March 2011

March turned out to be a very memorable month. After all the stress of the earthquake, things were just starting to settle down. Then on March the 7th, before 8am, Rob was on the bus to work and collapsed.

A student nurse was sitting on the bus a couple of rows in front of Rob, and heard laboured breathing. He turned around and Rob was having what looked like a seizure. He screamed for help and for someone to phone the ambulance (three times before anyone did anything!) and got a guy to help him carry Rob down the steps, then they laid him on the pavement and the student nurse put him in the recovery position as he was breathing and had a faint pulse. Then Rob started to go blue and so the student nurse and a St Johns volunteer commenced CPR. The paramedics arrived quickly and set up the defibrillator, which assessed him as being in ventricular fibrillation. It delivered a shock and he went back into normal rhythm.

Someone managed to ring me and asked me if he had a history of epilepsy or took any drugs (no and no), and told me he had collapsed and was on the way to Kingston Hospital. I was dumbfounded and couldn't take it in. I had meant to be starting work late that day which was why I was still half-asleep. The bystanders had rung our flatmate Jen first on Rob's phone as the last text he sent was to her, so she had told them to ring me then had rung Simon. He left a message on my phone and was on his way back, he had got off his train at the next stop and took the first train back. I met him on the High Street and we grabbed a black cab to the hospital. When we got to A & E they were still working on Rob, as in getting him all hooked up and intubated. They had taken a CT scan of his brain to check for a brain bleed and couldn't see anything obvious. They told us they would be cooling him right down over the next 24 hours to keep the most oxygen going to his brain rather than all his other organs, which would help protect it from damage caused by having a lack of oxygen to the brain before. They would have him in an induced coma during this time.


He was in ICU for four days in the end. Monday and Tuesday he was kept at 32 degrees until 24 hours was up and they started warming him up over the day (normal human temp = about 36-37 degrees). Wednesday they let him wake up. This was the most intense and surreal day. Rob was very disorientated and wanted to pull his tube and cannulas out so I had to keep telling him to leave them. When he finally got his ET tube taken out he kept asking me where he was and asking me if he was dreaming. I had to keep telling him "no honey, I wish you were". He got mad at one point because he wasn't waking up from his "dream" and yelled (not very effectively as his voice was husky from the tube) "WAKE UP". He told everyone around them they weren't real. For quite a while he was very forgetful (probably a bit of a defense mechanism because it would have been pretty strange for him). Even now he doesn't remember anything between around the Thursday before it happened to the Friday after it happened.

On Monday night Claire and Andrew had come up from the Isle of Wight, and although Andrew went home on Tuesday their lovely bosses let Claire stay for the week. So every day I had Claire with me, and when she wasn't allowed in ICU she was waiting in the little waiting room. I felt very loved and very spoiled, as well as all the love and support I had from Claire, my flatmates and friends were all cooking me food, bringing presents and telling me to let them know if I needed anything. On Thursday afternoon they transferred Rob to a ward in Kingston. Then on Friday out of the blue they told us they were transferring Rob to St Thomas', a hospital well-known for its cardiac abilities. This was a little problem in one respect. Rob's mum and sister were at that stage on their way to London from NZ and were due to arrive Saturday morning. They had told me they were going to land and drop their bags off at a hotel they'd booked in Kingston, then go straight to Kingston hospital. They had not given me any way to contact them. So I thought, Kingston is too far away for them to stay, and if I cancelled their accomodation now they might not have to pay a penalty for cancelling it when they arrived. So I cancelled their booking and found a B&B in Putney that I thought was quite a reasonable price for such short notice and such a convenient spot. I thought, if we meet them at the airport we can take them to the B&B and explain everything. But they hadn't given me their flight number. We looked up flights from NZ and Storm and Claire volunteered to go out and meet them while Simon and I went into the hospital. I texted their NZ phone numbers too to try and let them know. Obviously we had got the wrong flight though as they didn't come through the gate they were supposed to. Storm and Claire said, don't worry, we'll wait for the next one. Next thing I get a call from an unknown number, and it was Rob's mum - they had arrived (I think it turned out it was a flight from Sydney, not NZ), got a taxi to their hotel and had been told their booking was cancelled. So that was a huge kerfuffle and not great for the old cortisol levels.

Anyway, back to Friday, and Claire and I had been told we were unlikely to be allowed to go on the ambulance to St Thomas's - well maybe I'd be able to, but not Claire. But when the paramedics arrived they said - so we've got 2 extra passengers? Claire and I looked at each other and said - well, only if its OK... The male paramedic looked sorry and said - only if one of you doesn't mind sitting in the front... I thought Claire was going to jump out of her skin with excitement. So we got to ride in the ambulence with lights going and sirens blaring from Kingston to St Thomas's. A young doctor was assigned to come with us and keep an eye on things so she told Rob sternly to behave himself, I think she was secretly terrified his heart was going to stop again!

When we got to Rob's room all of our mouths dropped open - his bed was by the window and looked out over the Thames and onto the Houses of Parliment and Big Ben. It was a shame there was scaffolding up over the window but we were still very impressed.

Over the next one and a half weeks Rob was in hospital on 24 hour ECG monitoring. He had several echocardiograms, an angiogram, electrodes threaded up his femoral artery into his heart, a treadmill test, an MRI, blood tests, and no abnormalities showed up. It is still a mystery as to what happened. On Monday the 21st he had an ICD implanted. This is a little battery box about the size of a matchbox inserted under the skin of the chest, with wires threaded into the heart, so if he goes into V-fib again it can shock his heart back into normal rhythm. They let him go home the next day. Rob's mum and sister were due to go home on the 24th, but Rob's mum decided to stay a bit longer, and ended up staying until Tuesday the 29th. It was so nice to have Rob back at home, and he was quite sick of the hospital so he was glad to be back home as well.


Before Rob got out of hospital Claire and Andrew came back to London for the weekend and we saw some of the sights, including going up St Pauls. It was an amazing day and the views were priceless. Spring was definitely making an impact in London early this year.



On the 26th March, the Putney Boat Race was on between Cambridge and Oxford. Jen was ultra-excited and made everyone in the flat buy Cambridge scarves. Unfortunately Oxford won. I was working so didnt make it to the race, but I saw it last year so I wasn't too bothered. Rob went with the rest of the flatmates.



While Rob was in hospital we had booked tickets for a fundraiser game between the Crusdaers and the Sharks at Twickenham. They were playing there as the AMI stadium in Christchurch is unusable. The game was on Sunday the 27th of March. Rob felt recovered enough to go and it was a brilliant, fast-paced, try-filled game. Rob forgot about his sore shoulder when he was up on his feet cheering. Ritchie was off injured but Dan Carter put in an excellent effort. The final score was 44-28 to us. Storm was a good sport about it.



Things were getting a bit sad, as Simon moved out of our flat this same weekend (his UK visa was up). We got our new flatmate, Matt, an Aussie carpenter. Simon was only to be around for another week before flying to Europe for his 3 months of travel before going home to NZ. We had all bought vouchers for a steak dinner before all the dramas had occurred so realised we needed to go before long. We booked it for Tues 22nd and had a lovely meal, it is a Marco Pierre White restaurant so top quality. It was a nice way to celebrate flatmates old and new, and celebrate Rob's recovery.

January and February 2011

After Iceland we had a couple of months where we didn't have much planned. Although we didn't travel anywhere, we still managed to do some fun stuff.

In January the Silver Ferns were touring England and were playing England at the O2 on the 19th. Naturally we had to get tickets. It was actually quite a nail-biting game, with England leading for much of the game until Casey Williams and Maria Tutaia came off the bench in the second half to rally the troops. Irene wasn't on her best form, but the Ferns came through in the end to seal the 47-40 victory. I managed to say a few words and get a photo with Irene at the end of the game which I was pretty chuffed about.

Another highlight of January was Hamlet at the National Theatre. It had had rave reviews, and we saw why with Rory Kinnear giving the most amazing performance as Hamlet. The scenes where Hamlet is pretending to be mad were something else. It was a bit easier for those of us who knew the story roughly though - Rob found himself dropping off in parts. Understandable with a 3 hour long play.

With February came Waitangi Day and the obligatory journey out to Westminster with our face covered in New Zealand tattoos.
At this stage Matt and Anne had just been to Egypt and Anne had come down with a dodgey tummy while they were there, so they came out and met us a little later. It was a fun day, we started at a pub (well, outside a pub) in high St Kensington and spent much of the time checking out everybody's outfits. There was a bunch of Billy-Ts, a mob of sheep, kiwi fruits, buzzy bees - a ton of good ol' kiwi ingenuity and imagination on show!

We made our way to Parliment Square slowly, hoping against hope that we'd catch the haka this year. It didn't happen. Some of us were wondering if there really is a haka...
Then we went to the Elk Bar and had a drink before ending the night at GBK, which is rapidly becoming a tradition it seems...

Feb the 14th, Valentine's day and Anne and Matt's last day in London. We decided to go to a football match - between Chelsea and Fulham, so we could check that box. It was surprisingly better than us girls thought it would be, but we were all gutted that there were no goals scored. And Simon's favourite player, Fernando Torres, put in a decidedly average effort.

The next day Matt and Anne left for the US, en route to NZ. Tears were shed as we said goodbye again, but with the knowledge we would meet up again soon when we travelled to NZ.

That night Rob and I went on the Jack The Ripper Tour along with Georgia and co., and Simon and co. It was good, with some interesting facts, but we only went to a couple of places that the murders actually occurred at. Some of the things we got told: Prostitutes would spend all the money they earned on alcohol so often wouldn't have enough to spend on somewhere to stay. One of the cheap options was to buy a place on a rope in a dormitory, where they would have to fall asleep standing with only the rope to hold them up. Also there were quite a few eyewitness acounts of Jack speaking to the women that ended up murdered - he was of medium height, dark hair, well-dressed, and always carrying a brown package under his arm.
After the tour we went to the Ten Bells - reputedly where Mary Kelly and Jack the Ripper used to hang out.

On February the 22nd, around 1am, Rob woke me up and told me there had been another earthquake in New Zealand, with at least one person dead... A death toll that as I write is at 182, with the possibility of more bodies to recover. That day was a sombre one for our flat - Rob and I, Simon and Anita are all from Christchurch. The others in the flat shared the sadness. Rob found out early in the morning that his mum was OK, and I found out around 8am that my family were OK also. It would have been even later, as telephone, power and the mobile networks were all down, but my sister got a stroke of luck and managed to get through to Dad when the phone lines were up for about ten minutes. Then she posted the good news on Facebook (thank god for Facebook by the way, how many people managed to get news of loved ones through that medium!)

Mum and Dad ended up being without power and water for around three weeks. They spent a lot of time staying with Mum's sister Lorraine. The house is OK although there are a few cracks and misaligned doors. Our cats were OK too at Wanda's house, they seemed to cope fine.

We went to an Earthquake Vigil a week later, at Westminster Cathedral. It was lovely - Hayley Westenra sung the National Anthem, and there were some moving letters read out.

We were able to take our minds off things that weekend. Georgia, being very in the know about these things, had asked us weeks earlier if we wanted to go to Roald Dahl's Twisted Tales, a play. I was very excited about this, and so we went along on Saturday the 26th. It was a well done play, although I remembered most of the punchlines from having read the stories before. Some of the stories had been changed around a little to make it more stage-friendly. William and Mary was done really well.

We ended the month looking forward to the beginning of spring and hopefully some better luck, but we were to go through another huge event in a week, a lot closer to home this time...