Nicely, I made it to 10 years … and OMG, what a ten years it’s been! I’m not going to lie. It hasn’t all been a mattress of roses. The primary 12 to 18 months have been fairly horrific, to be sincere, it positively acquired worse earlier than it acquired higher. SCA UK, which I’m now so so proud to be a trustee of, didn’t even exist again then. So, it was all as much as me to determine issues out alone. I had no concept of the enormity of what had occurred to me.
Deserted
I felt deserted by the NHS and, on the identical time, grateful to them for saving my life.
I didn’t perceive why I had no vitality, and I couldn’t do even the best of duties with out getting out of breath.
I didn’t know why I may keep in mind that the sq. on the hypotenuse equals the sum of the squares on the opposite two sides, however I couldn’t bear in mind what I’d had for breakfast or even when I’d had breakfast.
I didn’t perceive why I felt completely okay in the future and bordering on suicidal the subsequent.
I didn’t perceive why I didn’t wish to go residence on the finish of the day. A sense that acquired stronger and stronger till it acquired to the purpose that we needed to transfer home.
Oh, and I positively didn’t imagine for one second that I’d survive 10 years!
However survive I’ve, thanks in no small half to this group and a few of the wonderful folks that I’ve met alongside the way in which … you recognize who you might be
I now have a decade of reminiscences that I in any other case wouldn’t have had. I used to be unhappy to lose my father 12 months after my arrest and my mom just some weeks in the past, however I now have glad reminiscences of each of them that I didn’t have earlier than and not less than I didn’t put them by means of the trauma of it being the opposite approach round. I misplaced my best pal in the entire world, within the cruellest of ironies, to an SCA, however earlier than she handed, Sue and I have been capable of share some wonderful instances collectively along with her and her husband in New York.
I’ve visited international locations that I by no means thought I’d go to, made buddies that I had no concept I’d make, acquired caught in Istanbul for one of the best a part of 18 months by means of Covid and acquired caught in South Africa for two months, once more because of Covid (in the midst of their summer time, that one wasn’t a lot of a trauma, to be sincere! ).
I’ve survived a stroke, an unintended overdose by means of not having adequate short-term reminiscence to grasp that I’d already taken my tablets that morning, a “cardiac occasion” on a flight from Milan to Birmingham that needed to make an emergency touchdown in Paris, a journey on skyscraper rooftop rollercoaster in Las Vegas (that wasn’t my finest resolution ever ), a collapse on a personal seashore, miles from wherever in southern Turkey simply after rising drunk from the ocean at 1 am (don’t ask! ) and quite a few different scrapes and escapes that can take far too lengthy to element.
Forgotten, Not Forgotten
All through all of this, she stood resolutely by my aspect and has been my forgotten affected person, the wonderful Sue Bullock. By no means as soon as wavering even in my darkest of moments, and by no means as soon as doubted me even after I doubted myself. We’ve smiled, laughed, shouted and cried, however we’re nonetheless right here, nonetheless going robust, nonetheless making reminiscences
Right here’s to the subsequent ten years !!
I’ve been a member of SCA UK because the starting, possibly even earlier than the start, as I used to be on the first assembly in London, the place the thought was conceived. I’m an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survivor and have been by means of an analogous journey to a lot of our survivor members. I’m enthusiastic about serving to as many others as attainable navigate the minefield of survivorship. I’m hoping that the abilities I’ve developed each by means of my working life as an engineer/businessman and as a survivor will help SCA UK to realize that objective because it strikes into a brand new chapter as a registered charity. I’m extremely proud to be a trustee of that charity and am excited to see the place this new journey takes us.