“When you look at this picture, I’d like you to remember that there is life in the darkness. You might be here on your own, but you are held up by everyone who is thinking and hoping and praying for you and your loved one in there. The staff around you now know what to do, they know what your loved one needs. You just have to stay strong. I hope your person makes it, I hope your own heart holds out.

My sister took this photograph, 13 years after the incredible team here saved her life.

We thought you might like to know.”

- Fiona

“Did you ever think you would spend so many hours, looking at blips on screens, listening to machines beep and whir and suck and draw? For over six weeks in the Intensive Care Ward my sister fought a lonely battle, far away from us, unable to react or communicate. And we looked on, helpless. We stared at heart monitors and blood pressure monitors and ventilator and ECMO paraphernalia and tried to stay sane. This image reminds her of the tracking of a heartbeat on a monitor, proof of life (look carefully - there’s a trail of droplets).

You have to know that while there is even the faintest glimmer of life, no matter how hard it gets, everyone here will keep fighting for you. Where there is life there is still hope. Hang on to that. ”

- Fiona

When things were very bad, a nurse told me to bring in a picture of her, my beautiful 36 year old sister, and stick it up, where they could all see who they were fighting to save. I picked one of her at a party in Rome, loving her life, looking good.

I am awakened.

I am given wings to fly.

I am so afraid.

“When she started to come back to us, after weeks and weeks in the ICU and CCU, she thinks she remembers wanting coffee, but she couldn’t speak to ask for it. It would take another six weeks before she found her voice again. She told me she felt like she’d been underwater. Maybe that’s why she loves kingfishers so much. They are brave enough to dive headfirst into the darkness and resilient enough to defy gravity and against the odds return to the light. ”

- Fiona

Those initial days and weeks were tough. I woke up scared, confused, unable to speak or move or comprehend the enormity of what had happened to me, what was still happening to me, what was yet to come. I lived in limbo, a suspended existence I can’t even begin to describe to anyone who has not experienced it. I was afraid all the time. Afraid to get out of bed, afraid to be near people, afraid to be alone, afraid every night that the oxygen in the room would evaporate and I would suffocate if I fell asleep so I fought very hard to stay awake.

But every night I would eventually fall asleep and to my amazement every morning I would wake up to a new day. Slowly my thoughts became less confused. I became less afraid and with each passing day my strength and my sanity started to return.

The physios came, two of them to hoist me up in the bed. All my muscles had atrophied and I couldn’t even sit upright. They tipped me back and forth and I flopped like a rag doll until they returned me to the bed for the nurses to resume turning me over every two hours.

But the healing had begun.

Once I was off all the monitors I was moved to the Sacred Heart Ward to continue my recovery. This was a more natural environment, a happier place.

You might think from this that I was in a crazy rush to get out of here but nothing could be further from the truth. After so many months living in the ward I had become institutionalised. I knew and loved every member of staff. I was comfortable with the routine and I could have stayed there forever in my safe little bubble. In the preceding weeks my uncle would come and take me out for Sunday lunch. By the time I got back to my bubble I was a nervous wreck. In the car I was so afraid we would crash, afraid for every cyclist I could see that we would hit them, for every pedestrian that we would knock them down, that every van and truck on the road would crush us. I startled at every bang and beep of a car horn. I needed to be inside, back in my safe space.

But eventually the day came where I was officially pronounced well enough and they told me it was time to go. I didn’t want to leave or to accept that I could ever return to the outside world. I was afraid there was no longer a place out there for me.

For the next six months my sister provided a much needed sanctuary as I slowly transitioned back to life on the outside. She somehow knew when to leave me be and when to push and with her love and support and that of her husband and my darling nephew (my beacon of light in the darkest days) I was reborn.

Looking back on my experience after all these years I sometimes regard what happened to me as a gift. I have an appreciation for life now that I never had before. I am fearless. I don’t accept limitations and I never take no for an answer.

I return to the clinic once in a while for a check-up and I look forward to these visits. This is a calm port after the storm.