How an accident changed our marriage forever
Rebecca Armstrong reflects on her and her husband’s emotional journey
As I nipped to the pub after work with some colleagues, I left my husband Nick, 49, a voicemail to tell him where I was. It was February, the week after his birthday and two months after the last Christmas of our old lives. Half an hour later, my phone rang. I answered, thinking it would be Nick telling me what he’d be cooking for dinner, but it was a policeman telling me my husband had been hit by a car, and was unresponsive at the scene. A police car picked me up, lights blazing and sirens roaring.
As we sped to the hospital, everything felt unreal. “Please be okay, please be okay,” I chanted in my head. I couldn’t imagine life without him. We’d been together for 10 years, married for five. He was my partner in crime and my best friend. Despite being 12 years older than me, my husband was a big kid at heart, buying all manner of Lego, gadgets and Day-glo trainers.
At the hospital, I stood in a dim corridor, waiting to see Nick in A&E. Lying on a trolley, my lovely man was still and cold, his eyes closed. I held his hand and whispered to him that things would be okay. In the days and weeks that followed – while we waited to discover the severity of the brain injury he’d suffered, when the car had tossed him into the air and on to the road – I had to keep whispering it to myself, too. I became a daily visitor to the intensive care ward, where he lay in a state of disordered consciousness (essentially a coma), and I read to him and told him stories about life outside the hospital. I cut his fingernails and washed his face. The seasons changed from winter to spring, the evenings lightened and the trees regained their leaves, and he was moved to another hospital near our home, then another hospital an hour’s drive away.
I MISSED HIM LIKE A LIMB. I MISSED HIM AT HOME,
in bed, when I travelled to and from the hospital. I’d never been lonelier. I wondered whether I’d ever hear his voice again, whether he’d ever wake up and if he’d even know who I was if he did. I howled into the night sometimes, but I had to keep going, for him, and for his 11-year-old daughter, Mia. She lived with her mum and stepdad, but I was determined to be there for her. I also had to step up – when his bank found out about the accident, it froze all of his direct debits, and bills started building up. We hadn’t given each other power of attorney, so I had to apply to the court of protection and wait months to be able to sort out our finances. I also contacted 30 companies to take over his commitments. My sanity was put under strain.
Then one afternoon, almost six months after the accident, Nick started to make noises. Gasping, growling, but definitely an attempt to talk. I nearly burst with happiness. I fed him tiny spoonfuls of strawberry yoghurt (until then he’d been hooked up to a tube that pumped liquid into his stomach). It felt odd to be spoonfeeding my husband, but it was one of the best meals of my life.
But with the ability to sort-of communicate came shouting, raging and, eventually, swearing. Some nights
I WONDERED whether I’d ever HEAR his voice again, whether he’d ever wake up and if he’d even know who I was if he did
I’d leave the ward to the sound of Nick screaming for me, tears pouring down my face. I felt constantly guilty – I was never at work enough, I was never with Nick enough. I had to learn that in order to keep going back to his bedside, I had to leave. A therapist at the hospital told me it was unlikely Nick would remember any of this, but I was haunted by the thought of him being alone.
IT WAS ALMOST A YEAR LATER WHEN HE LEFT HOSPITAL.
Not to come home – I don’t know if he’ll ever physically be able to get into our basement flat, and the accident didn’t just shatter his mind, it left him in a wheelchair, unable to use his right arm – but to a neurological care home. I didn’t really have any choice about where he went, but was told it was the right move. He had his own room and his own TV, even if he didn’t know what country he was in. Finally I could spend a night by his side, sleeping on a camp bed next to him. I felt nervous the first night, but we soon got into a routine of me staying three nights a week. I felt like his wife again, albeit one who also had heavy caring and secretarial duties.
I didn’t know anyone in the area (an hour’s drive away from our flat) but found company in the pub opposite the care home. As Nick got his bearings, I took him there. It was a tiny slice of life that felt almost normal.
That first Christmas was hard. I spent Christmas Eve next to Nick on my camp bed, and we opened presents on Christmas morning. I fed him his turkey lunch and felt my heart break as I left him to drive to my mum’s so I could have a sliver of a festive day. I cried over the crackers, wishing he could be there.
Meanwhile, I spent so long trying not to think of how things were, and what we’d lost, that I found it hard to remember exactly what it was like. How did it feel being in bed with Nick? What did he smell like before he was sick? In protecting myself I worried I’d forgotten too much. But slowly, Nick started to come back.
It’s said that with brain injuries, people make the most gains in the first two years afterward, but can continue to make progress after that. He laughs at the same things and has the same likes and dislikes, but he’s much more childlike, shouting at people he doesn’t like, obsessing about tiny things and he gets tired very easily. He loves to eat and have a drink, and to lie next to me holding my hand and talking about our lives before the accident. Being intimate is difficult in a care home – staff barge in and out, the door doesn’t lock. Our sex life isn’t what it was, but we try to stay connected despite the circumstances.
Late last year, I managed to find a care home two villages away from where my parents live in Kent. I couldn’t cope any longer without back-up from my family, and Nick needed to be around people he knew, not stuck in a facility in the middle of nowhere. I have never fought harder than I did to get Nick moved. It was my first encounter with social services and they will be a constant in our lives, something I find hard to bear. But it was worth it. He is happy, and although he misses London, he loves the new home and how respectful and friendly the staff are. He has cooking lessons and has managed to learn how to answer his mobile phone when I call, as I always do, twice a day.
Now I work in London during the week and stay with Nick at the weekends. We hang out at my dad and stepmother’s house, sharing Saturday dinner with them and their friends. I see my mum more now than I have since I was a child, and it’s lovely. I worry that we’ve invaded their lives, and that I expect too much, but the support they give us makes getting used to this new life easier. I see my teenage siblings every week and am incredibly proud of my 15-year-old brother who volunteers at Nick’s care home.
I was always a visitor to my family, now I’m part of their lives and I’m navigating what that means: babysitting, running errands, not being grumpy when they do things I don’t agree with. I feel indebted to them and hope I am embodying what they taught me: do your best and try to see the bright side.
NICK AND I HAVE BEEN THROUGH HELL,
and the life I thought was mine is gone. But this much I know: I love my husband. I am closer with my family than I have ever been. I have a new-found appreciation for life that I would never have discovered otherwise. Our life together is peppered with tiny moments of joy: when he reaches out to hold my hand, when he cracks a perfectly timed joke, when he remembers things about our past that I’ve forgotten myself.
I still love Nick and we’ve got each other – and a future. We’re both looking forward to Christmas this year, to good food and snuggling up watching films. It won’t be like the ones we used to have, where we would cook a feast together after a morning drinking Champagne in bed. But now, we have more to celebrate than ever.
I spent so long TRYING not to think of what we’d LOST, that I found it hard to REMEMBER exactly what it was like