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Learning to love

After an accident, how could I make my husband love me again?


Published by: Laura Hinton
Published on: 27 October 2011

Bursting through the double doors of Colchester General Hospital, I tried to stop crying long enough to see where I was going.
I'd kissed goodbye to my hubby Adrian, 43, just an hour earlier, and now I'd had a call saying he'd been in a car accident.
As soon as I reached reception, a doctor came over. ‘What happened?' I asked.
‘Adrian flipped his car, and smashed into some bushes,' he explained. ‘He was thrown through the rear windscreen.'
‘B-but how?'
I spluttered.
A mechanic and former banger racing champion, Adrian was a good driver.
‘We believe he suffered a stroke while driving, brought on by an underlying heart condition,' he said. ‘There's... only a 50 per cent chance Adrian will survive.'
Tears brimmed over again.
This morning, Adrian had been running around the house after Brooke, four, my daughter from a previous relationship who he loved as his own.
I'd often peek in on them at bedtime and find him reading Cinderella with his softest voice. Now, he was fighting for his life.
‘He needs to hear my voice,' I pleaded with the doctor.
‘I'm sorry,' he said. ‘Adrian's having emergency surgery.'
Over the next seven hours, Adrian had his spleen removed, his hip and thigh pinned, and a chest drain inserted. Then he was moved to the Royal London Hospital for work on a skull fracture.
‘He's out of the coma,' the doctor told me afterwards. ‘But the blow to his head will have affected Adrian's brain. He'll have lost most, if not all, of
his memory.'
‘It'll be fine,' I said. How could the man I'd loved for three years, who adored Brooke, and could fix a car with his eyes closed, not remember our wonderful life?
But, walking up to his bed, I gasped. He was unrecognisable, a huge bandage wrapped around his swollen head. The whole right side of his body was pinned and bruised. I felt so out of my depth, but stroked his hand.
His eyes met mine for a moment. ‘I love you,' he whispered.
‘I love you, too,' I replied, but my lip trembled slightly.
Something in his eyes just wasn't there. No, I was being silly. Against the odds, my husband was alive, had just said he loved me. After everything he'd been through, of course he'd have a strange look on his face.
The next week passed in a blur as surgeons operated again, this time fitting a device to record his heart. It was hard to take it all in, but I suppose my job as an adult carer helped.
But while his body was slowly being fixed, Adrian's mind was another matter. I'd chatter away about things, but he'd just stare at me blankly.
Showing him photographs of his family to jog his memory, he whimpered like a kicked puppy: ‘I've no idea who they are.' It was heartbreaking.
A couple of weeks on, I took Brooke in.
‘Remember, Daddy's not very well,' I reminded her. ‘After his accident, he has a good side and a bad side.'
‘And I can't sit on the bad side,' she recited.
Then she bounded into the ward. ‘Hi, Daddy,' she grinned, unfazed.
‘Hello,' he beamed.
But did he really know who she was? I was too afraid to ask.
Three weeks after the accident, Adrian was allowed home. As I showed him photos again one day, he stopped me. ‘Where's that?' he asked, looking at a picture of me, him and Brooke.
‘You d-don't know?' I replied, trying to hide my shock. ‘It's our honeymoon, in Egypt.'
‘Oh yes, we're married,' he said quietly, as if reminding himself. It felt like a kick in the teeth, but I hid it - this wasn't his fault.
‘Can't you remember how hot it was when we got off the plane?' I forced a laugh.
Adrian had dramatically wiped his brow. ‘It's like stepping into a sauna,' he'd joked. But now all I saw was a blank expression.
‘I don't remember you or my family from before,' he admitted slowly. ‘But when I first saw you, I felt safe. It's why I told you I loved you.'
For a moment, I didn't know what to say to him.
We'd only wed five months before, on the happiest day of our lives.
Adrian had welled up watching me walk towards him in the church. ‘I love you,' he'd whispered proudly.
To think he couldn't remember any of that, couldn't remember me... well, it was too much.
‘It's like a jigsaw puzzle,' he continued. ‘I'm just slowly putting it all back together.'
My heart broke, but I had to accept something I'd been unable to face so far - Adrian had lost everything from the past 43 years.
As it sunk in, I realised he didn't even know how we'd met!
We'd been in a club when I'd noticed my mate talking with a sexy bloke.
He's fit! I'd text her. But Adrian had been holding her phone and read my message.
Laughing, he'd come over and talked to me. We'd fallen for each other that same night.
What if he couldn't love me again? Or didn't fancy me? Just because he had once, didn't mean that he would again.
Despite my fears, I only cried on the inside. Outwardly, I put on a brave face and decided to do everything I could for Adrian.
He started attending the Icanho centre for people with acquired brain injuries. They helped with physiotherapy, as he'd lost much of the use of the right-hand side of his body.
‘Some people here don't even have short-term memory,' Adrian said to me one day, as we worked on his hand exercises. ‘At least I can create new memories.'
‘That's the spirit,' I grinned.
So that's what we're concentrating on doing.
Amazingly though, a few memories have come back to him.
Recently, he remembered Brooke taking her first steps! ‘She was like Bambi,' he giggled.
The good times outweigh the bad. Adrian can't drive, and struggles to walk without crutches. And his attention span is so low, he'll be washing up then forget what he's doing and drop a mug.
But I know my Adrian is still in there. Sometimes, he'll look at a picture and a spark will come back.
The other day, I showed him a holiday snap from Cornwall.
‘Wait,' he giggled. ‘It was cold. I had to carry something heavy...'
‘Brooke!' I laughed. ‘She fell asleep on the beach but, rather than wake her up, you carried her all the way home.'
That was my Adrian, a hands-on, ‘I can do anything for my family' type man.
Now, as he grinned, I saw the sparkle return in his eyes. Maybe one day he can be that bloke again.
I know deep down, though, that me and Adrian probably won't ever have the same relationship as we did before.
We still love each other - or rather he's fallen in love with me again - but it's different.
I'm more of a carer than a wife, but I don't mind, I love him too much to ever let him go.
I'm so proud of Adrian, too. He wants to fundraise for the Icanho centre, so we're holding a Valentine's Dance next February, which also marks the anniversary of the accident.
Adrian might have lost his past, but we still have time to make new memories - and it's those that will last a lifetime.


• To donate a raffle prize for the Valentines Day Dance, contact Katie through the magazine. For details about the Icanho care centre, visit www.livability.org.uk


Katie Jackson, 26, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk