Thank goodness for Madeira cake!

Friday April 5th, 2019 began like any other. I was 61. My wife has had MS for 38 years and is wheelchair bound and I work from home. Friday is the day our cleaner comes, and I often bake something, as much for therapeutic reasons as anything else. That day, I decided to bake a Madeira cake. My brother had been harping onto me for weeks to make one for him. What spurred me on to bake one that day, remains a mystery!

I took delivery of a new rise recliner chair, made lunch for the three of us, and I settled down into my chair to enjoy the sandwich. I did not have a bite. Two things happened at the same time. Sitting in my chair, I went into Cardiac Arrest and the exact second that happened, my brother, who I had messaged a short time before to tell him to come and collect his Madeira cake, walked in through the front door!

He took one look at me, slapped me a couple of times to check I was not taking the Michael, then immediately threw me out of the chair onto the floor and being a trained first aider, began CPR. His wife dialled 999 at 12.54. Following arrival of both Paramedic crew and specialist Doctor, 7 shocks and 5 doses of Adrenalin & Amidarone, ROSC was timed at 13.13. Within seconds I arrested a second time with ROSC at 13.36.

After phoning 999, my sister in law rang my two sons who both arrived with the ambulance crew. Our cleaner took care of my wife, trying to shield her from having to look at me as they worked on me. My two sons were able to watch proceedings and all I can think of subsequently, was how difficult it must have been for them looking at their dad.

The upshot was, I transferred from the emergency hospital to another and had a single stent fitted. Like many others, I had a narrowing of an artery which was corrected by a simple stent operation. I was put into an enforced coma with my bloods being cooled.

I was taken off life support and out of the enforced coma on the Sunday evening and apparently nursed by a young chap I had coached at my local rugby club for 6 years! Of course, I have no recollection of any of this. My family had been told that when coming out of the coma, they would not know if I would be impaired or absolutely fine. Seemingly my family were around me on the Monday morning, when a young physio came in, since I had not been out of bed, and said, ‘ come on David, let us go for a little walk and see how things are.’ I replied, look at me, threw the bed clothes off and said, I can do star jumps and proceeded to!

I was transferred to another hospital on Tuesday 9th April where I spent a week or so. I had no understanding as to what had happened or why I was there. When you are ill, you lose all ability to rationalise things. All I wanted to do was get back home to look after my wife. On the Thursday, my consultant came to see me and I asked about being released. He said to me, you should not be here. I agreed and said I wanted to go home, to which re replied, no, you do not follow me. YOU SHOULD NOT BE HERE! He said he would come back to see me after the weekend, and if I could remember his name, that would be a good start. When he left, I wrote his name down but by the time my pen lifted from the paper, it had gone. So, I logged onto the hospital website, downloaded a picture, created a screensaver and wrote his name across it and thought when he came back, I would cheat!

He did not turn up! On the Tuesday in came one of his co workers. I asked what I needed to do to be released and was told I could take a MOKA test and needed to score 26 out of 30. I sat it and somehow scored 28. I had failed to answer 2 questions as opposed to answering and getting them wrong. Since I had completed the task set, even though the Doctor was not happy I was allowed home!

All in, it was a very humbling experience. Over time, I realised that without the love and support of my family, things might have been very different. It took me many months to come to terms with what had happened. To understand the difference between a heart attack and a cardiac arrest. To learn to live with some memory issues. To be forced into immediate retirement. For 25 years I had given very detailed financial advice and to be flatly turned down by my professional indemnity insurers as being too high a risk was a body blow. But, two years on and I am happy with my lot.

I continue to bake cakes on Fridays and still make Madeira cakes. As a parting thought, some unanswerable questions are: why did I chose that morning to bake a Madeira cake for my brother, why did he turn up at exactly the second he did, why did the doctor continue to work on and on and on, well past the normal time limit of 20 minutes? I might never know the answer to these questions. When people say to me, well, it is obvious……God did not want you on that time and date. I reply, well, what happens if actually he did want me but my brother came along and interrupted!

Thank you for allowing me to unburden myself.