DAY 25 – 16 November:

Michelle: My first visit to Conor without Mike. It was an uneventful day, which is exactly what we want – Conor to keep on keeping on and resting and hopefully, somewhere along the line, get better.

They tell me they have to change his line for his medication. A surgeon will do it as there is a big risk due to the Heparin he is on to thin his blood. This makes me feel uncomfortable. I wish they didn’t have to add any more risk on top of what he was already facing. But it was something that had to be done.

The most difficult part of Mike being away was the silence in the house once Rachel was asleep. I have no one to talk to, to distract me, and so alone I sob and cry and shout at the universe at the unfairness of it all. I am angry and heartbroken, but eventually I realise that I can change nothing, and so just have to do the best that I can with the situation I have been handed, which is a really crappy one. One small step at a time is the only way to get through this. I know I must just think about what comes next, as anything further into the future than that is overwhelmingly scary.

Michael: I unfortunately cannot visit him as I rush to airport first thing in the morning, but reports are that he is unchanged, a victory for the day it seems. I don’t sleep much on the flight, watch a lot of movies, a welcome distraction.

The doctors say nothing much has changed on the ECMO, and we must just give it time. The idea is for the machine to take the pressure off his heart so that the muscle tissue can heal. The heart muscle, unlike most other muscles in the body, is never at rest, ever. So, while he is on the ECMO, we can only wait. And we do that, we have no other choice. The medical professionals are doing their best, and that is all we can ask for. We on the other hand can only give love and encouragement, as feeble as that sounds, it has to count for something. It has to.