They [family] didn’t phone me until she was diagnosed with it [Guillain Barre Syndrome] in Intensive Care. So I didn’t know shed actually gone into hospital that day. I was phoned up when shed been in overnight in Intensive Care. So by that point she was, you know, already on the ventilator and.

Who phoned you?

My mother phoned me. And then I, you know, basically just arranged to sort of have a couple of days off work so I could go down and see her.

It must have been quite a shock to hear –

Yes.

Because if you’d seen her a few weeks earlier, had she just had symptoms of a cold?

Well, I’d just, the last thing I’d heard from her was, I’d had an email just saying that shed had this awful flu but she was better. And that was the last thing I’d heard. And then, you know, next thing I know she was sort of in hospital with this thing that we didn’t know what it was.

Shed had sort of pins and needles in her fingers and her toes. And shed been away for the weekend and shed had this all weekend and felt a bit strange. And then when she got back, she started to lose the use of her legs and her hands and arms and couldn’t pick things up. So her friend took her to the hospital.

Because his heart had stopped and because of what had been happening, he could be brain damaged when they eventually brought him round.

And to be totally honest you don’t actually think of that. I know our brother-in-law was there, and he said, ‘How do you feel?’ And I said, ‘Well that is just something I will cope with when we get to that stage. You live very much for the moment, not what is going to happen in six months time. You know it was just a question of pulling him out of this.

I know I got used to it the first night, I had got used to him fitting, but then his brother just sort of started crying, so he couldn’t cope when he started to go, whereas I was okay. And I went, ‘It is okay they will just do this, it is all right, don’t worry,’ and you do pick up on that and it does. The one thing I will say though that is strange and it is not being a martyr or anything like that, is people were very concerned for me and I didn’t want them to be. I kept saying, ‘No all energy, all that, everything has to go, pray to whichever God you believe in, the sun, the moon, anything, but all your energy has to go on getting him out of it. I am okay. And of course they are saying, ‘We can’t do anything for him, so we can help you. And I was saying ‘I know but I don’t want you to think about me. That is not being a martyr or anything. That is just something that at the time I felt very strongly about. They had to be there for him. Not for me. I understand now their point of view but at the time it was very much – ‘No, please concentrate on my husband, don’t concentrate on me. I will cope. If I crack at some point, I crack, and then you can help me but while I am coping ”

I did feel, at times, very selfish, in that I thought, ‘I don’t know how I could cope. Knowing that I was the mum, there were times when I thought, ‘If he doesn’t get better, how am I going to cope?’ My husband actually felt that he could cope with a disabled person, and he found that amazing that all of the sudden, he realised yes he could. I still think the onus wouldve fallen on me. And I did at times think, ‘Oh my goodness, what am I going to do?’ And almost to the point where I didn’t really know what, I couldn’t voice that, that was very hard, because it was the fact that he was alive was important. But then a part of me was thinking, yes but. And luckily we kept moving forward.

For me personally I’m a very strong character and you do run into, dealing with everything mode supporting the family, ringing people, keeping them informed, running over there every day sitting with him, ‘Hello [name], it’s [name] here. Chatting away, can he hear you? Can’t he hear you? You don’t know, but I would talk away anyway at him, although at one point one nurse did say, ‘You know he is so heavily sedated he can’t hear you, it’s really fruitless. But I felt I had to anyway. Then a couple of weeks on, it does hit you how ill he was. And I have to say I went through a period of time where I cried non-stop. I cried while I would have a bath. I cried while I made a cup of tea. The tears would just roll down your face. You cry in your sleep, you’d wake up middle of the night and you’d be crying. I must have been crying in my sleep. I can’t imagine how the children coped, how his children coped, his daughters were, oh God they were wrecked. They were wrecked, it was awful, especially his youngest who he absolutely adores [laughs].

I’ll have to be honest because my family know me, I don’t show emotion, although over the last few years more of it. I tend to hide my emotions. I don’t wear my heart on my sleeve sort of thing. And I think that is through taking home from the fire service things that are distressing. People lose their lives, so you tend to bottle things up. And it is not good. But both myself and my sister leaned on each other and took great strength from each other and remained strong for the children, all the young children and my Mum. But that is a hard thing to do. I had many sleepless nights. I will grant you that. But that is not unusual. But yes, definitely it felt’ and it wasn’t a burden, it wasn’t a burden, it is something that came readily, you know, just to shoulder responsibility, take the stress off people. That wasn’t a problem. That is something I have always done.

The men that visited couldn’t cope. The women were fine. They would come in and talk to him as if he was normal and things, whereas the men were like, ‘No I am out of here. I can’t do this. And it was the men that sort of walked out and just started crying and things. They really couldn’t handle it as well.

And you had your family around you. Did you feel that there was a lot of support from them? Or often you were supporting them?

Both. Both. My family live up in [place name]. They did come down to see him and to see me and they were here for about an hour. They came down on the train and then went all the way back on the train and it is a lot. But it goes back to – the females, family or friends, coped a lot better than the males did. I think it was, maybe because my husband is a man and it could be happening to them or what, or it is just my husband is very life and soul and very outgoing and all of a sudden to see him laying there, wired up on drips and they really couldn’t cope.

That evening no one slept. We stayed down for quite a few hours. I mean [my partner’s father] stayed at the hospital. But her brother, just kept looking at the hole. He was like in a daze, he was literally just looking up. And I was trying to say, ‘Well, theres no point looking at it. And then we sat around and we were talking on how it happened and why did it happen. And one of the worst things about the whole incident was, I use their mirrors because I work at night and obviously they’ve got full-size mirrors, and I actually went to go in there [bedroom] that evening before [my partner’s mother] had gone in there. And [my partner] had stopped me because she said, ‘My dad’s having a sleep. You know, that all came out and it was like, ‘That could have been me. And if it was me, would I actually have fallen through the hole. And so there was a lot of that. We were generally just talking and talking and going through it and through it, and no one could understand how she actually came through the ceiling. We still don’t know today how she put both feet on the plasterboard.

I mean how she fell through the ceiling… how she actually fell through the ceiling. She had to put both feet on the plasterboard, which is near on impossible. She should have walked through the door, stepped through, one foot should have gone through and she would have probably fallen forward and banged her head. But she managed to put both feet, she fell through. There was all nails sticking out. No cuts. Absolutely amazing. The funny thing was she managed to put her cup down, she had a cup of tea in her hand, and that was in between the rafters somewhere. And then how she missed the stairs and everything. So to me in a sense, it was a total miracle that she lived.

I suppose the main thing that I had to do that day, I think I probably came with one of my children, was to go to her flat because I had to inform various people. I had to inform the insurance people about her car and I had to go and find things. So I went to her flat. And this was a pretty weird experience. My husband and she weren’t very close and so I’d barely ever seen this flat, in fact I’d never been inside it before. And I went in and there were signs of her recent meal that shed just had. She hadn’t washed it all up and so the sink was full of stuff. And her bed, it was February and she had an electric heater on the top of her bed and it was on, and this was very weird. And there were also, she had an answering phone and I listened to her messages. And there were one or two messages on it. And this was my first trail.

I started to think, I’d already told my husband but he was in America. And I can’t quite remember who, at that point, I talked to. But I certainly took the telephone numbers of the people who were on her answering machine. And I picked up from her house, I actually found shed got masses of files, shed got filing cabinets and other filing cabinets and things in drawers and things on her computer, and I managed to take away a list of email addresses and also a folder that had everything about her insurance and also stuff about her will I think I found. And I took all of these home and started making contact. And fortunately there was an email that I’d had from a relative that had been I think something that she had sent to several people including this relative and some other people, and I gradually began to build up a network of people who she knew. And this was a very amazing experience.

We then went and had breakfast. And I can remember, we were almost looking over the motorway where the accident, and the trees were just beginning to change colour. It was the most beautiful setting and it is so surreal. But there was still beauty there. There was still, you still were grateful for everything. It wasn’t all doom and gloom. And another thing that happened was that you’ don’t know how you’re going to cope but you really do get an adrenaline surge. It’s a big event in your life and your body takes over and does help you cope. I found I became very clinical. I got called the ‘ice lady. I didn’t cry very much. It was like this cold thing enveloped me and I could deal with it all. I was very rational, very positive. My husband found it harder, he did. But I think that will happen, one will grow strong and one will find it harder and you need the two really.

So your day to day life mainly revolved around going to the hospital, coming back?

Daughter’Watching films. We watched an awful of DVDs didn’t we?

Once you got back home?

Daughter’Yes. We had quite a nice time. Like in some ways it wasn’t all really negative. We had fun didn’t we? We used to go shopping a lot. We spent a lot of time in Sainsburys buying nice wine.

Husband’Yes, Sainsburys was our’ because we haven’t got a Sainsburys here you see. Whereas near the hospital there is a Sainsburys so we spent a lot of time there.

Daughter’Buying Gourmet food.

Husband’We spent a lot of time there.

Daughter’We bought all this food and wine and came home and made lovely dinners.

Husband’And the very nice Indian restaurant.

Daughter’Oh yes. We used to eat out a lot. We did watch a lot of films didn’t we?

Did you talk much about what was going on or was it just – you were just too involved in the visiting really to step back from it all?

Daughter’I don’t know, I suppose we did. I don’t know, it was hard at the time because you talk about it always, it is not, I think we talked about it when we first thought about it. Or something. We didn’t make any’

Husband’No. I mean we had’

Daughter’Chats about it.

Husband’And we had sort of low moments and high moments and supported each other. But I mean we didn’t over talk about it I don’t think. But then we didn’t ignore it either.

Daughter’We were quite philosophical. And also, no, actually, I mean we, like we chatted about what you would do if she died quite a lot.

Husband’True.

Daughter’I think the most important thing is like even, through the whole situation, like that guy said on, whenever it was, the Santa pixie [consultant] turned up, I think that was the best piece of advice, it is balance and it has always been balance the whole way through, in everything, even now. Balance it is just crucial, to try and get a good home / hospital life balance even. If you are visiting someone every day, it is important that you make time at least once a day to do something that is nice that is just for you, because you need that. You can’t, I don’t think you can function at that level of emotional intensity without re-charging yourself slightly. I think that is really crucial. And I think for anyone going through this sort of situation that that is the trick, you have got to try and stay balanced.

The nurses always used to say how cheery and happy I was, considering. But I don’t know why, that’s just how, they would like say to me, ‘How are you so happy?’ but I think that’s just how I dealt with it. And I don’t think you can tell anyone how to deal with it, because you just do what you’ve got to do, if you get what I mean. So all I thought is, ‘I’ve got to stay strong for my baby’ because if I was a wreck… But I don’t know, I was quite strong. So I was good, it was good.

Everybody asks you, ‘Oh, how did you deal with this?’ and, ‘How do you…?’ I don’t know how. Something just happens to you, that you keep control or you make that decision. And I know the nurses used to say, asked me to speak to other relatives that were there, sort of because I was so positive. But like I said to them, ‘I can’t tell them what I’m doing, because I don’t know how I’m doing it. I just am. But I don’t know, it’s just always just do what you feel. I think that was the main thing. Because I could have been like everybody else. And, I don’t know, something just happened to me and I just felt that I had to do that. But you just, everybody thinks they’d understand but you, everyone just deals with it differently. Theres nothing right or wrong to do. I don’t think you can tell people.

Fortunately he improved and gradually improved and they decided to take the ventilator away and get him to breathe on his own. After one or two hiccups eventually that was fine. He did. But he was totally disorientated, absolutely, totally disorientated. He knew who I was, but he didn’t know where he was. And he said weird and wonderful things, really weird and wonderful things and to such an extent that it frightened me because I thought he had lost his mind. And it didn’t seem to get better, and I asked the doctors about it and they said it was because he had had such a lot of different drugs, because of the different things that he had gone through that this had’ with him being on sedatives whilst he was ventilated. This is what caused it.

And eventually he was released from ITU and was taken to the Cardiac Care Unit again and he was there for about a week I think it was. And because he was in Intensive Care for five weeks, that is a long time, he went to Cardiac Care and there I mean obviously they were looking after him because of the heart and that stabilised and they were happy with that. And then he was sent to a different ward after that, where the other amputees were, and he didn’t really know much about it because he was still very, very muddled. And I was extremely worried because I thought he had lost his mind, and the doctors kept saying that he should come out of it, but because I was worried about it, they decided to do a scan and they did a scan and they said there was nothing wrong with his brain. It was just the tablets and the aftermath of the anaesthetic and it would all clear.

Over the three and a half weeks that your husband was in hospital in intensive care and on the ward, at the different stages of six and a half weeks what were you concerns at different stages? How did they change?

Well at first I wanted him to live through the anaesthetic. Once he had lived through the anaesthetic I wanted the pain initially to be controlled and wanted him to feel comfortable. He did have four subsequent operations and after each and every operation I feared that, ‘Was the pancreas going to be removed, would the pancreatitis get worse?’ He did spike some infections and the first one he got when he had a blood transfusion. So I got paranoid about blood transfusions. And asked if they, does he really need a blood transfusion. And then I became more concerned with actually who did the treatment, because if I watched some people do it and I became concerned with exactly how they did it. I just reacted to everything as it happened. And I became paranoid myself, you know, like about blood transfusions, about cleanliness and about – not that I had any need to. I had no need to. It was just my fear then that the blood that was meant to be making him better was actually giving him an infection and just reacted to everything as it happened.