She was five by then, so I took the time to explain it all to her and she just sat there, not uttering a word and taking it all in. She’d grown up with a mum who was severely disabled and in all honesty, our relationship was very badly damaged because of this as I’d become an absentee mother who was living in the same house as her. Even now, looking back, I can barely admit to myself that there wasn’t much of a bond between us at that point in my life due to what had happened to me. I’d been away and out of her life more than I’d been with her as I was away in Iraq and then in and out of hospital. I think it was hard for Milly to comprehend properly what was going on in as she was just so used to me not being there, so I think she just thought of my amputation as ‘Mummy’s going to hospital again’. Back then I felt so distant from her, which is a horrific thing to feel about your own child. Now, even all these years later, I feel great sadness if I think back to that time and our relationship. I just felt so cheated. I’d missed out on so much of her childhood due to my injury.
So when I told her, for the first time since the blast that I actually felt hopeful and having my leg off would mean I was going to get better, I inwardly hoped that would mean our relationship as much as my leg. I just hugged her tight and a tear rolled down my cheek as I whispered to her, ‘I love you and I’m going to be a better mum to you now.’ I knew I’d be able to do more with her and actually give her a childhood that included me. It breaks my heart even now to think that I was so injured it had got to that and I doubted myself as a mother. Telling her that night was one of the biggest moments of my life as it meant I was finally going to get to know her and do the things ‘normal’ mums did. I wanted to make her proud of me and I was determined that the amputation and my life moving forward was going to transform everything for us both. She just hugged me back and smiled and that meant more to me than anything else in the world. It confirmed once again (though I didn’t need reminding) that the amputation was the right thing for me.
Despite that, moments of dread did start to creep in as the clocked ticked ever nearer to my op. I don’t know if it’s because telling Milly made the whole thing seem more real to me, but it seemed to activate a little voice in my head that said not only was this serious, it could be an operation that I didn’t come back from.
One evening, when Jamie was at work and Milly was safely tucked up in bed, I decided to do something I had only done once before and that was to write a letter that was to be opened up at my funeral if I didn’t pull through the operation. It was so different from the letter I’d written before I went to war. Back then I was a fresh-faced new mum with all my life in front of me. Now, just three years later, I knew how things could change in the blink of an eye and that no one is invincible and no one lives forever.
I was trembling when I got the pen and paper out and sat at the kitchen table but it was something I wanted and needed to get down in black and white. I started off by telling everyone how much I loved them, and that if I died I wanted Jamie to move on and find happiness with someone else. He was – and is – such a wonderful man he deserves to be happy in life. The only thing I asked was if another woman was in Milly’s life that she didn’t call her Mum because that’s the title I wanted to maintain. When I saw Milly’s name down on the sheet of paper that’s when the tears flowed. The thought that I might never see my little beautiful baby girl again was too much, but I knew I wasn’t being a proper mum to her so I had to go through with the amputation. I also wrote that they would always be financially looked after and that my parents must always have full access to Milly. Not that I felt this needed to be spelt out, but in my head I wanted to get my affairs in order so I knew if the worst was to happen I had left instructions about my final wishes. I don’t know what drove me to decide to write the letter but it ended up being two sides of A4 paper. I’ve still got it sealed in a safe place in my house and I’ve never opened it. It may be silly superstition but I feel like I never want to open it as if I do then I’m tempting fate and who knows what would happen?
I was so anxious as I wrote the letter, I clenched up inside. It was only once I’d got it all down and licked the envelope firmly shut that I felt I could breathe again. I’d been given a self-meditation and breathing cassette by the hospital to try and keep my anxiety under control, so to clear my head, I decided to put it on. You focus on bits of your body and tense them and relax them from your feet up while breathing deeply and calmly. I lay there alone in bed, listening to the tape. When it got to the bit where it said ‘and now relax your left leg and your left foot’ I thought: ‘This is the last time I’m going to do this at home and this is the last time I’m going to have my leg here.’
Lying there alone in the dark with just the tape for company I got a strange sense of calm. This was it – I was saying goodbye to my leg for the final time. I count myself so lucky for moments like those as unlike some of the other guys at Headley Court, I didn’t wake up to my leg being missing. Instead I had time to say goodbye to it, as if it was a bereavement, but at the same time I felt I’d grieved enough and now it was time to say goodbye to it forever.
I was admitted to the hospital two days before my operation. Prior to being admitted I felt that Milly needed a holiday and a hospital was no place for a five-year-old, so Mum had agreed that she could stay with her in Cumbria. That allowed me to get some head space, with no distractions, to mentally prepare myself for the op. We agreed they’d all come down to see me post-op before taking her on holiday to Whitby and then placing her in our village primary school in Cumbria for a few months while I recuperated.
I’d barely slept a wink the night before my admission due to nervous excitement – I just wanted to crack on and have it done. Yet, at the same time, the reality of what I was doing had firmly sunk in. I don’t remember anything at all I said to Jamie on the way to the hospital. Putting my bag of clothes in the back of the car was the last concrete memory and then I was lost in my own thoughts until we pulled up right outside the main entrance. My mind was in overdrive, flooded by thoughts and sheer terror at what I was about to do. I kept thinking of Milly, my family, the fact that I would have one less limb. It was a jumbled-up mess, which I realise was probably due to extreme anxiety and the enormity of what I was about to do. There would be no going back from this and while I was ready, it was still terrifying.
The one thing I do remember asking Jamie repeatedly was would he still find me attractive with one leg? He kept reassuring me that he would but I wasn’t even listening to him. I just kept asking and asking him. I still felt hope in my heart and I knew I was doing the right thing but the minute we entered the hospital the real terror began. I was on my crutches as we walked across the foyer to check in and my head started to spin. Sick to the pit of my stomach, I started to shake with fear. There was no going back, but that didn’t make it any easier.
On the day of my operation, right from the start things didn’t go well. I had to have an epidural beforehand, which helps your brain forget the pain. The theory is that after you’ve had the amputation there will be no phantom limb pain as once you are put to sleep, the body will have no memory of you ever having experienced any pain where the amputation takes place, as you never felt it happen.
In reality, having the epidural was a nightmare as the doctor involved had trouble finding a place to put it in. I blame this on me being so grossly overweight that they just couldn’t get the right space on my spine. This meant the numbness worked on some parts of my body but not on others. I knew my twenty-one and a half stones would be a problem for the operation but I never expected it to hamper it this much before we’d even got off the starting blocks. The doctor concerned had to repeatedly administer the epidural but it just wouldn’t work in the way that it should have done.
I then had to just sit there for forty-five minutes being monitored before I went down to Theatre. During that time Jamie spoke to me to calm my nerves. It was the first time I thought: ‘Oh God, what if something goes wrong
and I can’t see Milly again?’ That time was awful and an absolute eternity. Thoughts raced through my mind. I was truly terrified about what I was about to do and what was going to happen to me. Jamie walked by my side, holding my hand as they took me down to Theatre. Ashen-faced, he looked more scared than me and I thought I could see tears in his eyes. Before saying he’d see me in a few hours he hugged me tight and told me everything was going to be alright and how much he loved me and couldn’t wait to see me after the surgery. We kissed and then I was taken through some doors on my trolley into Theatre.
I tried focusing on the strip lighting to control my fear. All I could think about was Milly and Jamie and how I couldn’t wait to hold both of them in my arms again. I was then given an injection to put me to sleep. Mr Porter squeezed my shoulder and said, ‘Don’t worry, Hannah. Everything is going to be OK.’ Then I was asked to count down from ten and when I got to eight everything went black.
The next, fleeting, memory I have is of waking up in bed and screaming in agony. The pain from where my leg had gone was like nothing I had ever felt before. Then I was instantly knocked out again. I found out later from one of the nurses the epidural hadn’t worked properly and that’s why I was in agony, and so they had to knock me out again straight away to try and stop my pain.
Sometime later I woke up again to find myself on the ward. The curtains were pulled round my bed and immediately I started trying to feel for my leg, which wasn’t there. I was on a huge amount of pain medication and I remember I kept reaching for my stump. Jamie was sat waiting for me with this massive grin on his face and a huge bunch of flowers. He just embraced me and told me he was so proud and how much he loved me. The first thing I asked was whether Milly was OK. He told me she was doing great and blissfully happy with my parents and none the wiser about what was going on. This was the first time in days that I actually felt I was beginning to relax for I knew Jamie and our beautiful daughter were fine and I’d come through the operation. Then Mum and Dad came in with Milly and my brothers. I was so pleased to see them. The job was done and now I could start focusing on the future and our life together.
Within a day I could push myself using my arms off my hospital trolley onto my bed. My family spent every minute of visiting hours by my bedside. Dad was messing around in my wheelchair and then taking lungfuls from my oxygen canister and we were laughing and joking. There was just a palpable sense of relief.
On the second day I had a surprise visitor: Kate Philp. It was such a kind gesture from her and a brilliant surprise for me. She brought me a plant for my room, some chocolate brownies and some fruit, as she knew how terrible the canteen could be in there. She was just so happy for me and we chatted about how I was feeling and how well the operation seemed to have gone. It was a morale boost and I was so thankful that she took the time to come there just to see me. But while she was visiting me I remember saying to her: ‘Kate, it’s so weird but at times I can’t get my breath.’ At that point it was only now and then so I was actually laughing about it, as I didn’t think it was serious. I wasn’t in any pain at this point because I was so doped up. I was taking a lot of drugs so I wasn’t quite with it; I thought it was odd but didn’t make a big deal. And to be honest, Kate’s visit was a massive diversion as it gave me a real boost.
But after she left I began to feel quite unwell and I started to intermittently gasp for air. At first the doctors thought I was coming down with flu. Mum came to see me, with Dad and my brothers, before she headed north with Milly. They had brought me a Nintendo DS game so I had something to amuse myself with when I was recuperating, but while I remember seeing their faces, I don’t recall anything else of the meeting. I didn’t know it then but my brain wasn’t getting enough oxygen for it to be actually making any memories. Mum seemed to have a sixth sense: she became really worried about me; she just felt something was not quite right and she didn’t want to leave me, but I insisted it was the right thing for Milly. I kissed her goodbye and repeated that this was no place for such a small child.
By the time Jamie arrived for visiting hours my chest had started to get really tight and I began wheezing quite badly. I phoned Mum several times as I started to feel worse and worse, and she told me to keep her in touch with what was happening. First, they moved me from a side room to be nearer the nurses’ station so they could keep a closer eye on me. Immediately, I rang Mum to tell her and she became more concerned than I’ve ever heard her sound. I said: ‘I’m just ringing, Mum, to tell you that I love you.’ I always seem to do that in a crisis – I just wanted to speak to my mum and let her know I love her and to hear that she loved me.
Later, when my breathing started to become laboured and I began panting, the doctors became increasingly concerned. I tried talking to Jamie but I was really struggling for breath and not making any sense whatsoever. Words were coming out of my mouth but they were all jumbled and slurred. He was concerned, but at first everyone thought with some intravenous antibiotics it would pass. Later, after visiting hours I continued to deteriorate until one of the doctors told me: ‘We are going to move you to Intensive Care, just to help with your breathing.’
That’s the last conscious memory I have before slipping into a coma.
CHAPTER NINE
COMA
Even now, Jamie says it was one of the worst moments of his life. It was shortly after 11pm on 1 June 2010 and he’d just settled down to sleep when he got a knock on the door of the special family room he was staying in at the hospital. A nurse told him he needed to get over to the ward right away as I had type 2 respiratory failure and sepsis, a condition that was causing all the organs in my body to slowly shut down. Jamie immediately knew how serious it was. He has told me since then that he ran over to the ward without even shutting the door, following the medical officer. It was clear I was dying and he knew he had to get to me.
In the short space of time before he got there I had been put in a medically induced coma and still he was not allowed to see me. At the time they were working on me to try and do everything possible to save me. He just had to sit on his own in the relatives’ room anxiously waiting for any news. I was so ill I wasn’t even moved to Intensive Care at that point as it was deemed too risky. Within hours I was transferred there on full life support with a machine breathing for me. It was absolutely horrific as we’d gone through so much and for this to happen, on top of everything else, was too cruel to bear. With any kind of surgery there are always risks but I was just one of the few very unlucky people who developed a complication. I blame my weight, as the heavier you are when you have major surgery, the likelihood of complications increases. But doctors have since told me I was just very, very unlucky. I never breathed deeply after I came round from the surgery and I think this made my lungs sticky and then I got pneumonia. This infection led to sepsis and my immune system was so weakened that my organs went into full failure almost straight away. It was a domino effect and the doctors feared I might not make it.
Knowing Mum and Dad must be exhausted from the drive north, it wasn’t until the following morning that Jamie broke the news. Mum had only arrived in Whitby a matter of hours earlier, but she immediately said: ‘If Hannah’s in Intensive Care and there’s any chance at all that she’s going to die, then she’s going to die with her family around her.’ She dropped Milly off with my aunty, who lived in the town, and immediately drove south again, picking up Dad en route. They arrived by my bedside at 8.30pm, long after visiting hours, and were taken into a side room with a big box of tissues on the table and given a cup of tea. The doctor explained I’d developed an infection, they didn’t know what it was and they were growing cultures to try and find out.
Mum asked: ‘Is Hannah going to die?’
‘Yes, she could do,’ the doctor admitted. She explained that without the respirator I would have already died as the infection was causing too much carbon dioxide and not enough oxygen. I was young, strong and fit, which was in my favour, but my weight was
against my recovery and could also have been a contributing factor to what was happening.
When Mum came to my bedside she says it wasn’t me lying there – it was like a shell of me with nothing else there at all. She touched me and there was no response; a respirator was breathing for me, my cheeks were flushed and I was hot to touch. There were six syringe drivers pumping a cocktail of drugs and antibiotics into me, countless beeping machines and two dedicated nurses working on me all the time. Heartbreakingly, there was no response when she spoke to me. Nothing at all, not even a curling of the fingers. Where my leg should have been the sheet of the bed was just flat, smooth and untouched. But no one worried about that, they just wanted me back.
Each day of my coma was monotonous. Only two visitors were allowed at a time, so everyone took it in turns so there was always someone with me during visiting hours. Mum would come first thing, ring a bell for access to Critical Care and then wait in a side room for the nurse to come and collect her once I was ready. Once they sat beside me, they talked to me. In Intensive Care at the time there were lots of other Army injured, including a number of Gurkhas, and their parents would be doing the same, so there was a quiet hum of voices in the ward.
The nurses did everything for me and the other desperately ill patients. They combed my hair, shaved the men who were also in the ward, and all my bodily functions were taken care of with various tubes. Mum would watch families arriving each day, including the Gurkha mums, who would always arrive in brightly coloured dresses and were often accompanied by a member of their regiment to support and translate. Mum wondered what they must have thought, coming from a different culture to see their son horrifically injured in Intensive Care.
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