I’m Amelia, I’m 22 and my father was in a coma for 57 days. My story starts in 2016. I was 12 years old. ….

 

We went skiing as a family, within a few days I ended up getting extremely poorly. My dad was the next to go down with it… the flu. At the end of the week we got on a flight home. We all had fevers, horrible coughs, full head colds. My dad was never poorly. He was extremely fit, active, strong as an ox. He did not get better. The following days were excruciating. Me and my mum watched his condition worsen. He had extreme fatigue, confusion, shortness of breath, coughing, no appetite. I remember begging him to see the doctor. My father is a stubborn man, he refused wanting to wait for GP on Monday.

 

We had flown home on the Saturday, it was now Monday morning. I wasn’t allowed into his bedroom. He didn’t want me to see him in the state he was in. His breathing was loud and ragged, I could hear it from the hallway. I can still hear it to this day. Before I could grasp what was happening my dad was whisked away in an ambulance. 

I spent the next weeks moving from one house to another.

The nights were the worst. In the day I could distract myself. My family banded around me. They acted like bubble wrap, trying desperately to protect me. But at night I slept in a strange bed, in a strange house, alone with my worst fear… that I might lose my beloved father. I didn’t grow up religious but I would pray and pray. I would go to sleep with my fingers crossed, I’d wake up in the morning with my fingers still crossed. I wished I’d wake up the next morning to the sound of my parents in the kitchen, the smell of coffee and the speaker playing music- that it was all just some terrible dream. It wasn’t. 

 

My dad had been in a coma for a week. I had only seen my mum for hours at a time at this point, every few days. I remember walking into the ward, the smell of hospitals. Walking to where my mum had been sleeping in a private room. I had given my dad the flu that nearly killed him. This meant that me and my mum had to go to see him in full PPE, a thick mask, plastic screen mask, gloves, full plastic bibs and plastic shoe covers. It was suffocating. We Greeted the nurses my mum now knew well, but to me they were all strange faces. Walked down the unit, the beeps sounding out from every room. Tried not to listen to the ventilators, the coughing. I caught sight of him through the window. The nurses told him I was there and I remember seeing him try to lift his head, the beeps on the monitor quickening. He was fighting to see me. I just remember wanting him to rip his lines out, jump out of bed and hold me. To tell me he was fine and that the nurses had made a mistake. 

 

It was bright in his room. I was terrified but tried not to show it. I remember my eyes trailed around the walls at the pictures they’d put up on his board. The cards. Then his monitor. The dialysis machine where I could see his blood flowing around tubes. That was his blood, that was supposed to be in his body, but it wasn’t. And then the sound of his breathing. Like a scuba diver or an astronaut. His body was so lifeless. The tube down his throat- it looked so uncomfortable. The tube was obviously hurting him and he didn’t want any of it. I couldn’t hug him, I didn’t even feel like I could touch him. He looked so fragile. I didn’t know what to say. So my mum told me to speak about my day. The mask was sticking to my face. I was boiling hot. I told him what I thought he would have found funny but he wasn’t laughing. And then nausea hit me, I tried to continue. I couldn’t breathe, I got half way through telling him when I bottled it. I told my mum I had to leave otherwise I was going to be sick. The nurse lead me out to the corridor. She sat me on a backless stool and handed me water in a paper cone, like the ones they gave us in primary school. I didn’t go back in after that. In fact I didn’t see him at all until he woke up.

 

I believed everyone was lying to me, that they were being protective and wouldn’t allow me in on the secret of my dad’s dire condition. He was in multi-organ failure and not expected to survive. I will never forget the day my mum eventually told me. My world crumbled, I heard myself begging, “Please lie to me, tell me it’s not true. Please lie and tell me he’s going to be okay, I don’t want him to die”. She did the right thing by telling me the truth, and I cannot express the importance of honesty, after that conversation she began hiding the truth again. It caused a lot of trust issues down the line. 

 

My dad had awful delirium, and when eventually he woke up, he was nothing like his normal self. He looked at me with disdain. I hated it and didn’t want to be near him. I resented going to see him. Actually a big reason for that was seeing my dad so vulnerable, and having his dignity taken. I felt rejected by how cold he was. I hated sponging his lips and holding his hand. It was overwhelming, abnormal and too scary to bear. But I missed him so very much. 

 

He was released in August.  We were all paranoid about him doing absolutely anything, just because his body was so unpredictable. In physio he’d had multiple falls and fainting spells, but my dad being my dad, he would still stubbornly go to walk to dogs by himself. I would obsessively watch by the window.

Every time I would hear his bedroom door open I would freeze, listen intently. Every cough, every thump was heart stopping. We were all so on edge. Me and my mum had a conversation where we both decided to try and be a bit more relaxed about it so my dad didn’t feel patronised. My niece had stayed this particular day. She came into my room in the morning, we had a cuddle and went downstairs together. I remember hearing someone to get up and use the bathroom. I heard a bang but didn’t really register it. About 10 minutes passed. My mum then got up. I remember hearing her footsteps and her calling my dads name softly, then more urgently. My heart sank. Then I remember “Amelia get the phone.. GET THE PHONE”. . I sprinted up the stairs with the home phone. I could see my dads foot through the crack in the door, he was blue. I could hear something dripping on the floor. My mum grabbed the phone and I ran back downstairs. I started crying, begging and begging someone not to take my dad away again. 

 

I sat next to my little niece on the couch, not knowing what to do, or where to be. I was completely alone, I just felt so scared. She put her tiny little hand on my knee and said “hey baby, don’t cry, it’s going to be ok”. I grabbed hold of her and just held her and cried. My mum shouted me from upstairs. I didn’t want to look. But I crept upstairs, avoiding the door-asked if everything was alright and heard my dad’s voice. He had collapsed over the bath. He stopped breathing. My mum managed to revive him. My niece followed behind me and waddled into the bathroom. She sat in between my mum and dad while they were in recovery position together on the floor, so innocently. We waited for the ambulance again. That was normal for us now. They were always at my house. I realise the reason why I find it so hard to rule out worst case scenarios was because mine had happened multiple times. 

 

This was nearly 10 years ago, we have all really struggled at times but the clouds are parting. I’m in my last year of university, flourishing in my studies. I do the things I enjoy, knowing all too well that you never know when your time will come. All I can say is that if you are an adult reading this for insight on a child experiencing something like this, please bare with them. Allow them to speak freely and openly, even if it’s difficult to hear. If you are a young person experiencing what I did. I know how terrified, confused and lost you are feeling. Don’t beat yourself up, talk to whoever you trust, and know that it is not your responsibility to be okay for everyone else. All you have to do is show up.