A Deadly Marriage, An Idiotic Husband.

WARNING: This is rather long and sadly all true.

I came out of a five year relationship in 2000, a relationship I thought was a permanent fixture in my life. To say it ended badly would be an understatement and to say I was very low because of it wouldn't be an exaggeration. The relationship breakdown meant my life had to change completely and the biggest changes were my loss of the social life and employment that were a part of that.

I found a new job working in a pub, quite a nice pub admittedly, it served food and had none of that annoying loud music so many pubs seem to love nowadays.One of the cooks there was a short, tubby guy who seemed quite shy and kept popping down the stairs in to the back of the bar. The other staff couldn't wait to tell me that he didn't usually pop downstairs that much and that he was doing so just to see me.We chatted whenever our paths crossed and I admit it I was flattered, so when we eventually started going for the odd drink after work I was happy enough with the situation.

He had a low level of intelligence, which he blamed on dyslexia. He didn't have dyslexia he was just barely literate due to lack of schooling. I can see it now and I can see how that should have sounded off warning bells to me because I really don't enjoy spending time with people who have no interest in education or books or even improving themselves and their knowledge but it didn't matter then. I was just so low after all the changes I'd had to make that I just wanted to be in a relationship again.

I should have stopped things then, the situation wasn't fair to either of us but I didn't and then I met his kids. They were truly lovely kids and took to me almost as much as I took to them. After being told years ago that I'd never be able to have kids, this was the nearest I'd ever get to being a mum and I couldn't give up on that. So when he asked me to marry him I said yes, I loved his kids and I thought I could make him if not happy then content so I said yes and we got married a few months later.

The day of the wedding I had this feeling of unease, of dread really, I knew that very day I really didn't want to go through with it but I forced myself to do so. People had turned up at the registry office, bought gifts and well, everyone knew so I went through with it and signed my name on the certificate.
I spent the wedding night sleeping in the bedroom with his two kids and I was happy with that, relieved even. He spent the night on the sofa in the lounge sleeping off copious quantities of booze as is typical.

Three years pass and the marriage is all but gone, we weren't even ships that pass in the night. We were barely tolerated acquaintances who were stuck with each other.

The beginning of the end happened when I became ill with a chest infection that just would not go, I ended up losing my job because I was so exhausted that I just needed more and more sleep and that meant I kept missing shifts. It was most likely pnumonia that got worse and worse and laid me open to other infections.In the next two weeks I tried sleeping as much as I could and drinking as much orange juice as I could afford to buy in the hope it would make me feel better. It didn't help though and at some point around this time my body started to shut down, very slowly.
My days were spent sleeping for at least twenty-three hours a day and crawling to the toilet and back when needed. Just one crawl into the bathroom would leave me so utterly shattered that many times I had to sleep while sitting on the toilet just to help me dredge up what little energy I could summon for the crawl back to bed. The days became weeks and the only person who knew how sick I was was the person I was married to. The person who didn’t even bother to phone a doctor when I had slept for three weeks solid. The man whose only interest was when I would get off my lazy ass and start bringing in money again.Even now years after this happened I have no clear memories of this time just some vague recollections and fleeting flashbacks. When you are spending so much of every day sleeping time ceases to have any real meaning.

At some point during this time my husband and I had sex. I don’t know when or even if I was conscious at the time but I have to guess that he just thought he “deserved” his marital rights or maybe it was his way of reasserting his control over his lazy, useless wife. Whatever the reasons it turned out to be the biggest life-changing action in my life ever.

Two months after this my mum realised that something was seriously wrong and escorted by the police came to the flat and forced my husband to let my mum see me. The police took one look and called for an ambulance. I have a flashback of sorts of my mum crying while holding my hand, I didn’t know till much later that my body was shutting down. So much so that my bowel and bladder had emptied itself which happens just prior to the body shutting down completely.

My husband was arrested because he had endangered my life in leaving me in that state for so long and not getting me any help but charges were not pressed because he said that he just thought I was being lazy and that I wasn’t as ill as I looked to them. He was seen by a psychologist who explained that his low intelligence and severe lack of common sense had hindered his judgement to the extent that he was not to blame.
I don’t think that anyone would be unable to see that someone who is crawling to the toilet and sleeping twenty-three hours a day for so long is seriously ill.

The only part of this whole experience that I wish I could remember happened once I reached the Emergency Ward.
My mum was with me in the Emergency Ward and told me that the doctors examining me were particularly interested in my stomach. I told them that I thought I had a severe stomach bug. They ran a machine over my stomach rather like one of those hand held barcode readers and showed me the bug I had.
I wish I could say I remember being told that the stomach bug was in fact a baby but I don’t have any recollection at all. I have been told that I slipped into a coma immediately after hearing the news and that my only comment to the news had been “is it ectopic”.

The blood test came back and showed that my blood oxygen levels were extremely low, I had to be given oxygen at a level of over 95% which is almost unheard of. The hospital could not figure out the cause of what was wrong with me and thought that maybe bird flu was a possibility as my friend had recently come back from Thailand. The hospital had to move me to a quarrantined room and the E.R had to be sterilised completely just in case it was bird flu.I shudder to think just how much money that cost, not just for my treatment but also the re-routing of people needing emergency treatment.

At some point while I was lying there comatose, an expert pnumologist was called in to consult and after scans and exams decided that the diagnosis was “unknown” but his best guess was that I had picked up an infection from the caged lovebirds and their droppings that my husband kept in the living room which had mutated with the pnumonia into something unique. The weeks I’d spent just sleeping and not eating even a sandwich had only served to lower any immune system response so I had nothing to fight off the infections with.

The police had to bring my husband and friend in for blood tests which my husband actually tried to refuse as he said the hospital were picking on him and were on my side but as it was suspected to be bird flu he wasn’t given any choice in the matter. Refusal is not an option when it comes to such a scary illness.

When my mum ran into my husband in the hospital corridor the conversation went like this (according to mum who has no reason to lie)

EX: “Hello, I had to have a blood test thanks to madamspud169”
MUM: “She’s in a coma and expected to die any time now actually and you’re complaining
about a blood test!””
EX: “Yeah, well, So when do you think she’ll be round to collect her stuff?”
MUM: “If she manages to live I’ll ask her”
EX: “Good cos I need to move on with my life”

I don’t know whether that was just disregard on his part or if he truly believed that he was the innocent and everyone was against him.
I do know that while my life was hanging in the balance he was only interested in himself and even his own kids welfare wasn’t thought of.My mum was the person who told the kids mum about me and the most likely cause so she could protect her kids as he refused to get rid of the birds because obviously none of this was real, it was just the hospital and me ganging up on him.

Luckily I came through the coma and everything else relatively unscathed as did my now four year old son.
My marriage will be completely dissolved in two weeks time and I can put the whole thing behind me.

It’s a shame that this had to be the cause of my fifteen minutes of fame and I was unaware of it happening.