Blindsided Read online

  So what were the available options?

  Well, brain surgery was one that was discussed as a possible means of easing the dangerous swelling. Apparently the surgery is reasonably standard; Rob Henderson said that in a normal week he might conduct that kind of operation three or four times. But invasive surgery of any kind always carries with it a certain degree of risk. The fact that the organ involved was the brain merely added to that risk. It was the specialist’s job to weigh up the pros and cons.

  ‘Oh my God,’ I remember thinking when brain surgery was mentioned. ‘This really is a pretty serious thing.’

  A section of skull at the back of my head would have to be removed (and not replaced)—hardly a pleasant procedure—but the alternative outcome of the swelling continuing just didn’t bear consideration. What was in my favour was that—despite the size and severity of the stroke—I was still functioning very well. Rob Henderson was very surprised by that. I was alert; I could talk. So the discussion was based around the fact that I was arguably functioning too well to risk surgical intervention to reduce the swelling. But one way or another, that swelling had to be addressed quickly.

  It was a surreal feeling, sitting there, thinking about what was going on. I remember suddenly feeling the urge to ask my mother: ‘Is the corner of my mouth drooping?’ I’d once read that that was one of the first outwardly obvious symptoms stroke victims experience. I was relieved to be told that it wasn’t, but to ask that question at such a stressful moment was indicative of my determination, which would develop throughout the recovery process: a need to confirm and check off, as if from a list, abilities that I had before the stroke, to confirm that I still had them. Yes, my vision was affected, but everything else, miraculously, seemed to be untouched.

  IAN LYNAGH: In that first conversation with Rob Henderson, I asked him, ‘If we’re not doing brain surgery, what’s the other alternative?’ ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘Dehydrate him, pump him with medication and just wait.’ I asked him what the prognosis of this treatment was and his answer still gives me chills today when I think about it. ‘We don’t know because they don’t usually survive.’

  When the doctors were sitting at the foot of my bed that morning, discussing all the options, I also felt a sense of resignation. I was absolutely terrified of brain surgery. What would I have left when I came out of it? Would I come out of it at all? But I was also conceding that it might be necessary. My thinking was, ‘If this is what needs to be done to fix me, then this is what must be done. I’m ready to go.’

  Bizarrely, when the invasive surgery option was ruled out, I didn’t think, ‘Thank goodness.’ I actually thought, ‘Why? If this is what’s needed, why don’t you just do it?’

  Maybe I just wanted a quick fix. It was only when Rob Henderson explained the reasons again that I accepted that there was another option.

  Based on what must have been a lot of consultation among themselves, the neurologists decided that the best course of action was to dehydrate me in an attempt to ease the swelling of the cerebellum. While the dehydration process was taking place—and it would take a few days—they’d monitor and wake me every thirty minutes to ensure that the swelling was indeed going in the right direction.

  At each waking they would assess my ability to do various things—all of which would confirm to them that the process was effective. I was told that the next three days were absolutely critical for my recovery. It was explained to me as being similar to what happens with a very bad ankle sprain. It’s initially painful, but then the worst swelling comes in days two to five. Then the swelling eases. That’s what would happen to my brain, but the consequences of that swelling not going down would be far more serious.

  As strange and utterly irrelevant as it might sound, one of the issues that was bugging me was my commitment to Sky that weekend. I was due back in the studio on Saturday morning to cover the Heineken Cup. I also had a meeting with a bank on the following Monday. I desperately didn’t want to let anybody down and it was pretty obvious to me that I wasn’t going to be there. So I asked Mum and Dad to call Fitzy at Sky and the bank representative as soon as possible to let them know what was happening. It was vitally important to me.

  SEAN ‘FITZY’ FITZPATRICK, MICHAEL’S CO-COMMENTATOR AT SKY: I was in Marrakech, Morocco, when I got a phone call from Michael’s father. It was early in the morning. He told me what had happened—I hadn’t heard from anyone else. I was shocked like everyone was. Ian told me that Michael was worried about not being back in the studio that Saturday. I wasn’t really surprised by that. That’s how Michael is. I just said, ‘Tell him not to even give it a thought.’ In the grand scheme of things it just wasn’t important.

  FOURTEEN

  THE LOWEST EBB

  DR HENDERSON: The first three days after stroke are critical for two reasons. Firstly, the artery in question is still considered unstable and further stroke can occur—leading to a devastating outcome. Secondly, the stroke that had already occurred in the cerebellum (the less obviously affected area, initially) was at major risk of swelling. Michael was within a whisker of having that part of his brain removed surgically—which isn’t an unusual procedure—but he needed to get through this initial risk period. What we’d be looking at over these few days would be for the artery to not change when we examined with follow-up imaging. In Michael’s case, we were more hopeful of stabilisation because it was blocked off. Once it’s blocked off, it doesn’t have that pressure pushing upwards with the potential to dislodge a piece of blood clot. And once a clot dislodges there’s nowhere for it to go other than to kill brain tissue.

  IN MY ALREADY SLEEP-DEPRIVED state, being woken every half-hour for routine observations wasn’t pleasant. The nurses would ask me a series of questions designed to test my faculties. They wanted to see if I could come up with the right answers every time. Changes in my responses, or my ability to think logically, could give clues to life-threatening issues going on inside my brain. I was on a strict thirty-minute schedule, like a prisoner on suicide watch.

  ‘Who’s the prime minister of Australia?’

  ‘What’s the date?’

  ‘What’s your sister’s name?’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  I knew what date it was because it was around the time of my son Thomas’s birthday, so I could add a day or two to figure that out. I knew who the prime minister was but then they’d ask me who the previous prime minister was . . .

  The question I could never get my head around was when they asked what ward of the hospital I was in. I never seemed to be able to get the words ‘intensive care’ out. I used to say, ‘Oh, I know it’s three letters’, or ‘It’s somewhere you go when you’re really sick’, or maybe I’d say ‘Emergency.’

  ‘You mean the ICU?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s it!’

  For some reason I just couldn’t remember it.

  Then they’d ask me to grab their hands with both hands to assess whether I still had strength. Or to lift my legs and push down to show that I could still do that. This process went on every half-hour for two days solid. It was absolutely exhausting, and a lot of the time I did it almost automatically, with my eyes closed. I knew what was coming and that in itself must have been a good sign for the medical staff.

  With the continual comings and goings, all day every day, the ICU area of a major hospital isn’t the easiest place to sleep at the best of times. I remember a woman came in at one point, screaming and yelling at the top of her voice. I don’t know what was wrong with her but she definitely wasn’t in a good way. Then a guy came in who’d been in a serious car accident. That wasn’t pretty either.

  There was a constant cacophony of noise and almost all of it was indicative of pain and upset. After all, by definition, the intensive care unit exists to deal with the worst cases—those that need urgent medical attention—and some of what I saw and heard in there has been hard to forget. I still don’t understand how the hospital staff do what they do
. They are heroes. They see horrific things every single day and they just have to deal with it. Maybe they detach themselves somehow from the fact that it’s real human beings they’re seeing in awful situations.

  Consequently, those two or three days and nights post-stroke included some of the toughest moments I’ve ever experienced. I say ‘days and nights’, but in reality there was no obvious difference between night and day for me at that time. It was all just time—hour upon indistinguishable hour of freezing cold, headaches and exhaustion on a level I’d never felt before. In addition, the process of dehydration was pretty mind-boggling. The volume of fluid that left my body was staggering—there were literally buckets of it. It was pouring out of me, taking any strength I had left with it. There was also a balance to be struck between dehydrating me sufficiently to reduce the swelling in my brain, and leaving me with enough fluid to stay alive. That’s one of the main reasons why I was in the intensive care unit: so my levels of hydration could be carefully observed.

  There was a lot of medical activity going on during these initial few days and much of it involved needles. I don’t like needles—never have done. And I was getting a lot of them poked into me as part of the administering of medication and blood tests. Eventually I said, ‘I hate this. There’s got to be another way.’ My arms were starting to look like a drug addict’s.

  Thankfully, there was a viable alternative. Instead of having to inject me all the time, the doctors wanted to insert a cannula into my arm so that they could administer drugs that way. The thought of that didn’t thrill me, though, and because I was already nervous my veins collapsed as soon as the staff tried to put anything in. They tried at least three times to get the cannula into my left arm—they just couldn’t do it. At the moment the staff switched over to my right arm to try a vein there, my father walked in. There was a doctor hunched over me, and blood everywhere. I think Dad must have thought, ‘Oh jeez, he’s gone and slashed his wrists.’ It was a bloody mess. Eventually they managed to get the cannula situated, but it was a struggle.

  LOUIS LYNAGH, MICHAEL’S ELDEST SON: When my mum first told us, I was just about to go to school. Mum told us what had happened to Dad and we were all frightened. I remember thinking about what we’d all do if he didn’t make it. Some of the teachers at school had heard about it and they asked, ‘Are you all right?’ They were all very nice to me. All I could do was keep hoping that he’d get better quickly and come home again.

  WEDNESDAY WAS THE DAY when things got really difficult. I was just too tired; I hadn’t eaten or slept properly for three days and the pain in my head was unbearable. Additionally, the process of dehydration was exacerbating my gout, from which I’d suffered for some time. I guess the uric acid had nothing to dilute it. The pain was excruciating—in my feet and my knee. I wasn’t allowed to take my normal medication. It was absolute agony.

  It was at this time that a good friend of mine—an architect, Mick Hellen—came in to visit me with my parents. I was in no state whatsoever to have visitors. I seem to remember being told that Mick had brought me chewing gum. Mick’s a top bloke but I realised as he was chatting away that he had no concept of how serious this was. Somehow that made everything seem even more serious to me.

  IAN LYNAGH: Mick wanted to come and visit Michael and he brought a pile of surfing magazines for him to read. I remember thinking that there was just no way that Michael was ready for that. He [Mick] had no idea how serious it was. Mick’s a lovely, easygoing guy and, after he’d been there for a while, Michael said: ‘Dad, I’m sorry, but do you mind asking him to leave? I need to talk to you.’ Of course, Mick understood.

  When Mick left, I asked Mum to leave the room too and beckoned Dad to come closer to me. My mood had darkened. Like clouds, negative thoughts had rolled in and wouldn’t stop coming. My resolve was weakening. I was starting to doubt whether I was going to make it. I was too tired, too sore, too cold. They tried everything to warm me up, even putting space-blankets on me at one point, but I felt like I was freezing to death.

  I thought about some of the toughest moments I’d spent on a rugby field—pulling victory from defeat in the last few minutes in Dublin, winning at Eden Park in ’86, overcoming other people’s injuries to defeat Natal in Durban to win the 1994 Super 10 for Queensland. All these moments flashed through my head in agonising slow motion, like that heartwrenching highlight reel at the end of the Italian movie Cinema Paradiso. Only now it was me watching my own life, with just the sound of an imaginary projector breaking the silence. I saw all the faces of everyone dear to me: Isabella; the boys; my parents; my sister, Jane—where were they now? I needed them now . . .

  I wasn’t sure how much more I could take. It seemed too hard to fight. I was ready to not see my wife again, not see the boys grow up. I actually thought about it practically—what it would really mean. Weighed it all up. And I still came to the conclusion that it was just too hard a battle. It sounds weak now, but I’m being completely honest about how I felt. I can’t deny it.

  It was my lowest moment ever. And I just couldn’t seem to turn it around. I’d often read about people in dire situations who are faced with the ‘Do I have the strength to keep going?’ question. As an observer I used to think, ‘Oh, come on, surely nothing is so bad that you can’t get through it?’

  But I can assure you, as strong as your mind is (and I’d always thought mine was), if you’re worn down physically to absolute breaking point, you just can’t predict what kind of decisions you’ll find yourself making. Not in a million years did I ever think I’d say, ‘It’s easier to give up’, but here I was, about to do it. I was succumbing.

  I remember that I asked Dad to get a paper towel from beside the sink and said, ‘Look Dad, in case I don’t survive, I want you to write these details down.’ Mentally, I’d just crossed another line. It’s one thing thinking certain thoughts, but it’s another thing entirely when you take practical steps based on what you’re thinking.

  I had bank accounts that only I knew the passwords to. And my worry was that they might never be found once I was gone. Isabella didn’t know about these accounts; I’d never told her. It wasn’t that I’d been secretive or had ever thought of hiding anything from her. It was just that I’d lived in three countries over the years and had a number of accounts and policies that she’d always been happy for me to manage for the benefit of all the family. But she would need to know, if I didn’t survive. So I wanted Dad to jot down the information. ‘Promise you’ll make sure the boys are okay,’ I asked him next. I was thinking about the future. Their future. The boys were young. They had school fees due, university to pay for after that, holidays to go on, first cars to buy, weddings—all the things I’d never see them do. All these things I’d never be a part of.

  I felt no self-pity, only exhaustion. And pain. At that moment I fully accepted that I was going to die in a hospital bed in Brisbane with my wife and kids in another country. No goodbyes, no hugs, no final ‘We love you, Dad’.

  I’d just be gone.

  IAN LYNAGH: He wanted to give me these details. Nobody else knew them—that’s typical of Michael. ‘It’s complex,’ he said. So I wrote the information down. Then he said, ‘Dad, I want you to promise me that you’ll look after the boys.’ I swallowed hard. Choked back tears. He was preparing to die—there’s no other way of saying it. We both kept our composure there, but not so much at home.

  When Dad left, I really didn’t know if I’d see him again. I remember looking at the clock in the room: it was 7pm. I closed my eyes to relieve the pain, not knowing when or if I’d open them.

  MARIE LYNAGH: When we got home that evening, Michael’s story had obviously hit the press during that day. When I opened the door of the house, the phone was making this terrible noise. I called Telstra in the morning and they sent an engineer round. As I said my name he said, ‘Oh, Michael Lynagh! Let me fix this straightaway.’ It turned out that the phone had completely melted down from all the calls and messag
es that had been coming in during the day. The Telstra engineer just couldn’t do enough for us.

  FIFTEEN

  THE TURNING POINT

  I MUST HAVE FALLEN asleep . . .

  I was in a place I’d been many times before, on the coast north of Brisbane. Buddina Beach, it’s called, and it’s a long way from being the best surf-break on the coast. But it’s a beautiful place and there is the occasional wave. It was ten-thirty in the morning—a scorching-hot summer day. I was about to have my second surf of the day. My parents were on the beach relaxing, reading the paper.

  It wasn’t what you’d call ‘big’ that day, but there was a sandbank with a gutter behind it that was creating some nice, shoulder-high lefts. This other guy and I were sitting out there, a hundred and fifty metres from the beach. To this day I have no idea who he was. Blazing sunshine, boardshorts and a few easy waves to catch. ‘You take that one, mate—that wave is yours.’ It was that kind of day.

  About five metres in front of us, this big fish came up and went down again. I noted its position and said, ‘Jeez, I hope that was a dolphin.’ This guy goes, ‘Me too.’ It was pretty normal to see dolphins out there. They’d swim around and then come up out of nowhere and give you a huge fright—they’d be literally two metres away from you. But this was a little further away and it swam with a smooth glide rather than a dolphin’s head and tail breach. It looked a bit different from a dolphin too, but we thought nothing more of it.

  There weren’t that many people in the area—certainly no warning flags or lifeguards. They were a kilometre or so further down the beach. But the twenty or so people who were on the beach were now waving at us—‘Hey, hey!’