The midwife told me I’d given birth to a Perfect Princess. She was a browny-red with jet black hair; she seemed so small … I loved her even more now that she was out in my arms.
But something was badly wrong:
My breathing became hard work. I asked for a wheelchair so I could be wheeled outside for some proper air – fresh and damp. I was put on the fire exit, all alone in the dark. I wish they had never bothered. I asked to be wheeled back in. I told a young nurse I was feeling a bit poorly and that my breathing felt strange … I turned my lamp on for attention and [the nurse] saw that my face was blue. She ran for the sister; there was a lot of panic … By this time my body was near frozen. I was wrapped in what I thought was giant tin foil … I knew I was desperately ill … I knew if I slept I would never wake up – I did not have the breath.
Tans was rushed to the ICU and a bunch of doctors pored over X-rays, but no one really knew what was what. Steve Terry, her mum and her friends all came to see her – but it was Joanne Southern’s visit that freaked Tans out the most as Joanne couldn’t help but cry, and Tans realized that Joanne must know something about her condition that she didn’t. By this point, Steve is crying, Maureen is crying and a vicar has been to visit her.
When you know death is close it’s a very lonely feeling; no one can do it for you. It is done only by you.
Fortunately – very fortunately – a heart surgeon was brought to see Tans and realized pretty quickly that something was very wrong. The decision was made to send Tans six miles down the road to Harefield Hospital; she didn’t even know at that point that Harefield was a place where hearts got fixed.
By now, the doctors realized that she had suffered from something called cardiomyopathy. This means that her heart had swelled during pregnancy, but during the intense effort of labour, the same muscles that had swelled and been stressed by the pregnancy had collapsed. It had been a one-in-a-million chance that someone at the age of 21 should go through such a thing, but now she had just once chance to live: she needed a heart transplant. It was her only option, but even then, it was a really long shot.
Once at Harefield, things got really dire. On her first night, Tans was put in intensive care, which completely freaked her out. People were dying all around her on the ward, and she was terrified. Fortunately, a man called Dr Mitchell came to see her and calmed her down. He would become such an important part of our lives, that guy. He looked like a mad professor – he had crazy hair, like Christopher Lloyd playing the Dr Emmett Brown character in Back to the Future – but he was the kindest, and the best doctor you could ever imagine.
But first she had to wait – a full five weeks while the search went on for a new heart. Tans was moved out of the ICU to a regular ward to calm her down a bit. Dr Mitchell initially told Tans that it might be that she needed a pacemaker, but she was only 21 and a new mother and this devastated her. ‘I might as well throw myself out of the window now,’ she’d whispered to Mitchell.
Slowly, I got worse. I started to get thin and weak. I looked in the mirror one day and had a bad shock. I saw my eyes; it was awful. They seemed to be so far in my head. I knew I was dying.
Tans’ diary is an incredible record of what she went through – all her fears and pain, but also evidence of the strength and love for her family, and mostly her love for Kaley.
The best way to explain how she made me feel is when I was breathless, she gave me breath. My wonder child.
Eventually, Dr Mitchell came to Tanya’s bedside and told her she needed a heart transplant within the next two weeks – he was very straight with her and told her she would indeed die without it:
I was back on the monitors, right by the sister’s room. My breathing became difficult again. From then on, all I remember is being moved back to ITU. How scary that was. Dr Mitchell had told me I needed a new heart in the next two weeks.
My last memory of owning my old heart is laying with Steve, Mum and Dad. The hurt was just horrific. Watching my lovely mummy having to be taken out of the ITU. I begged my dad to make sure my mum would be OK.
With Steve holding one hand and Dad holding the other, very slowly my vision was going. Everything began to get dark. It was very gradual. I told Steve very calmly I was going now. It was definitely time to begin my journey to heaven.
All the fear leaves you when it’s time to die. All my pain left me and for the first time in weeks I was actually at peace. I had no strength left to fight for life. My heart stopped there and then. [I was] knocking on heaven’s door.
Tans told Steve that she couldn’t see; and suddenly the room was filled with doctors and nurses rushing to save her life.
I don’t know how you live after this, I really don’t. I do believe it gave Tans a strong sense that life was so precious and was to be filled with love and enjoyment. She had always been a lovely person, but I think once this happened to her, she got a strong look into what life is and what it means to lose it. It also made her fearful, I think, of how much a body can let you down.
That’s just another reason why losing her has been so terrible. She knew as much as anyone ever did how precious life is. She never took it for granted, not one single day.
I don’t think any of us should.
Tans was really funny, though, and I think that helped her. Though she had been ‘knocking on heaven’s door’ …
… I can only presume God was not home, as I was sent back again.
I was then put on a life support machine to keep me alive while Dr Mitchell tried to find me a new heart. Mine had completely stopped. Steve said the sound of the heart monitor stopping will stay with him forever. He loved me more than anything and he stood and watched me die. He changed at that moment; that changed him completely. He was never to be the same person again.
I really don’t know how two people who were so young could go through so much. Don’t forget, this all happened in the two weeks after Tanya turned 21. Steve was four years older, but he was still basically a nipper. They’d only gotten married in June 1986; now, less than a year later, they’d just had a baby and Tanya’s heart had collapsed. I have nothing but admiration for how Steve stayed with her throughout that ordeal; it must have been terrifying. (He missed a lot of Watford’s games to be with Tanya – in fact, after Kaley was born and Tanya’s heart had collapsed, he only played one more game all season – and he scored, with his foot! Pretty good for a centre back with his mind elsewhere.)
Then, a miracle: a heart had been found for Tanya Terry.
For a heart to be found, sadly there had to be a tragedy somewhere else – in this case, as far away as Germany. A 14-year-old boy had been involved in a car accident and his family wanted him to be a donor. The heart had originally been designated for someone else – not Tans – but the match had not been perfect. It was now mid-May. Tanya had given birth five weeks earlier and was on life support; her need was the greatest of all in the transplant system, and the boy’s heart fitted her needs perfectly.
But let’s be clear: that’s how close we came to losing her, way back in 1987. A chance accident on the autobahn 500 miles or so away? It doesn’t bear thinking about – not for Tans, not for her family, not for the poor German family who lost their boy.
I think if you’d asked anyone around Tans – her mum, her dad, Shane, Steve, all her friends – they would have begged for any amount of extra time, given how incredibly close to death she came that spring. I suppose that Tans got 32 extra years was nothing short of a miracle – the record in the United States in 1987, the year she had her transplant, was a Stanford University School of Medicine heart recipient who had so far lived 18 years since his transplant. Though right now, a few months after losing her, even 32 years seems too short.
In her diary, Tans wrote that she was resigned to whatever is about to happen:
I knew nothing of all this. I thought I had gently left this beautiful, magic world and passed over to the other side to spend time with my precious grandad, Tommy. I bel
ieve that’s why I had no fear; I knew Grandad, who I have always loved and respected, was waiting for me. I remember nothing of my time when I was dead. I just know the relief I felt … it was almost freedom to me for death to come at last. Peace is the best word that comes to mind.
The heart had been harvested in Germany, and now the agonizing wait for Tans’ new heart to arrive at Harefield began. Tans’ dad and Steve waited by the helicopter pad for hours, hoping to hear the whirr of the blades that would hopefully save her life. The last leg of the heart’s journey had been by road, though, so before they knew it, wallop, Dr Yacoub and his team had started and completed the transplant. (In fact, helicopters would feature in many parts of our lives together, good and bad. But that’s all to come.)
Yacoub found Lou and Steve and said, ‘It’s a good heart.’
Later, Tans would reflect on what it meant to get a new lease of life:
This was the only chance for me to live again, and be a daughter, a wife, and most important, a mother … I desperately wanted to be [that] for Kaley more than anything.
It was Monday 18 May 1987. The surgery had taken about eleven hours; eventually, Dr Yacoub emerged from the operating room to give Tans’ family the good news that the transplant was complete and so far she was responding quite well. But she wasn’t out of the woods:
The doctors were not sure if they had got the life support machine on in time. Once the heart stops it’s only a matter of time before the oxygen stops getting to the brain. When this happens, if you manage to live again you can suffer brain damage. The doctors were quite sure this had happened to me.
Lou had gone home after the news about the possible brain damage and had stayed awake all night, terrified and devastated. This darling daughter of his, to whom he’d always been so close; the girl he’d held in his arms when she was born between a football match and the boxing, the proudest man in the world; the girl he’d waved off to Lea Farm School, trying to swallow the great lump in his throat; the 12-year-old he’d brought Persephone home to as a surprise for her birthday; the woman he’d given away to Steve Terry … after everything they’d all been through, this was the cruellest blow. To have faced losing her, only to have this news about her brain – her brilliant, quirky, love-filled brain – follow on the heels of the baby and the transplant, well, it seemed to everyone like the universe’s worst ever joke.
But then something magical happened, yet again. Lou and Steve and Maureen were allowed into the ante room in the ICU the next morning for a second and they all stood looking at Tans, devastated that she might have suffered a terrible brain injury. They couldn’t see her face, so couldn’t tell if she was OK or not.
And it was at that moment that a little hand appeared from under the sheet and waved. Their daughter, Steve’s wife, Tanya Terry, had just waved at them – her dad and her mum knew there and then that she was fine, because you know your child more than you know anything in the world and they could just feel it.
Their little girl was going to be OK.
It was time for Tanya to begin her life all over again. She was in intensive care and out of it for the rest of the week, until Friday.
Friday morning, 22nd May, Shane’s birthday, was the first day of my new life. I had been asleep since leaving my life on Monday afternoon.
But it was still a really hard thing to understand for such a young woman:
The real pain and horror hit me – I had had a heart transplant. The ache around my chest and lungs was horrific and I was totally numb with shock … I asked for a mirror. The moment Mum had dreaded … In my whole life, I had never seen anything so ugly. The scar down my chest was disgusting. I had so many stitches … I knew at that moment my life would never be the same again. I thought there could be nothing worse than that until I lifted the mirror to my … face. I looked like a bloated hamster, and I was yellow. I was devastated … I don’t think I even asked after my darling Kaley that day. All I wished was that my family had been brave enough to ask the doctors to turn the life support machine off so I could have died with beauty and dignity.
Eventually, Tans started to feel a bit more hopeful:
After a couple of days, I learned to walk, very slowly. I started to wash myself and gradually became a little independent, which made me a tiny bit happier.
Looking back, though, I was confused, shocked and very depressed. I had always been a happy person; I had never suffered from depression, so I did not understand this emotion. I believe I was mentally unstable too, and that probably lasted 18 months … at least.
Failure was the feeling I could not cope with, and being ill and relying on everyone to do everything for me made me feel like I had failed … How can a woman not have a baby easily? What did I do wrong? Why did my healthy heart collapse? Why why why, that’s all I ever asked. I drove myself mad wondering, doubting myself, doubting Steve, doubting God, the doctors, nurses, my family, my friends, just doubting everything. Again [I was] wishing I could have peacefully died.
The depression continued to affect her marriage, though, and her role as a new mum:
Every day when I watched Steve walk in, I doubted my love for him; I think he felt the same. He had had six weeks preparing for my death and here I was alive. He was shocked at me surviving and he knew I had become totally dependent on him.
I was [also] frightened at the thought of being a mummy, suddenly. Before all this I was confident I would be a perfect young mum. Now I felt like a child again who needed looking after; I was now frightened of the thought of looking after a baby all by myself.
As ever, Kaley saved the day:
The day my love Kaley was brought to me all my sadness left me. I remembered how she made me feel. All my proudness came back, all my love filled my body again.
One day, Maureen was pacing her living room, worried sick about her daughter. It was a terrible time for everyone, but imagine a mother having to watch her only daughter fight for her life, and also be unable to fully enjoy her first grandchild, given the circumstances. Maureen describes it as the worst moments of her life … and right in the middle of that toughest of days, the phone rang. She was afraid it was the hospital; how wrong she was.
‘Hello, Maur,’ said a voice. ‘It’s Elt, here.’
This rang no bells.
‘Who is it?’ Maureen said, exasperated.
‘Elt,’ said the voice.
Maureen had no idea. She was on the verge of just putting the phone down.
‘No, I heard that,’ said Maureen. ‘But who is it, who is it?’
‘It’s Elt, Elt, Elton John.’
There was a pause, and then Maureen said, ‘Jesus Mary and Joseph!’
God bless his heart, he was calling to see whether or not to send Tans real or fake flowers (Tans’ room had to be kept sterile, of course, so fake it was). The Rocketman even went to see Tans in hospital, sitting on the end of her bed and chatting with her. That was during the time Elton was married to Renate Blauel and Renate used to call Tans now and then. (Once she was out of hospital, Tans went to a party Elton threw in Chorleywood; she even called Dr Mitchell beforehand to see if she was allowed to have a glass of champagne. She was.) And for the rest of her life, Elton has always remembered to ask after her whenever I’ve seen him; what a great guy.
And beyond Kaley and Steve and her family and friends like Elton John, there was one other person who helped Tans more than I think he ever knew:
My favourite, Dr Mitchell, would come by from time to time … He was always so honest with me and frank, but from the moment I met him there was always a home in my heart for him; there still is. He is the cleverest man I ever met. Even now when I see him I need him to reassure me that he will never leave Harefield Hospital. I always think the day he leaves is the day I will die. I need him.
After Tans died, I spoke to Dr Andrew Mitchell to thank him for everything and to tell him what Tans had thought of him. I said, ‘She spoke so highly of you – you were her knight in shining ar
mour.’ He was in shock when I told him that; that’s how great and selfless that guy is. He’s a true, real, lifesaver and he had no idea.
And then it was Monday 1 June 1987 – exactly two weeks after Tans’ heart transplant:
Finally, the day came. I heard the words, ‘Tanya, would you like to go home?’ What a feeling. If I could still do back flips, I would have done a hundred. The drive was wonderful; the sun, the green grass, the smell of summer, the horses, sheep and cows in the fields, the blue sky, the white clouds. My jaw ached from smiling by the time I got home to Mum’s.
The best thing in life must be your Mum’s house, the house you spent your whole childhood [in], the happiest time. [My childhood was] a special, special time, and although I had gone, it was in my own memory box. I cried and cried from happiness. I never thought I’d see Gaddesden Crescent again, my favourite place in the whole world. My roots.
Waiting for her, in a crib, was her new baby.
Kaley laying in her crib gave me a warm glow. Her beauty kept shocking me. Her skin was like silk.
By this time, she was quite fair. She was ten weeks old. My very own perfect daughter.
But still the depression stalked her. Maureen remembers that she was hanging the washing one day while Tanya went to have a bath. Glancing in the mirror, Tanya had been horrified at what she’d seen. Maureen heard her crying and screaming. Rushing up to her, Tanya tearfully confessed she felt like she resembled an ape, as the steroids had caused dark black hair to grow on her body.
All these changes made Tans very anxious:
Sometimes I would feel strangely homesick for Harefield. Although I did not want to spend my life in hospital, I knew I was safer there. I was so afraid, suddenly, of dying; it began to take over my every thought. One moment I would be fine and laughing and chatting – next thing, I would be howling and screaming out of control. The fear feeling did not leave me for at least 18 months.
Lost Without You: Loving and Losing Tanya Page 6
