How my husband Martin died
The purpose of this blog is to tell my story, it’s really that simple, but this time, it’s really about the external life and the things that have happened to me since my husband died in 2014, and not so much my internal life. I have felt compelled to document my life since I was very young, and I’m not about to stop just because I’m now old! In fact, at my age, 58, I’m aware that the end is not that far away, and I don’t want to leave without leaving some crumbs for people to follow if they feel so inclined. But my internal life is reserved for a different medium, a private diary, and so this time around, I am not going to talk about art or spirituality. In fact I no longer identify as an artist, or even as a spiritual person. I even tried to delete my previous blog about my and my husband’s artist’s life in Wales, but Google refused. When I finally managed to get through to their customer service, they said the blog was run by two people although my husband never ran it, and since for some obscure reason, I couldn’t retrieve the password, I had to accept that my arty farty ramblings may be online forever. Some more recent contemplations can be found on my artist’s website, but once I stop paying for it, they will disappear.
I didn’t expect to run another blog but when I started to dig through my archives, I was left with a feeling that I need a dumping ground for all sorts of memories and experiences that could otherwise get lost. I will be going back and forth in time depending on my mood. So without further ado, I will start by explaining how my husband Martin Herbert died.
Martin had a kidney stone removal in December 2014, and two days later, he came down with a fever and chills. Neither of us connected the dots. I felt as if I was suspended in a dreamlike space that I was just plodding through without much actual thought. Monday afternoon, we walked to the surgery for an emergency appointment, and Martin had obvious trouble making it there. The doctor said he’d seen twelve cases of virus that day and decided that Martin had the same. He didn’t even ask about the kidney stone removal, which I consider negligent. He listened to Martin’s lungs, but found nothing.
On Monday night, I said goodnight to him in the dressing room where we had a spare bed. I know he wasn’t happy about it but he had volunteered to sleep there after years of waking me up with his snoring. As an insomniac with chronic health conditions, I desperately needed the sleep, and was grateful he had finally seen sense. He was not in a good way but did not ask me to call an ambulance, and I stupidly trusted him to know what he needed. I asked him to call me on Skype if he needed anything during the night. But when I got up in the late morning the following day, I was worried to see the door to the dressing room still closed. When I entered, I found Martin dead in the bed. He had died in his sleep, probably in the early morning hours. He was only 57.
I grabbed my Nokia smartphone, but I had only had it for two months, and in the state I was, I just couldn’t operate it. It was like one of those dreams where you try and find the buttons on a device but they evade you because you’re unable to function in a rational way when you’re dreaming. I managed to call 999, but calling other people turned out to be more difficult. The emergency operator asked me to pull Martin on the floor, but this was impossible as he weighed a ton and was already stiff. I didn’t really want to touch him because I knew he, as a person, was no longer there. I have always felt that way about people and animals who have passed away. ‘Martin has left the building’, I stupidly thought, recalling a phrase Martin used to use when our cat Marius left the house.
While I was waiting for the ambulance, I grabbed cold porridge out of the fridge and shoved it down. I needed fuel in order not to collapse. The paramedics arrived and a police woman came and asked me questions. It was quite a while until I received the coroner’s response. I remember this was made more complicated because I had used the wrong sim card on my phone. Officially, it was said that Martin had suffered from bronchopneumonia, and it was clear that Martin’s poor heart had given up and that was the actual cause of death. Martin had no symptoms of pneumonia, so it sounds like another misdiagnosis to me. It wasn’t until about a year later when my mum had a touch of sepsis that I finally understood that Martin had died from sepsis. I believe the truth was meant to be hidden from my prying eyes, and sadly I didn’t have the strength to pursue a law suit.
