayleigh to get a paper bag to use with her Ventolin (as a spacer) and lie down and take it easy (he is partially asleep when he says this).

Kayleigh: Get me my Ventolin and a plastic bag
Natassja goes gets what Kayleigh asks for
Kayleigh: No a paper bag . . . . .
Natassja gets a paper bag and gives it to Kayleigh

Natassja: Can you help me clean up.
Kayleigh: No, Daddy told me to take it easy
Natassja: But I don't know how to use it (The carpet cleaning machine we have)
Kayleigh: I'm finding it hard to breathe and I'm too tired. Daddy told me to lie down.
Natassja: But I can't take this end off - I don't know how (The end of the carpet cleaner had removable heads for different purposes. The wrong head for carpet cleaning was on it)
Kayleigh: Go get a fork, that's how I do it

Kayleigh lies down on the bed. Uses Ventolin, wheezing seems to get better.

Natassja gets fork and fiddles with the carpet cleaner for a minute.
Natassja: I don't know how to do it. You have to help me Kayleigh
Kayleigh: (gives Natassja the 'you're so useless' stare) - No

Natassja fiddles with the carpet cleaning for another 30 seconds
Natassja: Come on Kayleigh, help me
Kayleigh gives Natassja another look.

Natassja fiddles again for another minute, asks Kayleigh for help again. Kayleigh does not respond. Natassja looks over at Kayleigh and notices she isn't moving. Natassja gets up, walks over to the bed - Kayleigh is staring - her eyes are open. Natassja puts her head against her chest and hears nothing. Natassja then pushes on Kayleigh's chest, Kayleigh takes a breathe and closes her eyes but does not exhale.

Natassja calls out for me. I jump out of bed, take one look at Kayleigh, scream for Terence and run for the phone. Terence checks for pulse and breathing, pulls Kayleigh off the bed and commences CPR while I call the ambulance.

Helping someone with bullying

This entry was from an email we received from one of Kayleigh's friends just after she passed away. If this friend is reading this, she will know it is her and I thank her for sharing this with us. I feel this email reflects the way Kayleigh was towards people and how she helped people that she didn't even know.
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I remember coming in from lunch one day after I had been bullied by two girls. I sat in the library and started crying. Kayleigh walked up to me and asked me what was wrong, I explained what had happened so she sat down and told me not to worry about it, and to just ignore the girls because I was bigger than that. Then I stopped crying and just talked to Kayleigh for the rest of the day, Kayleigh was the one person that was truly there for me that day. From then on we were friends.

Memory: Alissa

This post was written by Alissa - Kayleigh's cousin.

When Kayleigh and I were little I remember she use to follow me around and we would eat ice creams from nans freezer and play on the bikes. I remember that day like it was yesterday.


We were at my house, and we were on the swings seeing who could get the closest to the sky, and you won. 

I loved Kayleigh so much, I always thought she was so pretty! She always glowed and had the best smile!

When I moved to Queensland with my family I missed playing with my cousins.When I moved back to Canberra a lot was going on in my family so we didn't get to see each other much, but when I saw her I made sure we got heaps of lollies and she could choose which ones of my clothes she wanted and which movies we'd watch.

When she left this Earth, we were on the departing side.
But can you imagine how it felt to see her arrive?
I miss you Kayleigh.

Telling off Mr Haidon

Kayleigh had Mr Haidon as her year co-ordinator and her year 7 English and SoSE teacher. Kayleigh thought Mr Haidon was a pretty good teacher and she would give him a good telling off when he was wrong about something and she just had to prove it.

The first time was after we bought an LED TV. Kayleigh told Mr Haidon all about it and he told her she must of meant an LCD TV as there was no such thing as an LED TV. Kayleigh came home and declared that Mr Haidon obviously knew nothing at all. Kayleigh found the sticker that came on the TV and took it to school the next day and showed him. Not to be proven wrong, on her SoSE excursion to the Hyperdome the next week, she dragged Mr Haidon into The Good Guys and showed him the TV e bought. He had to tell her that she was right.

Kayleigh then was doing an assignment on  technological invention and she choose Blu-Ray. Mr Haidon made the mistake of calling it Blu-Ray DVD. Kayleigh came home and stated that Mr Haidon was obviously not capable of teaching his subject as he did not know what the new technology was called (it's called Blu-Ray Disc for those that don't know) and although it looks like a DVD, the technology used to play the Blu-Ray is very different. She did her assignment (a poster) and I believe it is still hanging up in her SoSE class today.

Sleep Walking

We caught Kayleigh sleep walking twice - she may have done it more, I don't know but two times we found her doing things while asleep.

The first time she would have been about 10. It was about 9pm, Terence and I were watching a movie and the kids were asleep. We heard someone trying to open the front door and turned around the find Kayleigh walking away from the door. I went to see what she was doing. I asked her and she didn't say anything, she just went back to bed. Kayleigh didn't remember anything in the morning.

The second time, Kayleigh was in Year 6, so she would have been 11. I was washing up , it would have been also about 9pm at night. I heard the front door open and then close and thought,' that's a bit odd'. I went and looked out the door and lo and behold, there was Kayleigh, dressed only in a t-shirt and underwear walking up the end of the driveway. I called out - "kayleigh where are you going?" - Kayleigh answered:

              'I'm going down to school to get some clothes from Alexandra'

I replied that school wasn't open and maybe she should come inside. Kayleigh said OK and came back and went back to bed. Again she didn't remember a thing in the morning although we all had a laugh about it.

Darts

We got a dart board towards the end of last year and Kayleigh loved it. She was really good at darts as she had good hand eye co-ordination. Kayleigh said she won a prize at the market day at school in year 7 by throwing darts at balloons(?) (not sure).

For her birthday last year the one thing she wanted more than anything else was a set of her own darts, which we got her. Her nanny and grand-dad weren't happy about this as darts aren't ''girls'' things, but hey failed to understand that Kayleigh wasn't a girly girl at all and that she had requested the darts and chosen them - even the new tail fins.

Every time we had a BBQ, she would be out there throwing the darts. She played against me, her dad and her uncle Alan when he was here. She was really good and she beat me all the time.

Leluu

I called Kayleigh b y the nickname Leluu for quite a long time. I originally heard it in the movie 'The Fifth Element' and I realised that it was made up of the last part of Kayleighs first name and first part of her second name Lucille  - 'Leigh - Lu'.

She hated it.

That is until she won a competition in Year 7 at school - the person who gets the most 'points' for sporting activities during a set period. Of course this was one the Kayleigh was determined to win. Her prize - a gift pack from Rebel Sport in Tuggeranong which including a drink bottle, socks and a towel. The interesting thing was the pink towel which was made by a company that does womens yoga wear (I'd never heard of it previously) with the company name 'Leluu'. Kayleigh realised it, made the connection and after that - she called herself Leluu.

We did promise to buy her a Leluu shirt for her birthday this year, but never got the chance. Both Natassja and myself have bought one (or more) which we wear in memory of our Leluu.


http://www.leluu.com.au/ available at Rebel Sport


 

Career Aspirations

I think everyone knew that Kayleigh wanted to be a personal trainer. She expressed this to us from quite a young age - about 9 - and never changed her mind. I think she probably wanted to be a personal trainer as she was good at sports, flexibility - and her dad said that he would like it if she was a personal trainer.

One thing that people may not have realised is how driven she was to acheive her goals. She had it all worked out. Kayleigh had determined that she would get a casual job at 14 and 9 months - most liely Woolworths or somewhere at Calwell so it was close to home. Kayleigh though Woolworths would be best because you also get a staff discount that would help with the families shopping. She would save at least 75% of this income to go towards the personal trainers course. Then at 16, she could do the personal trainers course (You have to be 16 to do it) paying for it by herself, while still going to school. Kayleigh then said she would work on the weekends as a personal trainer, preferably at Erindale gym - because it had a pool and go to college during the week. I think she wanted to go to Lake Tuggeranong College so she could have coffee with her Dad at lunch time.

After finishing college, Kayleigh said she would be a full time personal trainer for a couple of years and then see what else she could do - we were discussing options about where a personal trainer could take you - maybe sports massage, sports physiotherapy or something down those lines. Kayleigh really really really wanted to get that first job to start the journey she had laid out. And I, for one, thought that she would do it as she planned.

Winx

This post was written by Alexandra - one of Kayleigh's friends from primary school. . . .

Kayleigh loved this show that was called 'Winx', as did I, Natassja and T.T. Kayleigh's favourite character was Bloom and she was the leader of the group. My favourite was Stella, Natassja's favourite was Musa [I think] and T.T's was Layla. At school we were always playing this game and pretending we were the Winx girls, we would call each other by our favourite characters name, we would pretend to have the powers and just have great fun. We would always get up early and get ready so we could watch the show that started at 8:00 am. Kayleigh never cared about what other people thought of us, even if the rest of us were a bit anxious. Kayleigh was a great leader when she was playing Bloom, and acted so much like her and as did all of us. When Kayleigh and Natassja got a winx doll for Christmas [I think it was] they took great care of it and when ever I came over we would always play with it. It was so much fun to play the winx game that we had made up and I will never forget the great fun we had!!!!! .  I love you Kayleigh/Bloom

Love A.A

Sash

Sash was the German shepherd that we since since Kayleigh was about 3 years old. He was about 2 years old when we got him - he had been an abused puppy and was very scared of the hose.




Sash


Kayleigh loved him and he was very protective of the kids. One time Kayleigh was in trouble and her dad was going to smack her bum. Kayleigh ran and hid under her bed and Sash put himself in between Terence and Kayleigh. Terence tried to get Kayleigh out from under the bed and Sash growled at him - there was no way that Terence was going to get to Kayleigh without having to deal with Sash.

Sash passed away in April 2009, aged 13 - he may have been baited, or he may of died from old age - we aren't sure but our vet was suspicious as he had not been sick beforehand. Kayleigh was very upset and here is her diary entry from that day . . .

Midnight Trampolining

Kayleigh had a trampoline since she was about 3 years old - we first had one of the rectangle ones and upgraded to a big 16 foot round one two Christmases ago.

One day I found out that she liked to sneak out at night, into the middle of summer when she couldn't sleep because it was too hot, and bounce on the trampoline. I think it started when she was about 9. When she had sleep overs in the tent it was every night, but she liked to do it every now and again by herself. Kayleigh said it was nice and cool outside and relaxing because it was quiet and you could just lay there and look at the stars.

Connector Pens

Kayleigh had a thing for connector pens - I don't know why. She started collecting them some time in primary school, I think that her nanny bought her the first 12 pen set - I can't remember. She had collected over 100 by the time she started Year 6 - unfortunately someone decided to steal them one day when Kayleigh was running an errand for the teacher. She came back and found all of her pens gone. We thought we knew who took them as Kayleigh saw this person with them and confronted them. They denied it, even though the evidence was clear. The teacher kept the class is trying to find out what had happened. The person eventually  gave some back, but by this stage they were all ruined - the writing bit was either mangled or pushed in - all of them were useless.

Kayleigh started again with a 36 pack. Monica, her babysitter gave her a few more. In year 7, she used to take all of them to school, until the weight broke her bag!!! In year 8, she let her class use them and many got ruined - Mr Mack said he would replace them bu never got the chance. At last count, Kayleigh had more than 250 connector pens.



All of Kayleigh's Connector pens - the ones that have the silver contact around the base are the ones she took to school :)



Ambulance Investigation

One thing the coroner did say is that they are leading an investigation into the ambulance response time. When we called the ambulance, we assumed that there was going to be one at Calwell ambulance station. That was not to be the case. We were performing CPR thinking 'where the hell is this ambulance' I asked the person on the phone and she replied that the ambulance had been dispatched but it had to come from Kambah as there was no-one at Calwell. This meant instead of taking 2-3 minutes the ambulance probably took up to 15 minutes to get here. In fact the Fire Rescue team was here at least 4 minutes before them.

If there had been a ambulance at Calwell it may have made a difference, we do not know. People in cardiac arrest, even with doing CPR, the chances of survival decrease for every minute the heart is stopped because CPR is not fantastic. Survival after 10 minutes, the chances of survival are around 10% . . . . .

Coroners Outcome

The coroner called today at 5:30pm to give us the results of the post-mortem. The ''offical'' cause of death was the severe brain damage.

What is more distressing for us is that they could not pin point the cause of the cardiac arrest other than to say that Kayleigh had the flu, had developed bronchitis and was obviously very tired. The asthma was just a contributing factor and was not the cause of her going into cardiac arrest. The coroner basically said that all the factors listed caused Kayleigh's heart to be stressed to the point that it stopped. He also said we needed to take all the other kids to the cardiologist to have their hearts checked out, just in case.

We are getting the official report next week . . . .

Cross Country

Even with her asthma, Kayleigh loved doing the cross country at school. She was good at long distance (as well as short distances). She first made it to the Murrumbidgee Cross Country in Year 4 when she came 5th in the school cross country - but we didn't let her go (for reasons I cannot remember) She qualifies again in Year 5 when she came 3rd in her age group. She didn't finish the Murrumbidgee cross country that year as her asthma forced her to retire after 1 lap.

In year 6, she again qualified by coming 2nd at the school cross country and I went to Stromlo park to see her run. She had a plan and she finished 16th, even beating the other Theodore participants by quite a lot. I was proud of her and she was proud of her achievement.

I can't remember if she did the school cross country in Year 7, but she did do it in Year 8 and came 2nd in her age group. It was only a few weeks before she passed away. She could have gone to the Murrumbidgee/Southside cross country but we were unable to get her out to Lake Burley Griffin for it, which was a little upsetting for her, but we didn't know anyone else that was going, who could have taken her with them.

Moosie

Kayleigh most favourite toy when she was a child was a little brown moose (it may have been a reindeer) that her nanny bought for her from AVON - probably cost around $14.95. It was one of those toys with stuffing and the little beanies inside of it. Kayleigh was about 4 when she got it,. the same time that Natassja got a similar one, but a dog, which she cleverly called 'Doggie'.

Kayleigh loved her Moosie, she took it everywhere. It was that well loved his stitches were coming un-done. Moosie had many operations - one in his antler, two legs, and arm and his neck. Kayleigh once left him behind at the Lanyon Marketplace newsagent. She cried when she realised after we went home. I rang the newsagent, who had found it and we went back and picked him up.

One day at Bunnings, Kayleigh had been chewing on Moosie eye, and it fell off. Kayleigh screamed. The pitch of the scream made Terence thing someone had hurt Kayleigh or she had broken something, or someone had tried to grab her. What actually happened is Moosies eye had fallen off. Completely gone - rolling around the floor in the nursery section at Bunnings Tuggeranong. We found poor Moosie's eye, but as a click together one there was no way we could re-attached it. Terence did the best he could by using the end of a black pen and sewing it on as his eye - Kayleigh was happy although Moosie looked a little strange.

Moosie finally fell apart a couple of years ago and we had to say goodbye :(

Her sticky out ear

Maybe you may have noticed, or maybe not, but Kayleigh had one ear that stuck out more than other - her left ear. there is a story behind this - she wasn't born with one ear like that - it happened when she was a baby.
Kayleigh preferred as a baby to sleep on her side. Nothing changed about that in all the years since. With Kayleigh she preferred to sleep on her left side as that was the side facing away from the wall in her cot. It seems that when she rolled onto her side her ear got folded onto the side of her face - there were many time that Terence and I had to 'peel it off' after she woke up - she literally had her ear stuck onto her cheek. One time she had slept almost through out the night this way. Because babies ears cartilage is not hardened, by the time it did start to form properly, her ear stuck out just that little bit more than the right side. Kayleigh hid it well with her hair but she wasn't embarrassed by it because of the story of why :)

Kayleigh at her Year 6 graduation - notice her left ear :)

Helping Dad with the carport

Kayleigh loved helping her dad do all sorts of things, but the last thing she helped him with was building the carport.

The weekend before Kayleigh passed away, Terence and I started putting up the carport - it was wet, windy and very cold - I think was got over 30mm of rain that weekend. Kayleigh came out every now and again with cups of tea for her dad and to talk. We kept telling her to go inside, stay warm, watch TV or something and look after Kiara.

Kayleigh took the Tuesday of that coming week off because her asthma was playing up, she was getting the flu. That day she helped her dad put the roofing on the carport and sitting on the roof passing him the screws. I remember coming home at lunch time and seeing her sitting on the roof next to the aerial mast. Her face lit up when she saw me pull up. She got down off the roof and ran out the front calling 'Mummy!!" and gave me one of her big hugs.

Everytime I pull up in my driveway in the middle of the day, all I can see is her sitting on the roof smiling.

Turning off the machines

WARNING: This entry may make you cry.

Since Kayleigh passed away many people have remarked how hard it would have been to turn off the machines keeping her alive. The truth is, it wasn't hard as the decision had already been made for us. Kayleigh was found to have severe brain damage as determined by a CAT scan, she would never wake up, she would never breathe by herself as the part of the brain that controls the basic reflexes was too damaged. Parts of her brain were already starting to die. Even now I wonder if we turned it off too early, but I have to remind myself the the doctors did all the required test to determine what brain activity there was. The doctors perform 7 tests to determine brain response - mainly based on eye movements and pain responses. Kayleigh eyes had been fixed and dilated since she was admitted to hospital,and after bringing her out of the medically induced cooling down (to try and limit brain damage) they were still fixed. She didn't blink if you touched her eyes and she didn't gag when tubes were put in her throat to clear the airway. She didn't react when you pinched her arm.

The doctors performed the CAT scan at about 5pm on Friday afternoon (i think - I'm a little fuzzy about timing now) but they had already told us to prepare for the worst as the tests they had done were finding no response. The CAT scan was to confirm it. They did ask us about organ donation, which we did not go through with as Australia's system does not allow us to know who received them.

After they had performed the scan, it confirmed the worst had happened. Kayleigh beat the odds of getting to hospital after cardiac arrest (only 3-8% of out of hospital cardiac arrest make it hospital and get the heart started again) but she lost the brain damage odds.

Natassja, Terry, Lucas and Kiara drew her pictures and said goodbye. Kayleigh's Nanny, Granddad and Grandpa said their farewells. My uncle and aunt came down from Borwal to say bye and my brothers were there was well. Kayleighs cousin Alissa also came for a short time.

We were left alone with her at 8:30pm. The doctors explained what was happening and what to expect. They started disconnecting the fluids and drips, all the medication lines. We brushed her hair, plaited it and cut it off ( we have her plait in a bag at home - it still smells like her). Then at 9pm they disconnected the ventolation machine.

I laid down on the bed next the her, listening to her heart beating. Terence placed his head next to her head. We whispered that we loved her again and again until I could no longer hear her heart. She went peacefully and never knew that she was going to die. The doctor called her death at 9:05pm.

Music

As most of you probably know, Kayleighs favourite artist was Lily Allen, especially and 'F**k You' and 'It's Not Fair' songs. She however wasn't really into the 'top 10' music and her music tastes probably stemed from both Terence and I. Terence is into high quality recording, no matter what the music, where as I was brough up with classical music and the 60's music. I also learnt the flute, which has mostly classical overtones.

Kayleigh therefore liked a range of music, from Lily Allen and Avril Lavigne, to jazz/blues and Mussorsky's Night on Bald Mountain - as long as it sounded good, she would listen to it. She hated Rihanna, Dixie Chicks and Britney Spears but loved Madness, Foo Fighters, Lily, Avril, Evanensence and early Madonna stuff.

Last birthday she really wanted an MP3 player, but we said no, Terence doesn't like compression formats plus she had a habit of playing thing loud, so there was always a chance of hearing damage (I know, we're really mean). She liked the turntable that we got at the end of last year, especially the Lily Allen RECORD we got, plus Foo Fighters.

Kayleigh got her own flute in year 6 after I found one at St.Vinnies for $50. Kayleigh picked it up really quickly and she was up to the standards of the other fulte players at school, who had been playing for 2 years, in about 6 months. She played in the intermediate band at Calwell High for 6 months, but got a little pissed when she had to do the assessment as she had a cold and her asthma was playing up - hard to play a flute that way. Her teacher remarked ' I thought you were better than it' even as she was having trouble breathing so she quit.

Kayleigh won a guitar in Year 6, which we swapped for an electric guitar (which will still have) The only song she played on it properly was Celine Dion 'My Heart will go On' - it drove us crazy!!!!!! She did try to play some of the Avril songs as we bought her a song book for Xmas but she kept forgetting the fingering.

Goldfish

Many people probably didn't know that Kayleigh had pet goldfish. We haven't had much  luck with them over the years, with most of the dying from sickness, but mainly cats . . . . .

Our first fish were called Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner which we had in a small pond next to our back door. These didn't last long as our german shepherd Sash decided to go fishing one day and Kayleigh found them lying on the porch. We moved the pond and put some rocks in it for the fish to hide - the next lot of fish Kayleigh called battered, crumbed and fried. These actually did last a number of months. I think crumbed died when he got caught between the rocks and couldn't escape. I believe heavy frost one night killed the others when the pond froze - it really wasn't deep enough.

We didn't have fish then for a while until Terene built an in-ground pond in the backyard that was deep enough to have fish . . . . then came all sorts of golfish - most were killed by either spiders or cats. Kayleigh had a deep disliking for cats because of it. Eventually we had to remove the pond - water restrictions are a pain in the ****.

For Kayleighs 12th birthday we got her a proper fish tank and two fish - goldie and something I can't remember. They didn't last long as one of them had cottonmouth - a nasty fish disease that eventully suffocates the fish and its very contagious to other fish. So we replaced them with two fish called Bubbles (a classic gold coloured goldfish) and Boggles ( a boggle-eyed black goldfish). She was given a gold and white goldfish which she called Zippy after her first day at high school. Bubbles and Zippy are still with us, unfortunately Boggles died of unknown reasons. They were joined in the tank by two fish we bought for Lucas (Kayleighs youngest brother) called Copper fleck and Rexy.

I remember every time one of the fish dies, Kayleigh would cry and then bury them in the frount yard nect to one of the conifiers. She loved her fish and would clean their tank out each month. I have only done it once since Kayleigh passed away.

Friends

One thing that Kayleigh had trouble with since starting school was making and retaining friends. She made friends with two girls in preschool, and then they went to a different primary school. She then started again in Kindergarten, seemed to make a couple of friends that she played with, but again the next year they had either moved schools or were in a different class. Year one, the same thing happened. Everytime Kayleigh seemed to be making friends and starting to move forward wirth her friendships, something got in the way. By this stage, most of the girls had formed best friends and small 3 girl groups, and its really hard to break into one of these groups, especially when you are not sure of whether they are going to be your friend or not.

Then she connected with another girl, C, who also had trouble making friends. This friendship seemed to be going places. C came over our  place, Kayleigh had sleepovers at her place. She went to her birthday party. Kayleigh finally seemed to be getting somewhere, but unfortunatelt something went wrong and they had a falling out in the middle of Year 3. I am not sure about what happened bu I think they just said horrible things about each other parents. I am sure that Kayleigh wasn't innocent in it. From then one, Kayleigh spent more time at recess and lunch with her sister Natassja and her friend A.A and T.T.. Those 4, at one stage seemed inseperable - they did loads of stuff together. TT's and AA's mums were quite happy to have both Natassja and Kayleigh over at the same time. I always worried however, that Kayleigh didn't have friends in her own class and it did turn out to be a problem.

By having no-one close to in her year, when the school implemented a single year class in year 6 (instead of maxed classes i.e. year 5/6) no-one wanted her at their group table. When they had to do group tasks, no-one wanted her in their group. This bullying spilled onto the playground, with the main instigator being her ex-friend 'C'. The other girls would play the game 'Kayleighs germs, no returns', push her out of the way and just be down right bitchy. It didn't help that Kayleigh had no interest in things they were interested in - namely boys, make-up, top 10 music, bratz and the like. Kayleigh was more interested in fitness, top gear and doctor who. In this way, she was able to talk to some of the boys, but then the boys were teased for talking to her and they stopped. I think the only two people that talked to her in her year at the end was Ethan and Brandon. Brandon always seemed to look out her her and several times had told the other girls to leave her alone. He always asked about her asthma as it was something they had in common. She was really upset when he passed away in year 7.

Then came high school. Kayleigh was really really nervous, but as most of the girls that had bullied her were going to MacKillop, she was hopeful that she could make at least one friend. Her Dad told her to just be nice to everyone, talk to people - they are probably just as nervous as you are. I think this was the turning point for her, although she did have some teething problems and she never really made a 'best friend'. The first couple of months she hung out with her year 10 Aspire person, who, with Mr Haidon's help, guided her to make friends with people in year 7. and she did make some friends that she seemed to connect with, but she still didn't hang with them everyday. When I asked her who was hung with that day, her answer was different everyday - most of the time it was her year 'friendship group' but other times it was 'playing handball with the year 10 boys', 'Natassja's friends in year 7' or 'I was talking to the other Kayleigh'. It seemed that she talked with, or hung out with many people from many different year groups, and guys as well as girls.

The few people that went from Theodore Primary to Calwell, Kayleigh didn't talk to them at all, with the exception of Ethan. One of the girls had even tried the 'Kayleighs germs - no returns' crap in front of some of the other girls, and thnakfully one of them turned around and told them to stop being such babies. Before Kayleigh died, she found out that her main bully was going to change school and start at Calwell. This made Kayleigh a little nervous and I had to remind her that she had good friends now. If they abandoned her becuase of this girl then they weren't really her friends. Unfortunately, we never found out as Kayleigh died a week before this girl started.

Ee had run into her friends at the video store, and it was apparent that Kayleigh was still unsure of whether she was in the group - she hung back, only talking to 'J'. Her previous experiences with friends had left her unsure about how to deepen a friendship - I told her she needed to talk more - select one person from the group at a time and talk to them. This was working and the week before she died she was so happy.

The number of people that she talked to, and considered her a friend, was apparent at her funeral. Thank you to everyone who was her friend. Finally she was happy.

Kayleigh as a Baby

When Kayleigh was born, she didn't cry, all she did was sneeze. This was to continue - she was not a crying or whinging baby. She was 13 months old when she started walking properly and boy did she gt us in trouble.

One time, in the early stages of walking, she lost her balance and smacked her head on the table, which left her with a black eye, then the following day she did it again, this time splitting her lip open. The looks we got, especially from little old ladies, when we had to go shopping . . .well . . . .I think they thought we were child bashers. Poor Kayleigh had a blackeye and a spilt lip, although she hardly cried because of it.

She was always atheletic. When we moved into our current house, Kayleigh was only 2, and she sat on the porch, bottle in one hand amd catching and throwing the swing with the other. She was even catching it without looking. As she grew older, she spent alot of time dangling from the monkey bars, I think this is when she started developing the strong upper body muscles that she had.

Hello All

I am new to this blogging thing, but I wanted a mechanism to write thing down about Kayleigh and I thought it would be nice to share them with people I know and her friends.

Kayleigh passed away on the 4th of June, 2010, aged 13 1/2. What caused her death is still unknown, we thought at the time it was here asthma, but discussions with the doctors and asthma educators after seems to indicate that although asthma may have contributed to her passing, it may have been something with her heart that actually caused her to die. At this stage it is speculation, we are still waiting on the coroner.

I will try to post something each week. So dear blog readers . . . . . .  . .