Kimberley Busteed’s mercy dash to hospital with her daughter
Kimberley Busteed reveals her and her husband’s family bliss was shattered last year when baby Victoria suddenly fell seriously ill at just one month old and had to be rushed to the emergency room.
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With her shock of blonde hair, blue eyes and fiery personality, 11-month-old Victoria is described by mum Kimberley Busteed as “a real little firecracker”.
The bubbly toddler and her older sister Evelyn (“Evie”), 2, have given Busteed, 31, and retired cricketer husband Chris Simpson, 37, “more joy and warmth than we ever knew was possible”.
“It’s really sweet and that’s been my favourite thing about having two is seeing them together,” says the former beauty queen turned radio and television presenter.
“Evie is very soft and she loves her sister, she’s a pleaser and Victoria will follow her around like a little puppy.”
But Busteed reveals her and her husband’s family bliss was shattered last year when Victoria suddenly fell seriously ill at just one month old, and was rushed to the emergency room.
It’s a nightmare no parent ever wants to face, but for Busteed it also brought back painful childhood memories of her own family’s grief-stricken time in hospital wards.
Busteed’s nine-year-old brother Corey died of leukemia when she was just seven years old.
Victoria’s illness struck last July when Simpson, the former captain of the Queensland Bulls, who now owns a finance business specialising in agricultural enterprises, had returned to their Camp Hill home in Brisbane’s inner southeast, from his first day back on the job after his second daughter’s birth.
The pair quickly realised something was wrong with their little girl.
“Chris picked her up and goes ‘gee, she feels warm’ and I went ‘yeah, you’re right’ but it had been one of those hot days,” she says.
Busteed began that day more focused on having her daughters on her own for the first time. She hadn’t suspected anything was seriously wrong, but recalls Victoria hadn’t been hungry and had been a bit lethargic.
“The more I thought about it, the more my ‘mum instinct’ kicked in and I thought ‘it doesn’t feel right’,” she says.
They rushed her to the emergency department at Queensland Children’s Hospital, where “everything crumbled”.
“Because of her size, the nurse came running up to us and asked what was wrong. They took one look at her and saw she was all mottled, which means all her blood flow wasn’t going to her limbs. They literally ripped her off me and ran out the back and pushed the emergency button,” Busteed says.
Victoria was so dehydrated the hospital staff were forced to insert a cannula into her scalp rather than her arm, and she immediately had a series of “horrific” tests, including a lumbar puncture, heart and brain scans and blood tests.
“Our beautiful little baby had hooks and wires coming out of her and they were feeding her through a tube and, at this point, we didn’t know what was wrong, so it was really terrifying,” Busteed says.
Victoria was diagnosed with viral meningitis – an infection of the membranes that surround the brain and spinal cord, caused by an unidentifiable strain. The one-month-old spent 10 days in hospital. Busteed didn’t leave her side.
“Only one parent is allowed to stay when you’re up there, so every night when Chris would leave, that’s when I would just fall to pieces,” says the former Miss Universe Australia.
She says as she nursed her daughter, “all I kept thinking about was how we lost my brother, and about Mum being down there in Brisbane with Corey on her own for five days every week”.
“Mum (Denise, 56) and Dad (Brad, 55) owned a business in Gladstone and, at that time, they had bills to pay; no one helped them financially and they couldn’t have time off, so I would go to school and Dad would run the business, and then Dad and I would drive down Friday afternoons and spend the weekend with them, then drive back to Gladstone Sunday afternoon. It was pretty full-on.
“It breaks my heart to think Dad couldn’t just be there with Mum. After Corey’s funeral, they were back at work on the Monday. It almost broke them – emotionally and physically. They had no choice but to soldier on, they had to care for me, and if they didn’t, we would have lost our home, cars, work, everything.”
As Busteed prepares to celebrate her first Mother’s Day with Victoria, the Nova 106.9 presenter, says her daughter’s illness was a heartbreaking time but it put “life and what is and isn’t important” into perspective. It made her reflect on her love of her own hands-on, supportive and “absolutely selfless” mum, Denise, into perspective.
“When Victoria was in hospital, the thought of losing our baby made me physically ill and my mum lost her baby forever. I’m still amazed at how unbelievably strong, tough and resilient my parents are. My parents have been to hell and back – and they’re still together – fighting battles every day.”
Gladstone-born and raised Busteed says it brought her and her husband closer together, and that Simpson has been the family’s “angel”. He took time off work and with the support of his parents, (Marie, 61, dad Nick, 62, Simpson) looked after Evie.
“I was terrified, devastated and heartbroken and Chris was amazing, he was just so calm and so strong, and to try to be there for Victoria and also be there for me and hold me together,” she says.
A litle more than a week after Victoria left hospital, Busteed had wrapped on a shoot for the Brisbane Racing Club’s Spring Carnival when she felt something was off again and the couple took the baby to the doctor, who told them to take her straight back to the hospital. This time, doctors couldn’t determine what was making Victoria so unwell but Busteed believes she was one of the “extremely unlucky” patients in which the meningitis had recurred and was admitted for a few more days.
“We were actually pretty calm the second time it happened … (and) able to ask questions and be present as opposed to just sobbing in the corner, which is what I did the first time,” Busteed says.
She says the worst part was seeing her daughter in pain. “The doctors or nurses would come in and say they were trying to put an IV in her – she would always turn her head to find Chris or I and just look at us like ‘why are you letting them do this to me?’ ”
But the pair believe their daughter’s strong personality and “that real grit in her” helped her fight the illness. Simpson is full of praise for his wife during this period and says he’s in awe of the role she plays raising their daughters.
“Kimberley is the making of our beautiful little girls. She is so true, so firm, so supportive; and she gives them the greatest of joy each and every day,” he says.
Ten months later, Victoria still has follow-up appointments at the hospital, but she’s back to her bubbly self. Busteed admits the experience forced her to process some lingering issues she had about her brother’s death.
“I was very young (when Corey died) but, when Victoria fell ill, that made me understand and try to process it, I guess that’s because I didn’t really growing up,” she says.
Incredibly, Busteed went on to compete in her first triathlon in Noosa in November only months after Victoria’s recovery.
“Exercise for me is my leveller, it’s my escape. If I don’t exercise, I fall apart a bit,” she says. “It (the triathlon) was so satisfying and I was absolutely thrilled – it was such a high.”
Busteed’s family is small and has always been tight-knit. She also has a younger sister Bianca, who was born in 1997, the year after Corey died.
“One thing I didn’t realise until I became a mum was how much Mum sacrificed and missed out on for us,” she says. “We were given every opportunity, cared for with poise, challenged, and always had fresh sheets, clean clothes and a full plate. Our home was always warm, with lots of love, laughter and cheekiness. She gave all of herself to us and was always one step ahead, knowing what we needed, anticipating our moves.”
Growing up, her passion was always sport. She was a teen champion swimmer, who moved to Brisbane, staying with family friends for 12 months in Year 10 on a scholarship at Clayfield College. But she was homesick and returned to Gladstone, and did her final two years of schooling at Gladstone State High School.
At 18, despite her limited experience in the modelling industry, a friend suggested she give the Miss Universe Australia pageant a crack – which she says her dad found pretty laughable since she hadn’t even had any luck taking home a prize in a local pageant with four entrants. Busteed’s grandad, racing identity Richie Mannion, died just before the Miss Universe Australia final but, with the blessing and encouragement of her family, she flew to Perth to compete. She was crowned Miss Universe Australia 2007.
“The day I won was the day of his funeral, and it sounds a bit airy, but I felt this vibe about me and I’ve never felt it since, but I knew I was going to win and I did,” she says.
It was at Busteed’s first official event after returning from the international pageant in Mexico in 2007 that she met Simpson. Having donned a red lifesaving suit as the national costume at the competition, she was now emceeing Surf Life Saving Queensland’s Up The Tower fundraiser in Queen Street Mall, and he was there to help raise money in his newly minted role as captain of Queensland Bulls.
“I had to interview him but it was funny, there was nothing from him. He’s a very reserved guy so there was no spark, it was just like ‘oh, nice to meet you, next one’ and I didn’t think twice, to be honest,” she says.
“But he came back about half an hour later and pulled me aside, and he said ‘lovely to meet you, I’ve left something for you at the counter’. He’d left a Ryan Adams CD and had written a little note about how Adams was one of his favourite artists and he said ‘listen to this track (Halloweenhead)’… with his phone number. I remember going ‘oh my God’, no one had ever been like that around me before so I was very intrigued.”
She texted Simpson and they began catching up for coffee over the coming months. After a slow-burn courtship, Busteed – who had been living in the garage of a family friend in Boondall – moved into Simpson’s Portside apartment.
In 2012, he proposed, using the same CD he had asked her out with. In 2014, the couple tied the knot in Brisbane.
Busteed says the “constant juggle” of motherhood has taught her to have a lot more patience and empathy, as well as to simply have more fun. But she admits she doesn’t have it all figured out.
“Some days I look at the girls and think ‘I could have 10 of these kids’, and other days I want to sob in the corner because it’s full on,” she says.
“I’ve learnt from my mum how to love wholeheartedly, to laugh and to appreciate each and every moment. I’ve learnt to be strict, but fair, and to treasure every touch, cuddle and smile. She’s taught me that it’s important to acknowledge the down days – but just as important to get back up and soldier on with purpose.”
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