After my husband died suddenly, I discovered the impact he had on others

I knew something was wrong because of the sheer panic in my daughter, Cara’s, voice.

‘Mum you need to come home,’ she said, adding: ‘I’ve called an ambulance.’

I ran out of my office and explained to colleagues in my GP practice: Paul, my husband of 22 years had come home from the gym and collapsed. 

One of the doctors offered to drive and when we pulled up at my house, suggested she come in. I said yes. Despite my own medical background, the situation is different when it’s someone you love.

We found Paul collapsed in the kitchen. It was probably only a few minutes before the ambulance arrived but the wait felt endless. The crew assessed him, got him settled and took him to hospital. 

In resus, he was scanned and the doctors established Paul had a bleed on his brain. It was quite extensive, they said, but because of his younger age, they wanted to allow 12 hours to see if things settled. 

Paul also had fitness in his favour. He was such a unique person – intelligent, good at reasoning – and to look at him, you’d have thought he was in his thirties rather than his fifties.

He had an ongoing battery that meant he couldn’t sit still. Sport was important to him, I think, as it was his way of getting through all of his energy.

He always strived to do the best in everything he put his mind to, even if he felt disappointed when he didn’t win. He’d done Iron Man competitions for many, many years, completing his tenth in July 2023. After that, he seemed to calm down a bit and was happy going to the gym. 

The weekend before he collapsed, however, Paul decided he had another Iron Man in him. He had retired from his job as a general nurse practitioner earlier this year, and he had too much energy to simply sit around at home.

On Sunday 19 May, he went out for his first, long bike ride in a year. I remember giggling when he came back that evening and told me he’d been overtaken by a ladies’ cycling group while climbing a hill – normally, that’s something he wouldn’t let happen. 

The following day, on Monday, I left for work around 8am as usual, shouting ‘Bye!’ and ‘Love you!’ as I walked out of the door; Paul went to the gym.

We now know that he had felt unwell while there, and actually vomited in the reception area, so it looked like he had a stomach bug. Despite it only being a five minute walk back home, he called our daughter, Cara, to pick him up and spent the short journey lying on the back seat. 

He crawled into the house and went to lie in the garden; he was sweating and said he needed fresh air. He suggested that Cara get ready for work and told her he was OK – that he was home.

Ten minutes later, Cara heard her dad collapse in the kitchen and he told her to ring the ambulance.

Paul was admitted to hospital, so the kids, our best friends Chris and Helen, plus my mother in law – joined me as we spent the evening with him in intensive care. I was the only one to stay overnight and I wasn’t feeling hopeful.

The following afternoon, the doctors explained they needed to do a brain stem check: a series of tests that would signal the amount of activity in his brain. 

The outcome was that my husband was not compatible with life any longer. He was pronounced dead on 21 May at 2.41pm. He was 55. 

We knew as a family that Paul would be an organ donor. Having both worked in the medical profession all our lives, Paul and I understood the importance of donors and he’d expressed his wish to go down that route. 

While I desperately wished for my husband to be alive, had he survived, he would have had no quality of life, and that’s something that he wouldn’t have wanted.

We got another 24 hours with Paul before life support was turned off. The donation process started and the transplant team looked for recipients. He went to theatre the next day.

In the end, we managed to donate his lungs, two kidneys and his liver – all in all, helping four recipients.

It wasn’t until after his death that I really began to discover how much of an impact he’d had on those around him.

At work, he regularly came across patients who were unfit, overweight and making poor lifestyle choices.

However, if any of them expressed a wish to try and change – even if they just gave a little inkling of wanting to change – he would throw it all at them, offering as much advice as possible and signposting them to local fitness groups and charities.

He took time to listen and try to help everyone.

Unbeknownst to me, he did the same in our local neighbourhood. People contacted me to say: ‘Oh, Paul used to give me advice about my running technique’ or ‘He suggested how I could walk a little bit faster’. 

I felt so proud.

As I got older, Paul and our kids were always encouraging me to be more active. Because of Paul, both of them were sporty: Cara has done gymnastics all her life and our son, Cian, runs cross country and plays football.

They all drilled into me the cardiovascular benefits of exercise and how it can help stave off dementia.

I just wasn’t enthused.

I was the one at school who stopped running when the teacher was out of sight. My role was to spend the weekends on the sidelines in gymnastics clubs and football fields. I am naturally slim, I don’t smoke or overeat but exercise just wasn’t something I did. 

It was Paul’s death that led me to my very first run.

We decided that instead of flowers at the funeral, we wanted to donate money to a charity that encouraged physical activity.

Through work, I reached out to Dr Hussain Al-Zubaidi, who works with the Leamington PCN (primary care network).

They get funding from the charity Sport in Mind to lead running and walking clubs that use exercise to help people improve their health, want to lose weight or just prevent some of the suffering of poor mental health.

It’s a cause I know Paul would have been passionate about and we were able to give them £1,000 in his memory.

While I was on the phone with Hussain, he mentioned he was launching a new NHS Couch to 5K that night, and the first run was in honour of Paul. After hanging up, I realised I should probably be there, so my son and I pulled on our coats and headed up.

I listened to my GP, Hussain Solo, give a short speech about Paul and the run started. In the back of my mind I must have had an intention of maybe walking the course as I’d put on running trousers and trainers.

Yet it turned out that one of my best friends was a member of the group and with his encouragement, I ended up joining in. 

As Hussain is a parkrun advocate, the Couch to 5K course was due to end nine weeks later with a 5k at Leamington parkrun.

Determined to be there, I started to train properly. And when I told my friends, they joined me; after only a few weeks there was a group of six of us. 

Getting fit was really tough. It was still so soon after Paul’s death, my emotions were still so raw, and I found it more mentally exhausting than physically. If my friends hadn’t been there pushing me, I wonder if I would have ever got through it. 

The day itself was overwhelming: I hadn’t realised so many people go to parkrun and lining up with my son, daughter and friends, the crowds were huge. I plodded all the way round rather than running like a ‘proper’ jogger.

Yet when the last half kilometre came into view, and I could see everyone who had already finished… That was really quite emotional. We had chosen to use our parkrun as another fundraiser and donated another £1,500 to Sports In Mind.

I would like to complete another parkrun in the future. There’s a massive hill on the Leamington course so my son suggested I look further afield for one that is flatter!  

To be honest, though, I can’t say I love running. 

I know it does my heart good but it’s really difficult. People say you are supposed to get a rush of euphoria and I haven’t yet – I do my 20-30 minutes and just feel glad it’s over. My legs get really heavy and I over-breathe; if there’s a technique to running breathing I hope I work it out soon.

My children are proud of me, though, and I am proud of them – they are both dealing with their own grief, and I know they have both found solace continuing on doing the sports they love.

My motivation is Paul. He is always at the back of my mind. Running really gives me a bit of time to think about him, and to remember just how amazing he was. 

As told to Rosy Edwards

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