On Tuesday morning I got a call at 7.45am to say she wasn’t well and I should come in to hospital. I had a builder coming to quote for the changes we needed to make to Templars so waited for him to arrive and showed him what we needed. I got to Addenbrookes at 9.15am to find her very confused. She knew I was there and I again talked to her about fighting on and beating this stage of her illness. Whilst talking to her she became worse and the nurse called the SHO in. He told me he thought she was going to die in the next few minutes and that he had called the crash team and ICU. Crash arrived first and the SHO made the nurses take me to the Relative’s room – unbelievable. I stood in that room praying as hard as I have never prayed before – just repeating please God incessantly. D4 must have rung Mr Malata because Ian Grant appeared from theatre and got me back into her room. Shortly after I got back into the room, which was full with about 10 people, she crashed. I was hysterical up until that point crying uncontrollably but just before they said she’d crashed I was enveloped in a blanket of calmness. All the worry and fear disappeared to be left with a feeling of it was all ok. I remember Kirsty holding my arm and asking if I was alright and replying in a calm and rational voice that I was fine. They started CPR, her heart started again. She resuscitated and whatever drugs they’d given her gave her the strength to come back and continue the fight. I spoke to Kirsty, the ward sister, who explained that she had been all right in the middle of the night when the duty nurses had changed her bed linen but that at about 5am she became confused. They took a blood sample, which showed that her blood sugar level was very low. They gave her some glucose gel orally and she recovered immediately. Then at 7am she became confused again and they gave her an intravenous dose of dextrose and again she recovered but for a shorter time. When they called me at 7.45am she was worse and they thought that I should come in.

After about an hour she was moved to ICU again and through the day made strong progress. Siobhan, again the ward sister looked after her all day. Florrie & Joey came in and we all saw a steady improvement in her; she was following people around the room with her eyes, was communicating with us although with difficulty and knew what was going on. She was on morphine and adrenaline to help with the pain and to support her heart and seemed to be responding well. Florrie left at about 5pm and Joey went back to Hardys at about 7.00pm. I sat with her reading until 8.30pm when I went downstairs for a fag and something to eat. When I returned at 9.15pm Ruth, who had looked after her on the first day she came in and a lot subsequently and had taken over from Alex at 7ish, told me that her breathing had weakened to such an extent that they were going to intubate her. This was not helped by the morphine she was on. At that stage there was the SHO, Ruth and Barbara with her – 2 other nurses subsequently came in to assist. They in the crash trolley and the equipment needed for the intubation and other gadgetry. The consultant, Mr Navapurka, arrived and told me that the intubation was a very risky procedure for Tits and that he didn’t expect her to live through it. The risk was very high but they had to do it or else she would die anyway. Even then I didn’t really believe that she would die, she’d proved so many doctors and nurses wrong so many times and I was convinced that she’d do it again.

Monday 04th November

I was, I admit, scared but still believed she’d be fine. He began intubating her and her heartbeat became very erratic, they commenced CPR and administered more adrenaline. I was beside her bed holding her hand for most of the procedure. After about 20 minutes of almost continuous CPR Mr Navapurka said that he thought there was no point continuing and that her heart was too weak to support her. Again just before she died a feeling of total calmness came over me – I know it was her telling me that everything was OK and she’d be alright. She died at 10.20pm exactly six months to the day she was first admitted. The feeling of loss and sorrow was unbearable. Ruth started to remove the lines etc and I rang home and told Dad, then Florrie. I sat with her crying and praying and cursing and doing nothing but hold her hand. I went downstairs for a fag and then returned to sit with her again. Florrie & Joey arrived and saw her individually, Joey was particularly hard hit. Mr Navapurka and Ruth took me to the relative’s room and explained what I had to do next. They thought there would be a post mortem (there wasn’t in the end, the coroner decided that given her case history it would be unnecessary) but that she had died of septicaemia. It was likely that her liver had been damaged and that she had an internal bleed, probably an ulcer had been attacked by the sepsis. Even had her heart, which had always been so strong, not failed her she would not have survived that renewed attack of septicaemia.

Dad took me home but before we left I went up to C5 to let whoever was on duty know. I saw Sonia and she was devastated, we hugged and cried together and then I left. I told the children first thing on Wednesday morning and after lunch we went back to Addenbrookes to see Titania in the chapel of rest. Jan Rand, the children’s ward counsellor, who advised me with Emma right at the beginning about her to help the children cope, talked to them first with Mum & Dad whilst I dealt with the paperwork. When we saw her she looked beautiful and at peace. It was harrowing but worthwhile, I think, for all of us – it allowed us to say goodbye to her and remember her properly.

That night we had a series of short electricity cuts, between 6 and 10 the longest lasting no more than 5 minutes. I called the electricity board who said they had had no other reports from our area but would look in to it. I have yet to hear back from them three weeks later. I subsequently heard, via Mum, that power cuts are very common after someone dies – I believe she came back to see us all and that her “spirit” interfered in some way with the electricity supply.

On Thursday Tara came down from Yorkshire and she, Alex and I created her order of service. The rest of the week was spent organising the funeral and finishing unpacking etc. It was a blur really.

On Monday 21st October we again went to see Tits in the Great Dunmow chapel of rest to say our final goodbyes. Mum & Dad came with us and Fr John Timmins came to pray for her soul. Again it was harrowing but again allowed us to say a final goodbye, however awful it was I am deeply glad for both the children’s sake and mine that we saw her.

On Tuesday we had Felix’s Baptism and her funeral – a combined service that was to me essential, she wouldn’t have wanted to miss his Baptism. It was almost a complete blur but was I know the most fantastic service, the drunken work we put into it on Thursday was worth it. About 300 people attended and we raised £1980.00 for C5 & ICU.

I am told, though I didn’t see it, that at the exact moment her coffin was lowered into the grave a gust of wind blew a large flock of crows into the air in the next door field and they circled in a mob away from the grave. The people who saw it say that they all felt it was her spirit in that mob soaring into the sky.

After the reception, which I spent hugging people in the foyer (I felt an extraordinary calmness all that day and hardly wept at all, again I felt her presence with me in an intense and very real way) we were walking past Thaxted Church, where the service had been held, and a kestrel was hovering directly above the spire. As we drew closer to the Church it spiralled down to the left and soared away. Was it her, who knows but at that moment I thought it was or at least a symbol of our love and devotion to each other.

I guess this is the end of this diary, it was meant to be a record of her hospitalisation and her journey to recovery but the end wasn’t what I expected. I miss her daily and loved her deeply – perhaps too deeply. Although we only had 17 years together they were wonderful, we lived fully and loved intensely. The last six months allowed us to realise together how much we meant to each other and to express that love each and every day. I did as much as anyone could do for her; perhaps I could have done more, perhaps not. I realised on the first Friday that I now know what the word bereft actually means and I feel each day as if I am missing half of me.

LET PERPETUAL LIGHT SHINE UPON HER, O LORD, AND MAY HER SOUL AND THE SOULS OF ALL THE FAITHFUL DEPARTED REST IN PEACE. AMEN