But that is not how it was at all.
When I opened my eyes, I felt something around my neck like the metallic grey rhino folds of the MRI casing. But my frayed nerve endings were playing tricks on me, as later I found that there was only a white gauze dressing that was touching the skin.
I turned just slightly to my left to see my parents who were waiting eagerly for this moment. They looked like an elderly couple sitting there, as if on Brighton pier looking out to sea in an old black and white film clip. As I blinked, I saw the blood return to their faces, their improving complexions brought them into technicolour, and they leaned forward with hopeful, purposeful smiles.
Almost inaudibly, I remember asking if the bed was moving; if they had opened my groin up, and then later with a dry mouth from the Oxygen mask; I asked for water.
I must have fallen back to sleep before all of the answers arrived, because I recall one response came from the foot of my bed, where they were now excitedly reading the hand written surgical notes from the operation with one of the doctors.
Returning to my side, my Mum and Dad told me that the operation had been extremely successful, and that I would be just fine. When the nurse agreed that I could try a little to drink, I remember being able to open my mouth just wide enough to pull the end of the straw between my dry lips, then I swallowed a little bit of water, slowly, gently.
I lay back flat, peering forward at the clock and then back up to the ceiling. The pain wasn’t too bad. I waited for the beach images of Harriet, Barnaby and Alex to flood my mind, and a tsunami of emotions to carry me through the night.
But nothing came.
I realised that I didn’t feel anything. No emotions. Nothing at all.
I had rational thoughts, I heard good news, I knew that the surgeons who I’d put all of my faith in had saved my life. The coloured wires around my neck reminded me that the ticking bomb had been defused; the danger was over, the aneurysm removed. But still I couldn’t summon the smile that I had dreamed of for so long.
It was not what I had expected.
I remember thinking about the documentary film that I'd watched recently – ‘The Crash Reel’. In that film, a handsome American snowboarder crashes onto his face from a great height in training for the Vancouver Olympic half-pike. Kevin Pearce didn’t get to compete for the Olympic Gold with Shaun White, as was anticipated by the sponsors. Instead, just before millions were tuning into that event, Kevin came out of his coma, and his family celebrated. Instead of Burton commissioning a film about the Olympic journey, the production team shifted their focus to tracing his slow partial recovery over the next few years. I was fascinated by watching how close family members dealt with the impact of Kevin’s inability to make good decisions, and by seeing his personality change due to the irreversible damage to the right frontal lobe of his brain.
So before Alex arrived, looking anxious and tired, when I was still unable to feel any emotion at all for the first time in my life - I wondered if I might have some frontal lobe damage too.
Then later when everybody had left, and the excellent day nurse handed over to a rogue night shift nurse, I would go to hell and back, the ordeal not yet over for me. Quite the contrary! I had reached the summit with a successful operation and my parents would rightly begin their celebration, knowing from a medical viewpoint, that in time, their youngest daughter would likely be 'just fine'. But I knew from my experience of conquering a Himalayan peak and taking myself to the physical and mental limits of my very being in the process; that it’s the descent that you need to hold back some strength for: Strength to keep going when the fuel has run out and you are running on the fumes of the past adrenaline rush; when the taste of bile builds up in the back of your throat and when you start to sense that your journey is endless. Strength when you’ve been focused on a finishing line, only to find out that there is still a considerable way to go when you get there. Those hours beyond the point that you have prepared for, are what I refer to as the ‘breaking time’.
Perhaps thanks to the hormone rush and the wonders of the outcome, I didn’t experience breaking time during a marathon labour when Barnaby was born; but I definitely hit it on the descent of the mountain 'Mardi Himal' in Nepal in 2008, and again in ICU at St Georges when I couldn’t bend time forward, or skip an hour through sleep, or shift my mind to anywhere other than the present situation in the ICU room. ICU that night was the place where the rogue nurse failed in her care for me, and when nausea and headaches overwhelmed me for hour, after hour, after hour. Looking back it was only 12 hours of my life, and I would recover quite quickly from the trauma afterwards. But as I was going through it, it was my Abu Ghraib, my hell. And it was brutal.
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I will return reluctantly to that dark time and the start of the recovery in my next post, after my Dad’s insightful guest blog below which tells Thursday’s story from the perspective of a parent as well as his sharp medical viewpoint.
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ICU by Chris Evans
That I didn't sleep well was unsurprising, but the nightmare interview with Sophie was perturbing:
"Are you really happy to be going ahead with this operation?" I asked her, and she was as sure in the dream as she had been three weeks earlier when I had challenged her on a car journey.
Breakfast in our Wimbledon common B & B was hearty: Juices, muesli and fruits, toast, bacon and fried eggs and coffee. A long day was ahead. There had been overnight frost.
We travelled to St George's in Tooting, along a route planned previously by Sophie. London traffic was congested, and we finally found a car park space. The vascular unit was on the 4th floor and Sophie's side room overlooked the rooftops of the hospital; South London was emerging through the mist and to the North, the ethereal roof arch of Wembley Stadium could be defined occasionally.
She was composed, having seen her surgeon and we wished her well, admiring both her and Alex's bravery and courage. We left to learn that surgery was planned for 12:00 and we drove to Wimbledon village and walked aimlessly past shops selling nothing that took our fancy. We enjoyed Cappuccinos opposite the roundabout and overheard 2 elderly women discussing the virtues of the University of the third-age.
After this fortification, Susie reverted to type and she bought some greeting cards, Sellotape, tiny cyclamen for a pot in Liverpool, and a Wimbledon priced waist coat for Joanne's dachshund!
After feeding the parking meter, we went for lunch at Cafe Rouge: minute steak, pommes frites and a glass of red wine.
In the afternoon, the clock was ticking by so slowly, we met up with Alex, Alison (Alex’s mum), and Barnaby on his bike and Harriet in the pram. We walked through the Cannizaro woods and past the red sweatered golfers on the Wimbledon course.
It was getting colder and darker; the Chelsea tractors were collecting infants from the prep school, so we went into the Fox and Grapes pub for a cup of tea. The farmhouse wall clock was advancing so very slowly, when eventually Alex's mobile rang. He rightly went outside and was gone an age.
Sophie was out of theatre and in medical parlance, was as well as could be expected. Alex was understandably reserved; had everything gone Ok? I didn't dare ask.
We arranged for Susie and I to visit the ICU and Al would follow after returning the family to Putney. It was commuter time again, but parking was easy.
The ICU was one of three adjacent to each other and we eventually established by telephone where she was. Her dedicated nurse invited us in, but not before we had heard other relatives being told bad news.
Sophie was in the first large cubicle and to each side of the bed multiple vital functions were being monitored on large coloured TV screens. To my trained eyes, they were all reassuringly normal. Sophie was sleeping or doped with nasal oxygen specs in position, drips in both arms, urine bag filling and neck drain containing stale blood. So far so good.
The specialist nurse was very pleased with her patient who was so relatively young and doing so well. Alex arrived and stood in amazement viewing his precious wife in this ever so alien setting.
The next 10 minutes were very revealing to a clinician:
First of all, Sophie scratched her left forehead with her left hand: i.e. no stroke.
Then she coughed normally i.e. vocal cords not damaged.
She opened her eyes without a droopy right eyelid i.e. the sympathetic nerves were intact.
And finally she sipped water from a straw and was therefore able to swallow ok.
All of these potential complications had been discussed with Alex and Sophie by Prof Thompson at consent signing.
Whilst these observations were encouraging to us as doctors, Alex remained near spell bound at the complexity of the situation .The scenario was an extreme example of the difference between worried medical parents and a worried lay husband.
The surgical team came round, pleased with Sophie's progress, and explained the nature of the surgery to us when the aneurysm had been skilfully excised and the carotid artery re- established with an end to end join.
Susie and I returned to Putney, leaving Alex on duty.
Barnaby had his bed time story and we enjoyed Alison's supper with Alex and a glass of champagne, praising the St George's team and texting and phoning all our family and supportative friends who had, like us, been on tenterhooks. As we returned to our Wimbledon B&B we left Alex still dazed, whereas Susie and I were nearly euphoric, for which I apologise to Alex unreservedly.
Our artists’ hosts were so pleased to learn of the result and I went to sleep for the first time in 6 months, without the image of the walnut aneurysm in my visual or emotional cortex [picture below].
Our youngest daughter and the mother of our youngest grandchildren had been rewarded for her courage and bravery so brilliantly supported by her proud adoring husband.
Top marks and huge thanks to all at St George's: Brilliant Result. My heartfelt thanks.
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