Hi Everyone, Please spare a few minutes to read my story, any help you feel you could give would help enormously and be gratefully appreciated. This is Our Story : Mine and my 3 children’s life was turned upside down overnight....... On Monday 15th May my husband Kevin, a mechanical engineer specialist aged 48, was working on his late shift. Half an hour before his shift ended his heart stopped - he had a cardiac arrest! His company did have a defib, but unfortunately it wasn’t on the wall when it happened. So, one of his work colleagues volunteered to start CPR chest compressions immediately and continued to do so until the Paramedics arrived. This helped towards saving my husband's life, for which will be eternally grateful. The paramedics arrived in 7 minutes and had to use a Defib 5 times to bring his heart back and get him stable. He was blue lighted to St George’s Hospital in London where the heart specialists and team were waiting to whisk him for tests, they put him straight into an induced coma. After 4 days by his side in the critical unit, they decided to slowly bring him out of sedation. However, sadly Kevin had another cardiac arrest. My teenage Daughter and I were by his bedside and witnessed this, such a traumatic thing to see and something my daughter and I will visualise forever! The Medical team shocked his heart once again to restart the heart, and to stabilise him he was returned to the induced coma once more. Kevin was kept fully sedated for days, continually on a ventilator, had lots of treatment and drugs etc, then on the 24th of May I was taken into a private room and told that if they tried again to wake him and take him off sedation, they didn’t know what to expect. I should prepare myself that he could have brain damage or may not even come out of this. (How do you tell 3 children that.) The consultants slowly reduced the medications to try wake him again for the second time, they needed to see if he could breathe on his own and to see what the heart would do on its own. Kevin eventually woke up and was taken off the ventilator and most of the drugs. Over the next week he started to try to talk, move his arms and fingers, legs and feet and slowly with baby steps we were told he should get back to his independent self with a NEW Normal life over time. He had MRI scans, CT scans to see what was happening to the heart because they had no idea why this should have happened especially to a fit and healthy man. His arteries were not blocked, there were no blood clots on his lungs or brain. It was a mystery and they needed to work out why and what had caused it. Tests will be ongoing and some we may have to pay for ourselves that he can’t get through the NHS. He was put onto a heart failure ward for almost another 2 weeks and eventually on the 9th of June he had an operation to insert an ICTD. This is a device which is a combination of a pacemaker to keep the heart in rhythm and a Defib to shock the heart if the heart fails for any reason. Kevin is finally home but recovery will be very slow. We don’t know exactly how long it will take before he can resume a normal life again and he will never be able to go completely back to his life he knew before, Which is a lot for him to digest. Kevin has never been unemployed and has been qualified in his career all his life, however, unfortunately due to him changing Companies last year he will not be getting paid as he has not been with the Company long enough to be entitled to the company sick pay scheme. He is only entitled to government statutory sick pay which is less than our shopping bill for a family of 5 comes too each week!! Also, the cherry on top of the cake is, his PSV driving licence has been taken away, leaving us in a frightening financial state, specialists say, his job is classed as a manual job, the license specialised him to drive the vehicles he works on, so he will not be able to do this in future due to the device being fitted. This doesn’t mean that one day he will not find or cannot work again, it just means maybe not doing what he did so intense before. He is also not able to drive nor be able to be on his own for at least 6 months while his heart tries to heal and in case the Defib in his heart should go off. We are not entitled to any government benefit help and yet both of us have paid taxes all our life since age 16. Adjusting to our new normal life, which is now medication for life, non-stop hospital appointments and the list goes on. The anxiety, fear and emotional strain put on myself trying to keep it altogether for us all scares the life out of me and I am trying to find the strength to keep my family lead a normal life. Plus get my youngest to primary school, my middle to secondary and eldest to college. I can’t do a full-time job because I still need to be there for my husband and children. As you can imagine mentally this has affected him and us as a family. I felt so upset when he said to me recently, it would have been best if he had passed away because at least we would have had his insurance money and all our finances would be paid. If anyone can help in any way to help raise enough we thank you from the whole of our hearts, your love and support in the most horrible time, helping my husband, me and my 3 children get through this time in our lives and help Kevin with his recovery programme that will help him and us get back on track for the next year then you all will be forever in our hearts. Sending Kindness, love, and hugs The Hardings X
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