You can't be brave all the time: Stuart and Leanne's story

Stuart's story

“I met Leanne on a holiday in Spain. Five years later we got married on Valentine’s Day 2009 in Sri Lanka. I’d say we’re very different people. I’m sports-mad and love watching football while Leanne’s more intellectual than me and likes reading.

But our relationship works because we balance each other out. We’ve always been a good team, especially since becoming parents to Sadie, 11, and Jude, eight, but the events we’ve lived through over the past year have brought us even closer.

It was just a normal Tuesday evening, 1 March, 2022. I’d finished work as an HGV driver, had tea with the kids and then drove them to football training. I help coach Sadie’s team and Jude likes to watch. I don’t have any recollection of the drive home, but as I pulled up outside our house, I had a cardiac arrest.

I’ve been told the car was still running and Sadie and Jude were shaking me to get me to respond. Sadie ran to the house to call for Leanne, while Jude cleverly thought to undo my seatbelt. I don’t remember any of what happened – in fact the days after the cardiac arrest are like a jigsaw I’m still trying to piece together.

It was four or five days later when I properly came around. I recall seeing pictures of hearts on the wall of the room and that’s when I realised I was in hospital, and that the problem must be my heart. Leanne had been with me the whole time. She told me that I was lucky to be alive.

Being honest with the children

After a few weeks I was transferred to a hospital in London for a quintuple heart bypass. My aortic valve was also damaged so it had to be replaced with a new mechanical one. The doctors weren’t able to give me a definite reason for my cardiac arrest. But about a fortnight after my surgery I had an ICD (implantable cardioverter defibrillator) fitted. If I ever have another cardiac arrest, the ICD will shock my heart back to a normal rhythm.

Sadie and Jude kept asking Leanne when I could come home. She’d been as honest as she could with the children, telling them I’d needed an operation to make my heart better. When I finally came home I could barely do anything for myself and it put Leanne under immense pressure. Then to make things even worse, my dad Tony was diagnosed with late-stage bowel cancer. He died within six weeks.

When I finally came home I could barely do anything for myself and it put my wife under immense pressure

I was still so ill myself, and I really struggled to come to terms with our loss. Leanne was holding our family together, juggling everything – shopping, cooking, caring for the children, supporting my mum, worrying about our finances – along with caring for me. Despite what my body had been through, I think she had it much tougher in some ways – certainly mentally. I’m not sure I could have stepped up and done what she did at the time. I owe everything to Leanne and the children.

I see life differently now

I didn’t go back to work until September 2022, six months after the cardiac arrest. It was much harder than I’d thought, making that transition, but my employer was very supportive. As I’ve had an ICD fitted I had to give up my HGV driving licence, so now I work in the transport office checking vehicles.

I’ve been cleared to exercise by my cardiologist and now train at the gym several times a week, making sure I listen to my body.

Living through this has made me realise what’s really important. I don’t want to waste a day and want to make memories with Leanne and the children. Over the past few months we’ve been on a family holiday to Greece, surprised Jude with a birthday trip to Disneyland Paris, and Leanne and I went away by ourselves to celebrate our wedding anniversary.

As for how I’ve changed as a person – I see life differently and I’m easier on the kids. I try not to let little things bother me. I’ve been given a second chance and I want to make the most of it. Without my family I simply wouldn’t be here.”

What I've learned

Accept whatever help you’re offered. I was able to access counselling through work and found it really helpful speaking to someone independent.

• Hear Stuart share his experience of having a cardiac arrest and his journey to recovery:

Leanne's story

“I don’t think he completely realises it, but to me Stuart is a different man now compared to the person he was before all this happened. He’s so much more aware of how precious life is. And it’s certainly made me value what’s really important too.

Our wedding anniversary is on Valentine’s Day and I remember standing in the supermarket earlier this year staring at the cards thinking, these are just pieces of cardboard – what’s actually important for us is how this has strengthened our relationship.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions and to advocate for your loved one

The night Stuart had his cardiac arrest I was in the bath and suddenly I could hear Sadie and Jude screaming. I jumped out of the bath and grabbed my dressing gown. I didn’t even have shoes on. I ran to our neighbours to get help. It was like everything was happening in slow motion.

One of our neighbours, Emma, and her husband came out thinking there’d been a car accident. I screamed: ‘He’s not breathing.’ They got Stuart out of the car and onto the floor. Emma and another neighbour, Gemma, both work in healthcare, and Gemma had recently done a refresher course in CPR. They started doing CPR on Stuart and by this time several people had called for an ambulance.

It’s all a blur but one of our other neighbours had taken the children into our house. They carried on doing CPR until the paramedics arrived. They were amazing. The medical team were working on Stuart for so long that there’s a small patch of tarmac outside our house that’s rubbed away. I find it very hard to look at.

Waiting for scan results

The next few days at the hospital are all rolled together in my memory. For 48 hours we were waiting for scan results to see if he’d sustained brain damage. I kept thinking how will we cope? You go to the darkest places in your mind. Thankfully the results were clear. When Stu had open heart surgery I had to explain it to the children, but it was hard to find the words.

When Stu finally came home he looked like an old man. I was struggling to cope emotionally. I kept checking on the kids to see if they were breathing. If I heard an ambulance siren I was terrified. I couldn’t even face the school run. I ended up being put on a low dose of antidepressants and had some counselling, which helped a little.

Then we lost Tony, and my dad Andrew had a stroke. It was a lot to cope with. I’d go running, the only thing I had time to do for myself, and just cry – you can’t be brave all the time.

Everything that’s happened over the past year is still so raw. Sometimes I feel angry about why this happened to us. Well-meaning people would say to me: ‘It’s OK, he survived’, but unless you’ve lived through something like this I don’t think you can understand it. I didn’t know how strong I was until I had to be. But the important thing is that we’ll get through it, together.”

What I've learned

Don’t be afraid to ask questions and to advocate for your loved one. When Stuart was in hospital I wanted to know the facts about what was happening, for me and the children.

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