Fabrice Muamba: I'm Still Standing Read online

  Robert Pires arrived one day and he leant down and gave me a big hug as I sat in my chair. “You’re looking better than last time I saw you,” he joked. It was just great to talk about football and what was going on. General chat. I respect him so much because he was a senior player when I was just a kid at Arsenal so his visit meant a lot.

  Johan was there all the time, Justin was the same, as was Rashid. They are my boys, my friends from years back. They’ve known me from a very young age and they know me better than anyone. One of the most touching guests was Ivan Klasnic, one of my best mates in the game. Ivan has had his own kidney problems and has had a double transplant. If anyone knew the fear I was feeling, the uncertainty, the frustration, then it was him.

  “Everyone loves you,” he said. “Why you, nobody deserves this.”

  “I know, but that’s life,” I replied. If this was God’s plan then I just had to get on with it and cope. We spoke and he hugged me. “We are all here for you,” he said.

  The visitors just kept on coming and it was great to see so many different people so concerned about me.

  Mark Halsey, the Premier League referee, arrived to represent the Referees’ Association, Bobby Barnes from the PFA, David Bernstein from the FA and Dave Richards from the Premier League all showed up. I’ve never been as popular in my life! I didn’t think so many important people cared so much and it was great for them to take the time out, even if I was in what felt like a constant daze. I slept so much it was ridiculous. Sleep, sleep, sleep was all I did. Most people tried to protect me from the truth and the seriousness of what had happened to me and at that point that was fine with me. I needed rest more than anything.

  As I slept, Shauna and Warwick were being hit from all angles by the media who wanted the first picture of me in hospital but they were determined to put my recovery first. There were some worries that a picture of me would be leaked out so every visitor was warned about taking any snaps of me in case they ended up in the wrong hands. In the end Shauna solved it by putting her own picture of me on Twitter to show people I was doing ok. She wanted everybody to see I was fighting hard, not just the readers of one newspaper or another. It was typical Shauna, the best problem-solver I know.

  #####

  Shauna rented an apartment near the hotel so she brought me food every day and I also saw Dad and Gertrude all the time as well. I’m not really a ‘huggy’ person so there weren’t that many really emotional moments but it was wonderful to see them and to know I had such back up.

  However, the best moment of the lot was seeing Joshua. I didn’t see him for so long when I was inside because we didn’t want him around the whole situation. It could’ve been scary for the little man and I didn’t want him to be upset.

  When I first saw him I was sat in the chair next to my bed, dressed in my cool hospital gown as always, and he ran through the door shouting “daddy, daddy.” It did my morale so good to see him. I was still very weak and Joshua climbed all over me from the start.

  At this point I still had probes and fluid lines sticking out of everywhere. He jumped on my lap and said “daddy, everyone at school is talking about you.”

  Then he said: “Let me take this out” before trying to disconnect all those wires attached to my chest and neck!

  “Whoa, whoa,” I said. “Calm down, daddy isn’t well!”

  It was so funny and great to see him. He was there for about 35 minutes and it did me the world of good. I had my family back.The craziest thing was I could tell the difference in his development in the short amount of time I’d been away.

  All parents know that you only have to turn away for a second and your kids have grown up and Joshua was no different. Laughter is the best medicine and I felt great when he left because he always makes me smile. I gave him a big kiss as he went out of the door because he’s a special boy in many ways and that undoubtedly helped.

  I was starting to get tiny glimpses of the outside world and what the reaction to my situation had been. I was shocked when I found out that Bolton’s game against Aston Villa had been postponed. We were meant to be travelling to Villa Park on the Tuesday after the FA Cup match on the Saturday but some idiot collapsed and that was the end of that.

  It was Shauna who broke the news to me days later.

  “Bolton’s game was called off,” she said while sitting next to my bed. “Why?” I said.

  “Because of you,” she said. “You’re not the same Fabrice anymore. The world is changing out there. When you come out you will see what I mean.”

  I had heard that there’d been a big response to my situation but I was so close to events that I had no idea how the world was reacting. There were no mobiles allowed in my room and I didn’t see a television or read a newspaper. I was clueless at the time to the scale of the prayers and the attention I was receiving.

  For example, on the Tuesday after I collapsed, Phil Mason put on a service at the Reebok Stadium in the chairman’s suite thinking that maybe 30 people would show up.

  He had to put more chairs out in the end.

  Sixty members of staff came to pray and to speak to Phil about me and my situation. He also opened up the suite to members of the public and he got a ton of cards and emails from people all over the world praying for me and asking how I was.

  Without knowing it, I was going from being me to being someone known by the whole country. When I did finally get out of hospital, that would prove to be very weird indeed.

  One thing I have to repeat loud and proud is how much I owe Bolton following my collapse. The club has been amazing.

  They did everything in their power to help me and I will always, always, always be grateful to the club for what they have done for me. They quite literally couldn’t have done anything else to bring me back to full health.

  As a patient the club were sensational. They have stuck by me through thick and thin and I have nothing but the utmost respect for everybody there. I’m so grateful for all their care and attention. They weren’t the only ones. Later on, while still in hospital, I started to get loads of messages from well-wishers and I was so touched by that. It felt very strange to be the centre of all this attention but it was a reminder of how good the British public are.

  In the end I would need all the support I could get. My recovery wouldn’t be as straightforward as I hoped. There were some difficult moments ahead before I could really see the light at the end of a long, dark tunnel.

  #15

  Lost And Found

  ‘WHERE is she? Where has she gone now?’ I thought to myself. I was getting more agitated by the minute.

  I waited. Still no sign of Shauna. I waited a few more seconds. Still nothing. My eyes focused on the door of the hospital room. I waited for it to open but still nothing.

  What am I doing here? I’ve had enough. I want to get out. Why has this happened to me? Why me?

  Just then, Shauna appeared again. I lost control.

  “Why did you go for so long? Where have you been? Don’t go anywhere,” I shouted at her.

  “Fab, I was looking after you,” she replied, astonished. “I went to try and help you and get you better.” My head wouldn’t listen to her answers.

  It was the second week of being in hospital and Shauna had gone outside to ask the doctor on duty about my medication. She must have been out of the room for two minutes, maybe three at the most. But I was so impatient and frustrated and angry that I just exploded.

  I repaid the woman who had stood by me with abuse. I just couldn’t help all this frustration pouring out. It wasn’t the only time I let things get on top of me. Deep down, I felt so bad about how I was behaving but I couldn’t help it – it’s as simple as that.

  Shauna never once questioned her love for me or her faith in us as a couple when I was looking half-dead, in fact when I WAS half-dead, and I repaid her by trying to throw her out of my hospital room.

  I was a confused and angry mess.

  The public think I’m a
ll smiles and most of the time I am a happy person but underneath that grin was a man feeling robbed of his future and worried about what that future even held. It was gloomy.

  I cannot pretend that I was anything like the ideal patient. I had some dark moments. Times when I kicked people out of my room. Moments when I just wanted to be left alone.

  I’d gone from being a fit young man to someone who couldn’t walk. Just think about that for a moment. Think about what it must be like to have your health stolen from you in the time it takes to fall over.

  I can tolerate most things and I’m pretty laid back. But when my anger comes out then there’s no stopping me. Every day seemed to be the same. I knew that Dr Sam and his team were doing a brilliant job and I was in the best place but that didn’t make it any easier. What can I say? I acted like an arsehole at times.

  A frustrated and angry arsehole.

  I had blood check after blood check. I hate needles and doctors pushing and probing me to see what was going on so that was hard to handle and I took my frustration out on Shauna.

  “Get out,” I would sulk. “I don’t want to be with anyone.”

  It’s hard to explain just how helpless I felt. To go from flying into tackles in the Premier League to lying in a tiny room as the wall gets closer and closer every day.

  Shauna would be relieved when I needed something from outside, just so she could get out and snatch some fresh air. To be stuck there, with tubes coming out of everywhere, was the most difficult thing for me.

  Everyone treated me so well and I would never complain about the staff. But that doesn’t mean it was easy to wake up every morning, praying that my kidneys would work, only to spend all day with nothing happening.

  Everybody around me had a different outlook but I wouldn’t listen to them. Shauna, Dad and Dr Sam were just grateful I wasn’t dead. If all I had to worry about was not being able to go to the toilet then I should be happy.

  You’ve got to remember that this was my crisis time. Not the 78 minutes when I was gone. That was when everyone else was panicking, working at a million miles an hour to save my life.

  I never saw or experienced any of the terror they did, from the moment my skull crashed into the White Hart Lane turf to my ambulance journey and my heart finally starting to work properly again. I missed all that. It never affected me. I was at the centre of all this pain and worry and I was the one person who was bothered the least by it.

  Now was different. Coming to terms with what had happened was tough to handle and I switched between moments of distress and confusion before sleep came to relieve me.

  Every day ran into the one before it and the one after it. Sitting in a small room waiting, waiting, waiting. And also having to take a ton of drugs to help. When your kidneys fail you can end up with too much potassium or too little in your blood and it’s important to keep an eye on it, especially in heart patients because potassium helps keep everything working properly.

  Well, I had too little so I had to take supplements and it was disgusting. I dreaded it every day. The taste was just awful. Not even cup of tea after cup of tea would shift it. I never drank tea before collapsing but NHS tea changed that – I can’t get enough of it now!

  So, at times I was a snappy, moaning patient and I’ve apologised since. And rightly so. I want to tell you I was as clean as a whistle but I want to be honest – I wasn’t. Nowhere near in fact.

  Dr Sam could see the state I was in and he would tell me that I had beaten all the odds to still be around and that I should be proud of myself for surviving. Not many people go through what I did and I needed to hear that. His support alongside all his fellow doctors gave me some confidence and I was also helped by people visiting all day every day. My faith in God was always there as well which meant I could pray when I was feeling really down.

  Shauna, dad and Dr Sam eventually saw my frustrations as a positive sign. As far as they were concerned if I was still alive enough to be upset about how things were going, then I was also driven enough to get on with rebuilding my life.

  I should’ve left hospital in a hearse. A three-week delay in leaving on my feet was nothing as far as they were concerned.

  After what seemed like forever, my kidneys finally started to slowly improve which was the break I had been desperately waiting for. Let me tell you how good Dr Sam and the rest of the team looking after me were.

  You won’t believe this.

  Magdi Yaqoob is a professor of kidney medicine and was looking into what was wrong with me.

  As my kidney trouble continued he turned to the rest of the team looking after me, including Dr Sam, and said “this isn’t a problem, he will get better, I think Fabrice will pee exactly a week today.”

  And he was spot on. I pee’d to a timetable!

  That goes to show you the quality and experience of the people looking after me. Dr Sam played a huge part but so did people like Dr Chris Broomhead, Dr Alistair Chesser, Dr Simon Harrod, Dr Kate Wark, David Wilson and a million others.

  They all helped to put me back together and I will never forget the moment when I finally got the urge to go to the toilet – when the finish line finally appeared.

  One day dad brought in some friends, including my Uncle Paul, and they came into my room to pray.

  “We are here to pray for your kidneys,” they said. That was fine by me but there’s praying and there’s praying and I know how loud these people can be!

  I said: “Listen, dad, please pray but we’re in hospital, so please keep it low-key.” And they started to pray.

  And pray. And pray. And pray. And pray.

  They surrounded my bed and Shauna was there as well. And they said “don’t worry your kidneys will get better.”

  Pastor Nkosi, a well-known Congolese pastor based in Tottenham, also came to see me and spoke to me about faith.

  He put his hands on my kidneys and told them to get moving. That everyone was bored with them not working. That it was time for them to sort themselves out. I had everyone fighting in my corner.

  With all this help I had the confidence to believe I would get better. Medicine gets you so far and those involved with my treatment were beyond amazing, beyond incredible, beyond whatever words you want to use.

  But sometimes you need some extra help…

  As well as having all these people praying for me, I also spoke to mum in Congo. Can you imagine how worried she had been? I hadn’t spoken to her since the incident so when I found a quiet moment in the room me and Shauna made the call.

  “How are you, son?” she blurted out. She cried and cried and told me to listen to my doctors which I knew, deep down, I should do. As I lay there in the room, holding Shauna’s hand and speaking to my mum, who had been petrified that her son was dead, I realised how important it was to pull through and to continue living a good life, an honest life, my life.

  Mum told me that in Congo everybody at the local church has been praying for me. She wanted me to call the pastor of that church. So I did.

  In the Congolese community you must understand that we think prayer can do anything. We believe it can move mountains, it can change the world, it can heal everything.

  I spoke to the pastor who insisted we prayed over the phone. Me in London, him in Kinshasa. “Come on God, make it happen,” I said. So we prayed and prayed and when we said “Amen” I SWEAR that the urge to pee started. I filled bottle after bottle, grinning like an idiot – just because I could go to the toilet!

  When my kidneys woke up it was another sign I was inching towards safety. My appetite came back with a bang, I wanted to get living again, get back to normality.

  The only problem is that what used to be normal was no longer possible. I was looking at the end of my career, the one thing I had loved all my life.

  During my time in intensive care, Professor Richard Schilling became involved in my treatment. He’s far too modest to admit it but he’s one of the best heart specialists in the world. His area of expe
rtise is heart rhythm problems and he’s taught all over the planet on the subject. He’s basically the man.

  And it was his job to tell me that I would need something called an Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator (ICD). That is basically a device that sits on your heart and monitors its rhythm and if there is a problem with it and you go into cardiac arrest it delivers a shock to sort you out.

  I was in two minds about whether I needed the ICD or not. On the one hand, getting the ICD put in meant I could leave hospital as soon as possible and try and get on with my life. It would be my leaving present from those who had looked after me. But on the other hand my faith is so strong that I didn’t see the point of having it done. Dr Sam did his best to convince me, day after day, that it was the best thing for me and Shauna would also get stuck in and tell me to stop being stupid and get it done.

  I must admit, though, that I didn’t really want it. “Whatever, I’m not interested,” was my thinking. My attitude was that my kidneys were working so let’s get out of here. The last thing I wanted was more hospital time, even if they did try and explain that the ICD was just like a seatbelt in a car. You hope it will never have to be put to test but it’s better to have it there than take the risk. But, really, what can it do? Is it really going to save my life if things go bad again? I’m not sure.

  As always it was Shauna who finally made me agree to the operation even if she used some low tactics to make it happen!

  She couldn’t understand why I wanted to put myself back at risk and she threatened all sorts, including packing her bags and going, unless I woke up and had it put in.

  The best thing she did was contact Khalilou Fadiga, the former Bolton player who also suffered a cardiac arrest on the pitch back in 2004. If anyone knew what I was going through then it was him.

  Shauna got Suki to ring El-Hadji Diouf for Khalilou’s number and she managed to get hold of him at home in Belgium and explained the situation.