Yahoo Movies "This time last year, I was dead" – Grace Victory on waking up from her coma
There’s a dead body. It’s floating down a river. The body is somewhere in Reading, but I don’t know why. Everything is blurry and unclear. The body is my own. But it’s deep in my subconscious, where all my darkest thoughts are playing out. My physical body is hooked up to monitors in the intensive care unit of a London hospital. I can’t move, I can’t fight, I can’t scream. There’s nothing I can do to shut down the thoughts.
Lying in that hospital bed, I was fighting for my life. People imagine that being in a coma is nothingness, just black, but it wasn’t. And I consented to it, although I have no memory of that. But I did. I consented to being put in a medically induced coma mere days after my first baby, Cyprus, was born. On Christmas Eve, I had my boy and by Boxing Day, I was in a coma with just a 5% chance of survival.
When the pandemic hit in March 2020, and the world was put on pause, I loved being curled up on the sofa watching films with my partner, Lee. I fell pregnant in May that year and was so excited. I’d always dreamed of being a mum. When I knew there was a baby growing inside me, I was elated. And I loved being pregnant. I tried not to worry about the pandemic. I didn’t know anything other than going to appointments by myself. I just got on with it. I did what everyone else was doing – I wore a mask, I washed my hands and barely went outside. Looking back, I chastise myself – did I do enough? Maybe I shouldn’t have left the house at all. I think, as women, there’s a tendency to always blame yourself.
Everything changed one Wednesday in December 2020. I just didn’t feel right. I know my body, and I knew it wasn’t pregnancy hormones. The following morning, I woke up with a fever. By Friday, I was sitting in a Covid test centre. I remember driving away and my boyfriend asking if I thought I had it. I said yes and he replied, ‘I do, too.’ Little did we know what would happen next.
By Saturday, I couldn’t keep down food or take a deep breath. After calling 111, I was told to go to the hospital. On the drive there, I couldn’t stop crying. By Christmas Eve it was confirmed: I had a severe case of Covid. The nurses told me my oxygen levels had become dangerously low, and for both of us to stand a chance of survival, there was only one option. Two months too soon, it was time for my baby to be born.
I know people have traumatic C-sections, but I had this gut feeling our baby was going to be safe. My anaesthetist was next to me holding my hand. There was this calm in the room. Lee was singing The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face as he cut the cord. It was beautiful. It was how it was meant to happen.
The doctors lifted my baby’s head to mine; it was small and warm. Although he was fine, he was taken to the NICU – him being so premature meant it was a much-needed precaution. Just days later, on Boxing Day, I was wheeled into the ICU, as my oxygen levels began dropping and my organs started to shut down. The last thing I remember is saying goodbye to Lee before I was put into a coma. With my body fighting for oxygen, I was told the only way to keep it alive was rest. So I rested.
I died on 18 January 2021. Just before that, I’d been woken up from my coma by doctors to see if I was ready. I’d immediately screamed, ‘Where’s my son?’ (Cyprus had left the NICU the day before, perhaps my body felt him leave.) I wasn’t ready for life, I guess – not yet. My body went into shock and I was dead for five minutes, before I was once again put into a coma. I didn’t feel my death – the physical effects of it, anyway. I don’t remember it, I only have what others have told me.
I'm awake
It was one year ago, February 2021, that I was finally ready to wake up. I had all these tubes attached to my body and I couldn’t walk, talk, eat or move. But the coma nightmares finally gave way to a dream of my baby and partner. The love from them brought me back, I could feel it. There’s no other reason why I survived. But I was traumatised, and still suffer from PTSD. I don’t think words will ever articulate missing your baby and knowing that he’s fine, that he’s got his dad, my mum and my sister, but that none of them are me, his mum.
Not being able to breastfeed and do all the things we planned was unbearable, but it also kept me going as I lay in that hospital bed. I’d have visions of us walking in the park kicking autumn leaves, giving him a bottle, watching him splash around in the bath. I didn’t think about photo shoots or make-up or my job, I thought about being sat on my sofa with my boyfriend and baby. When everything’s stripped from you, when you’re at rock bottom, the things that really matter shine through.
I’m awake. 🤍
— Grace 🕊 (@GraceFVictory) March 8, 2021
On 8 March 2021, I tweeted ‘I’m awake,’ but I’d been on Twitter and Instagram for weeks before that. When you’re in hospital, the hours just roll into one another. The windows are all frosted so you don’t see the sun, the rain or the trees. I was using Twitter to feel like I was still part of the world. There’s a togetherness that comes from social media. Watching people have babies and get married shows that life still exists on the other side of those walls. Letting people know I was okay felt like a step towards normality.
My body was confined to a hospital bed, so my phone became my lifeline. Because of Covid restrictions, I only saw my son through FaceTime, which was heartbreaking – there was no other way I could see his smile or experience the other new mum ‘firsts’.
He didn't feel like my baby
It was mid March when I finally got to meet Cyprus. I couldn’t stop crying. We were reunited, but he didn’t feel like my baby. I felt shame and guilt for being apart from him for the first months of his life. It felt like I needed to ask permission to hold him, to touch him. Lee placed him on my chest – he was so small he slotted perfectly on to my boob. He just lay there, looking at me and smiling and tried to suckle my breast – it was then I knew he recognised I was his mum. We only got an hour and a half together, which felt like minutes. It was incredible, bittersweet, beautiful and anxiety inducing.
One of my favourite members of my rehab team was also there, Michelle. Afterwards, she said seeing me with my baby made her want to push my recovery even harder. I left the ICU ward a few weeks later – by which point I could move, sit up and roll over in bed. I just couldn’t stand or walk, but I knew I was strong enough to do it. Motherly love would pull me through – you’re so animalistic, you’d do anything for your child.
I managed to stand up on my first day in rehab and worked with Michelle every day, struggling through to hit those milestones. I was discharged after a month, on 7 May 2021. I could finally walk.
That night, as I sat on my sofa wearing a tracksuit instead of a hospital gown, my body felt like it had been through a hard gym session. My baby was with me and so was Lee. We were tucking into a Chinese takeaway that I had been craving while I was in hospital and I savoured the feeling – and each mouthful.
My first day out of hospital, this was all I wanted. It was one of the mundane moments I’d dreamed of from that hospital bed. And here I was. I’d survived death, I was alive and on my way to a full recovery. That night, I gave Cyprus a bath for the first time; his limbs splashing in the water. It was the most magical feeling and the start of our new mother-and-baby routine. Being a mum is a joy.
Learning to love my body again
For a while, my body didn’t feel like mine. Before getting ill, I never even took paracetamol. So waking up and being on lots of medication – some of which I’m still weaning off from – was tough. I’d worked so hard throughout my twenties to connect with and love my body, and then suddenly I lost control: having a catheter in, waking up with thrush, not seeing my C-section scar because it had healed before I woke up. I had this beautiful scar – my baby came out of there – and I don’t even remember it healing. My body has changed, I’m smaller now, and that was hard for me to get my head around. I’m embracing it and showing myself compassion. I know I will get there.
I’ve become friends with a lot of other Covid mummy survivors. We’ve bonded because hell on earth was our reality. Telling my story has been a powerful way to heal – but it’s their story, too. I had to shave my hair because it was matted from the ICU. Before, I had long blonde curls. Shaving it off as a woman of colour was a big deal, but it was also like being reborn.
Who knows what the future holds? My story has proved that life can be unpredictable, but we have this incredible ability to get through it. I want to enjoy the simple things, take long luxurious baths and strolls through autumn leaves. I want to travel, too – I want to go to St Vincent, where I’m from, and show my baby the world. I want to show my son that it’s okay to be vulnerable and soft and brave and courageous all at once – and not let the world make you hard. I want to do so much because at one point it was all about to be taken away from me. You can’t die and not come back wanting to take on the world.
Grace has shared more of her story below in an exclusive video
You Might Also Like
