Dealing With Bad News From Abroad

I never thought I’d be blogging from a hospital room in Chicago but I’ve had to unexpectedly visit the US city. It isn’t me lying in the bed, by the way, it’s my husband. Three weeks ago I got the phone call nobody ever wants to receive. It was his mum. She was emotional.

“Paul is seriously ill in hospital,” she told me in a quivering voice through anxious tears.

“What?” It was difficult to comprehend. In that moment my world stopped and I knew it could dramatically change forever. But it didn’t make sense – I knew he had arrived safely in the city ahead of business conference and the night before we were exchanging messages and I had even sent him some photos and videos of our daughter.

My first reaction was disbelief then confusion, ‘how, why, what’? My main fear was, ‘Had the cancer come back’? Little did I realise at the time but it was something worse.

“They think it’s meningitis,” she said.

‘Meningitis’ I thought. I didn’t know loads about it but knew it could be serious, especially in young children, and had heard rare stories of university students getting it, but a 35-year-old fit man? How on earth did that happen? So many things were going through my head but knowing my husband, I calmly took a breath and told his mum the only thing I could.

“He’s going to be alright.”

Deep down I didn’t know that for sure. It was torture not being able to speak to him, or see him, or get any clarity. That night the worst case scenarios went around in my head and I had a sickness and dread at the pit of my stomach. I only recently found out that the doctors told his parents that first night to ‘prepare for the worst’. I’m glad I wasn’t told that information at the time. Over the next 48 hours I did my best to put aside any negative thoughts that crept into my mind, overriding them with positive ones. He was going to be fine. He had to be.

It was only days later that I started to piece together the true extent of his condition and discovered just how close he was to this illness consuming his body. It’s difficult to write these words, but he very nearly died. If he had been found an hour later or not been taken to good hospital, it would have been a different story. But I don’t allow myself to think that and neither should he. I am just eternally grateful that he was with people he knew who took immediate action when they found him in a confused state not knowing who anybody was – including our daughter when shown pictures of her.

Days of apprehension ensued. Me, thousands of miles away, not really knowing what was going on as a swirl of medical words came out of a telephone and whirled around my head: “medically induced coma”, “ventilator”, “life threatening condition”, “heart surgery”. It’s terrifying but I had my little girl to distract me, to keep my mind from thinking the worse and forcing me to carry on with normal life. I had to keep busy and so I focused on jobs around the house we had been meaning to do for ages and I was intent on making it look good for when he came home – because he was going to. I kept the positive thoughts going, refused to dwell on all the details and kept my mind occupied. After all, he had conquered cancer surely he’d get over meningitis even though it wasn’t, as I had hoped, the viral kind but the more severe bacterial type.

A few days later Mrs T and I were on an eight hour flight to Chicago. I had offers from so many lovely people to look after her but not knowing how long I’d be abroad, I couldn’t bear to be parted from her – the one distraction and happy light who was oblivious to the trauma going on. I also knew that when he woke up, he’d want to see her.

I didn’t take her to see him to start with. The sight of him would be unnecessarily confusing and potentially upsetting for her. I had been warned about how he would look, so prepared myself for the sight of tubes coming out of absolutely everywhere in his body. A ventilator stuck in his mouth, a tube coming out of his head where they had to drain fluid off his brain and his eyes closed, sedated. I kept remarkably calm, considering. And despite all the medical intervention, it was so, so good to finally see him.

By the time I had got there, a turning point had emerged. Despite being under sedation he had drowsily managed to open his eyes and see his dad and recognise him – just the day before. Phew! His brain didn’t appear to have been affected, one of my big fears as the brain is the first place this bacteria attacks.

Shortly after I arrived, the nurse turned down his sedation slightly and he opened his eyes and saw me. I never thought I’d have to ask my husband “Do you know who I am?” But I did. And thankfully he nodded.

I kept my voice relaxed and chatty and talked to him about everything that had been going on in my life and in everyone else’s – banal and frivolous things compared to his situation but I didn’t want to get emotional or make him unnecessarily uncomfortable or apprehensive. Not that he knew what I was saying but he seemed relaxed and peaceful in my company and even squeezed my hand which felt amazing. It was very strange to be having a one sided conversation though. At home it’s usually when he is watching football and even then I always get grumbled at every now and then. It was also a new experience to talk and not be interrupted every two seconds – or told what to do. I had to wait a few days for that to happen.

A couple of days after arriving in Chicago I, along with his parents and sister, went to the hospital and to our surprise found him sitting up and slowly talking!! Our jaws dropped in shock and relief. In the middle of the night he had taken the ventilator out of his mouth. We couldn’t believe it – and neither could the medical staff. It is not a common occurrence. The tube which had been supporting his lungs, affected by pneumonia, was clearly no longer needed, and was irritating him so much he managed to yank it out, on his own, under heavy sedation. That is one determined – and strong – man!

So there he was, up and talking. He was groggy, yes, and had no idea what had just happened. We had to keep reminding him he had missed a week of his life. In his mind it was the day after he arrived in Chicago and he was still keen on going skiing the following weekend. He was pretty gutted when I broke the news to him that the ski trip would not be happening.

Despite his lungs now functioning without the aid of a ventilator and no damage to his brain showing up, the bacteria had caused considerable damage to his heart. After being told he had contracted meningitis, got pneumonia and been in hospital for a week, the doctors then had to break it to him that he needed heart surgery – the following day. As you can imagine, a lot for him to take in and as ever his selfless thoughts were never far away from me, Mrs T and the rest of his family and what he had put us through. Of course, all we cared about was him getting better and coming home. He has already made so much progress since we got that horrendous phone call but there is still a long way to go.