MY LIGHT BULB MOMENT
Katy MaHOOD, 39, is a novelist. She lives in Bristol with her husband Matt, a teacher, and their daughters, seven and nine. IT WAS a hot Sunday afternoon in July 2013 when my husband Matt called me into the garden. ‘There’s something wrong with my head,’ he said. ‘I’m making odd connections.’ I remember him saying if he looked at the clouds, he experienced the sensation of granite.
‘You’ve probably got a bit of sunstroke,’ I told him. Friends came round for a barbecue and he was fine, but that evening he started to feel very unwell. The next morning he said: ‘I’m not sure where I am.’
I took our two daughters off to nursery and came home to get him checked out. Upstairs, I found Matt having a seizure.
I rang an ambulance and he went to A&E. We learned he had viral encephalitis, which swells the brain. It affected the area where memories are made, hence the odd connections his brain made. Matt was in hospital for two weeks. He couldn’t drive for a while and had a phased return to work.
After a couple of years of medication, the doctors said he was back to where he was before, essentially. He was incredibly lucky.
I had been carrying the family and working at a cancer charity, often commuting to London. Once we knew Matt was OK, I hit a wall. I knew life could suddenly change. I asked myself, if I was going to die tomorrow, would I have regrets?
Living in London in my 20s, I was curious about how strangers’ lives might intersect. It sparked an idea for a novel. But I’d never seen writing as ‘a proper job’. I was offered a promotion at work and was chuffed, but told Matt: ‘I don’t think I can do it.’ He said: ‘What do you need to do?’ I replied: ‘I just need four months to finish this story.’
Once, this would have seemed insane. But the experience had changed Matt, too. ‘OK,’ he said, ‘do it.’ So I gave up my job and finished writing the book — including a scene where one character’s husband suddenly becomes ill.
I took a leap in the dark, but I wouldn’t have taken that leap if it hadn’t been for Matt’s illness. It brought fear into our family, but taught us uncertainty can lead you where you most want to be.
EntanglEMEnt by Katy Mahood is published on March 22 by Borough Press at £12.99.