Sail away, my love

Sam Brown, 28 May 1940 - 6 September 2023.      

On Sunday 27 August, Sam was feeling a bit under the weather and stayed in bed for most of the day. Around 4.30pm he decided to get up, so I helped him get dressed and put on a new pair of shoes, which had been resoled to help him walk better. After only a few steps he somehow tripped and crashed to the floor, banging his head on a metal clothes stand. I was just around the corner and didn't see him go. His scalp was bleeding from a couple of scrapes but after a groggy moment he was lucid. However, I couldn't get him up, so we called 999. He was checked all over by the paramedics and pronounced ok - no lacerations, no neurological deficits, just a bit of a shock and  blood all over the place! 

On the Bank Holiday Monday he was feeling a bit better and got up and sat outside for a while, and watched TV with me, but was obviously very tired and went back to bed early after eating very little. On the Tuesday he seemed worse so I called the GP who said it was normal for him to seem tired after a bad fall. We thought he might have a UTI so they tested his urine, which was positive, and prescribed antibiotics.

By the Wednesday Sam becoming even more confused and was unable to understand what I was saying to him. I hoped that this was caused by the UTI and would improve when the antibiotics kicked in but there was no improvement. After another very disturbed night I found him at 7am on the Thursday sitting on the edge of the bed, icy cold, but asleep. When I woke him he put his good arm around me, but was not responding in any other way, so again I called 999. Two different paramedics arrived and checked him, but by this time he was drifting in and out of consciousness. With the help of three more ladies from another ambulance they got him out and loaded him up to take him to the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital – I had decided to follow in my own car. I don't believe he regained consciousness again.

After I arrived at NNUH a consultant explained that Sam had suffered a bleed on the brain from which he was unlikely to recover. While we were talking, the consultant took a call from Addenbrooke's who confirmed that, as a stroke survivor and taking blood thinners, Sam was not a candidate for surgery. Even if he had been scanned on the Sunday evening straight after the fall, even if he had been able to receive the surgery, he would never have returned to his previous state of health. The blood thinners which had kept him alive for 11 years were now contributing to his death.

Initially the consultant thought Sam might live up to 24 hours. With no phone signal in the inner room of the emergency department I ended up leaning on a windowsill in the emergency waiting room while I called Guy - who was sailing Kalessin towards the Woodbridge Haven buoy with Kai and Ivy on board - Ben, at work in Nottinghamshire, and Tim and Nick in Guernsey. Guy turned the boat around and hurtled back to the Orwell, Ben drove home to collect Anne and charged down the motorway, but Tim and Nick decided against coming over because it seemed at that time they would arrive too late, and flights were still seriously disrupted following the air traffic control technology issues earlier in the week.

Then began a strange, surreal six days while Sam gradually weakened but just kept on breathing. We moved from the emergency department room to a tiny curtain area, then a very pleasant side room in the Acute Medical Unit for 24 hours, then to a windowless room known as The Cupboard on Brundall ward, and finally to a sideroom on Brundall which did at least have a window and bathroom, and view of the sky, but looked west over the hospital plant area with a constant sound of machinery interrupted by random revving noises and the sound of the delivery yard beyond. My brother Piers and his wife Dominique live in Norwich and turned their house into a welcoming hotel for Guy and Kai, Ben and Anne. On Saturday 2 September we even had a visit from my sister Lucilla and her husband Mark, who brought my wonderful mother, now 96 but still going strong, to say goodbye. 

The hospital found me a folding bed and I spent most of the time with Sam, surviving with my indispensable iPhone and Kindle, borrowed pillows, knickers and T-shirts, and a strange mixture of white toast and tea on the ward, healthy but expensive M&S salads from the hospital shop, and solid and generous suppers from the hospital canteen. I tried to get outside for a walk every day when Guy or Ben was sitting with Sam, and given the vast distances in NNUH, which is a big hospital, I did get a reasonable amount of exercise. But I never want to sit on a bedside hospital chair again.

We had wonderful support from the palliative care team. Sam was taken off all drips and antibiotics on the evening of the day that he arrived, but had hyoscine and later glycopyrronium to reduce the secretions that he could no longer swallow, and midazolam to keep him relaxed and reduce the chance of seizures, although he did have a few.

In the middle of this poor Ben developed a sore throat and started feeling quite ill. Yes, it was Covid, probably caught at the hospital, and Anne got it a day later. We didn't tell anyone and they continued to visit, much more briefly and wearing masks. Kai had to head home on Saturday and Guy on Sunday because our lovely granddaughter Ivy was about to start school – talk about major life incidents coinciding!

Finally, just before 10am on Wednesday 6 September, Sam's breaths got slower with long, long gaps, and as I held his hand he finally slipped away. Wherever you are, my dear love, I hope the sun is shining, the water is sparkling and you are slipping over a flat sea with a F3-4 just aft of the beam. Plus Mark Knopfler serenading you from a corner of the cockpit.

If you are reading this during September 2023, you might like to know that Sam's funeral will be at Seven Hills Crematorium, Nacton, Ipswich at 2.15pm on Thursday 28 September.