The darkness that encased me was given a physical reality in the form of the story my wife retold to me while sitting at my bedside.
When the paramedic attended the scene and attended to my initial injuries for stabilisation, unluckily, he must have pressed the 'last number redial' button on my mobile phone in my jacket pocket. You see, I called home at lunchtime that day to discuss the mornings events and have the usual husband and wife conversations that any newly married couple have.
We were married the previous year but, barely nine months later after our wedding, this unimaginable tragedy would dominate our lives.
When the phone rang home, the caller ID display flagged up as my number which confused my wife, with the time showing that I was only 30 minutes from the house. Answering it, rather than hearing my voice, she was subjected to a scream from a lone woman, and a muffled conversation that she could barely comprehend.
"It's made a mess of the car, ain't it?"
"What do you expect, mate, its a soft-top."
"Those single words sent a cold shiver down her spine.."
Those single words sent a cold shiver down her spine for it was then she knew it was no prank call. She called my name at the top of her voice, shouting for anyone to hear her, but to no avail. Dropping the phone and rushing to her car, she heading out on the road she knew that I drove to work on every day.
The problem was, she had only taken that road to my place of work once, a year ago. Distraught at the situation, she unwittingly took the wrong road and went miles out of the way from the actual scene. Stopping at a randon public house for directions, she approached the nearby town that I had already passed through. Calling her brother for help to ring local hospitals, she had continued her search.
Before she had gotten too lost in an area she did not know very well, she made the decision to head for home and try and come up with a plan of action. On her return home, her mother arrived following a call of desperation. Her brother had instead called her mother for assistance.
A police car pulled into the road, looking for our house number. My wife rushed out, grabbing the officer by the jacket, "Where is he!". Taken aback, the officer mumbled, "How did you know?".
"I was in surgery and had been for the last hour and a half"
A decision was made to come to the hospital directly. My wife and my mother-in-law arrived at the Critical Care department. After all the chasing, panic and confusion, it was now 8:30pm. I was in surgery and had been for the last hour and a half. The following time spent in the waiting room was an agonising while waiting for me to come out of theatre and be 'installed' into Critical Care; with breathing machines, blood transfusions, drugs and monitoring devices.
While in the waiting room, she was given the full list of medical injuries and a bag of my torn, bloodied clothes. Tears had flooded at the thought of what had happened. Despite all the emotional rollercoaster that was unfolding before them, the Police had come in asking for a blood sample to check if I had been drinking during the day. Not only would it have been incredibly difficult for me to even reach a pub during the day, my job was one that was prohibitive to the consumption of alcohol, to which my wife knew all too well. To say that there were a few disgruntled words spoken to the officers at this time would be an understatement.
My wife was allowed to reach my bedside at 2:00am in the morning. The sight that had greeted her was distressing. The fracture to my skull was wide open, with 'Frankenstein' stitches across my forehead. A machine was breathing for me, with tubes and cables sticking out of my skin in numerous places across my body.
She slept on the waiting room chairs that night, and for several nights until a room could be found in the nurses accommodation for her. That was our life for many days. That was until my stomach ballooned and my complexion turned a pale shade of grey.
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