Friday 19 April 2013

19th April 2012

Having had a bit of a horrendous cycle home in torrential rain, I entered Devonshire Road on 19th April 2012 at approximately 6pm, dripping wet, dragging my bicycle behind me and trying to peel off two dogs who were extremely eager to see me.

The house phone was ringing when I opened the front door of the flat, but due to my dripping state, I let it go to voicemail.
It was when I heard John's PA, Jackie's frantic, urgent voice that I dropped everything, my bike, my clothes, the dogs, everything, and I ran to the phone.

"John has been taken ill, he's been helicoptered to Bremen, it's serious, you need to be with him in Germany".

My world fell out of my arse.

From that moment on, our old life, our life together was over, it was never, ever going to be how it was, ever again.

Not 15 minutes after I spoke to Jackie, the phone rang again.
I didn't think twice, I answered it immediately.
It was Dr. Gemsa, a member of the Critical Care Team in Bremen. 
Dr. Gemsa would become, in my eyes, an absolute Angel.

"Mr. McKenna, you need to speak to your Husband, he's going into Theatre now."

John was already going under the anaesthetic and all I got was a garbled, wobbly "honey" (he called me Honey more often than not).

I blurted out "I Love You"....these are the last words that I know he heard me say....such strong emotive words, yet at the time, so useless and small and ineffective. I hope he found some kind of strength from them, I'll never know. 

Almost immediately Dr. Gemsa came back on the line and told me that they had to go but that I should get there as soon as I could.

John had suffered an Aortic Dissection and needed urgent surgery to repair the rupture. The excellent team in Bremen performed the first heart and lung bypass that night.

While John was having emergency surgery in Germany I spent the entire night in the UK, into the early hours, calling friends and family, trying to find a flight, arrange dog and chicken sitters, inform my Boss that I wasn't going to work in the morning, organise our lives in the UK, speak to John's colleagues in Germany, and worrying.....lots and lots of worrying!

And that was it, "our life together" was over.

We would never speak to each other again.
We would never cuddle again.
We would never kiss again.
We would never talk to each other again.
We would never walk the dogs again.
We would never go to the allotment again.
We would never go on holiday again.
He would never return to our home.

We would never be together again.

We would never be again.

"We" as we knew it, were over.

1 comment:

  1. I just cried while reading. It took me straight back to the phone call from my mother, sounding totally confused. Dad was in hospital, it was serious and I had to come straight away.
    It will be three years next Tuesday that he suffered an aortic dissection.
    I can still recall it as if I've just just received the call. My stomach just turns and turns.
    And I still wish that I would have had a chance to have talked to him, however briefly…

    Big hug.

    Brendan

    ReplyDelete