05/06/2026
In my last post I mentioned that I ended up in hospital. Well, buckle up, because these cupcakes have quite the backstory...
Not this past Wednesday, but the one before, I was feeling absolutely awful. I couldn't breathe properly, I was coughing constantly, and I was more exhausted than I've ever been in my life. This coming from someone who usually survives on about four hours of sleep a night!
I took myself off to bed and proceeded to sleep on and off for 17 hours. SEVENTEEN. My family should have called the authorities because clearly something was very wrong.
Thursday and Friday weren't much better, but I had cakes to decorate for the weekend. Anyone who knows me knows that cancelling isn't in my vocabulary. So my decorating process became: decorate a little, go back to bed, decorate a little more, back to bed again. Repeat until finished. Somewhere in amongst all of that I managed to fall over twice and developed a temperature that was climbing faster than my cake prices should be!
By Sunday morning I finally admitted defeat and booked a doctor's appointment. Thankfully I did, because after one look at me the doctor pretty much said, "Congratulations, your next stop is Emergency."
The next 48 hours were a complete blur. Turns out I had bacterial pneumonia, my blood pressure was doing its best impression of a limbo champion, and I was being pumped full of antibiotics, fluids, steroids and painkillers. ICU assessed me twice and had practically reserved me a room as I was getting dangerously close to sepsis. Thankfully, I managed to avoid that particular holiday destination.
I'm now home recovering, although I'm still battling pleurisy and some lingering infection. Apparently recovery is "a marathon, not a sprint." Which is a ridiculous analogy considering I currently get puffed out walking to the kettle. 😂
As a result, I've decided not to take on any new orders for the remainder of June, although I will honour the bookings I already have as I continue recovering.
Now... onto today's cupcakes.
I had an order due, but I knew I wasn't going to be home. Being the stubborn cake lady that I am, I spent far too much time figuring out how not to let my client down. The toppers had thankfully been made before my dramatic hospital admission, so my plan was simple: get the cupcakes, buttercream and sprinkles delivered to me and decorate them wherever I happened to be.
What could possibly go wrong?
Well, the moment I started decorating, the hospital informed me they had finally found me a bed in the acute ward.
Did I stop decorating?
Of course not.
With the help of some absolutely beautiful nurses and a couple of very understanding doctors, my transfer was delayed while I finished piping cupcakes. The poor nurses even got into trouble for delaying the move, for which I apologised profusely afterwards. Apparently "the cupcakes aren't finished yet" isn't considered an acceptable medical reason!
So these cupcakes have quite the story behind them. Decorated somewhere between hospital admissions, medication rounds and medical staff shaking their heads at my life choices.
Half vanilla and half caramel cupcakes, topped with navy blue and white Swiss meringue buttercream and finished with fondant toppers for a young man celebrating his 21st birthday. A special gift from his mumma bear who couldn't be there in person.
I may have decorated them from a hospital ward, but a promise is a promise. ❤️
❤️
