Chapter 2: The Journey Begins

After waking at 4am choking on my ventilator in all honesty I do not remember anything after that so I must have fallen back asleep. I woke on the Tuesday morning at around 0930am greeted by the face of my Scottish nurse, whose name I don’t recall. In honesty I woke with fear wondering where I was and what had happened. There were wires and tubes coming out of me, machines beeping all around me. The Scottish nurse speaking to me but it may as well have been in Japanese as I could not comprehend what she was saying to me. My eyes were darting here there and everywhere trying to come to terms with where I was and what was happening. I saw people around me in a similar state tubes and wires everywhere around. I remember thinking to myself this can’t be good and then nothing. Blacking out again possibly sleep or the heaps or morphine that was being pumped into me. This is the real point where fear set in cause during this blackout or this sleep I had a very real and vivid dream. It was an operating theatre there were 5-6 people all gathered around a body on this operating table with a look of panic on their faces. People moving quickly, the body was lifeless no movement whatsoever. There was a head in the way of the face of the body so I couldn’t tell who it was. I stood there patiently watching as these people rushed around I could see something was wrong. I saw the face of the body and I saw the person lying there motionless, drained of colour and ever so still. It was me!

Even in the dream I could feel my whole body tense up questions in my subconscious was I dead? Was this me as a spirit looking in at myself? Thoughts of my beautiful wife, my gorgeous daughter and my unborn baby raced through my mind. Was this it would I ever see them again? Would I meet my new baby? Sounds mad doesn’t it? I’ve never told my wife or family about this dream. Why? How do I start to explain it? The fear I felt in that dream was something I’ve never experienced before and this was a dream, but it felt so real. Maybe it was through fear that she wouldn’t believe me or she would laugh at me. Reading it now it seems so out there it sounds like im a loon. Imagine that fear?

I woke again at around 11am greeted by my surgeon and his assistant. Still slightly dazed and out of it. He spoke to me; he started to explain what had happened. It was so surreal had this really happened to me. It sounded so extreme so unreal.

They had decided during the operation that keyhole surgery was not an option that the hernia itself was just too big. They had to do the operation the old fashioned way. By cutting through the stomach wall and fixing the hernia that way. After doing so inserting a mesh netting to prevent the hernia from reoccurring. Somewhere in the operation a cut was made through the main artery going to my leg which went unnoticed. After the hernia repair was completed it was stapled back together just below my stomach and sent to recovery. After 4 hours and 30 minutes of me not coming round from being put to sleep. A nurse in recovery decided to do my stats and realised my blood pressure was far too low and something was wrong. This is where the surgeon realised that I had an internal bleed and by this point I had lost 5 units of blood. The doctor told me that another 30 minutes of the bleed going unnoticed I would not be sat here today writing this.

I was rushed back to theatre for an emergency life saving operation to located the internal bleed and repair it. To do this they had to open me up via my stomach, which has left me with a second scar around 9 inches long round vertically down my stomach and through my belly button. Also required 2 blood transfusions. However the internal bleed was located and repaired and once again I was stapled back together now with 2 wounds instead of just a keyhole surgery wound which is what I was expecting. I also had to have 3 drains inserted due to the amount of blood that was lost and was in my system. Now this second surgery was that serious I had to be transported from Broadgreen to the Royal Liverpool Hospital in an ambulance on blue flashing lights and put into the intensive care unit. Now bear in mind I have no idea what is happening im asleep out for the count. There was someone who was aware of what was happening she was 36 weeks pregnant looking after my 2 year old daughter. She is my wife. Imagine the fear in my wife as she hears what’s happening.

Once I was in the ICU in the Royal Liverpool Hospital, I was informed my wife came to see me at 11pm on the Monday night in the Royal. She was greeted by me on a ventilator, tubes, machines and god knows what everywhere. I had no idea.

It kills me every day that my wife had to see me like that, in her condition. The guilt I felt when I knew she had been even to this day breaks my heart.