Alex Taylor
Dying doesn't usually bring new life, but that's exactly what happened to Patrick Charnley.
A successful corporate lawyer, a man who considered every moment of rest "wasted time," he tirelessly pursued his career and success.
During the 2021 pandemic, he worked non-stop.
And then, at just 39 years old, this previously completely healthy father of two suddenly suffered a cardiac arrest.
The evening that started out quite ordinary, with a dinner of sausages and fries on the couch, ended dramatically.
He collapsed unconscious.
Due to a hereditary disease, his heart stopped.
Patrick was clinically dead for a full 40 minutes.
His wife gave him CPR, while their daughter and son, then aged nine and seven, ran for help.
Paramedics' attempts to revive him with a defibrillator were unsuccessful.
In a desperate fight for life, doctors resorted to adrenaline injections, Patrick recalls.
"They tried over and over to get my heart going," he adds.
At that moment, his wife began to lose hope, convinced that she had lost him forever.
And then - a miracle.
The heart started beating again.
After a week in a coma, Patrick woke up a different man.
He had brain damage that affected his vision, memory, and endurance.
He could no longer work or live at the pace he once did.
Yet, it is precisely this dramatic change, he says in the podcast Ready to Talk, journalist Emma Barnett, brought him a new perspective.
Today, he points out, he is more present in his own life and relationships with his loved ones.
It is a change in worldview that, even when it could, it did not want to undo by returning to the old way of life.
I woke up blind.
Yet, the path to today's acceptance was deeply traumatic.
"I woke up blind," Patrick recalls of his first memory after the coma.
"I was experiencing things around me, but I wasn't able to connect them, to truly understand them," he adds.
The loss of vision triggered powerful and vivid hallucinations.
This is a phenomenon known as Charles Bonnet syndrome, the way the brain "fills in the gaps" created by the sudden loss of visual experiences.
While some of these visions were terrifying, others, he says, seemed "magnificent" and unusually beautiful.
After open-heart surgery, Patrick was convinced in one of his hallucinations that a nurse was trying to kill him.
Hallucinations sometimes brought him peace.
One took him to a sanatorium in the Alps, where he gazed at snowy mountains while nurses chatted in the next room.
This experience gave him a "blissful" feeling of security.
As his vision slowly returned, doctors realized that his vision problems were the result of a brain injury.
His vision is still limited, like looking at the world through a telescope.
Early cognitive tests revealed that Patrick was in the bottom two percent in memory ability and mental processing speed.
The true effect of the injury only became visible when he returned home.
Severe exhaustion forces him to carefully allocate his energy.
"I never, ever wake up feeling rested. I wake up exhausted every morning, and as the day goes on, I feel worse," he says.
Mental changes also required adjustment.
Patrick revealed that after his initial recovery, he “didn’t care about anything.”
It wasn't depression in the true sense, but a condition known as pathological apathy, which he describes as "floating through time" with no ground under his feet.
Therapy and medication helped him regain his motivation, while a psychologist encouraged him to mourn the life he had lost.
However, Patrick openly says that he misses the spontaneity of everyday life, the opportunity to fit in with people his own age through "active participation in society", but also to play with children without restrictions.
He also feels guilty towards his wife, to whom, as he says, he is actually "transferring" his own memory.
"The truth is that she's basically my caregiver. I live almost as if I'm very, very old," he admits.
I live a richer life.
Despite all the dramatic changes, Patrick says that in many ways, he still prefers this life.
He changed careers, became a writer, and now has more time to enjoy life.
"I live slowly now, not out of choice, but because I have to. But I really appreciate it. I notice more beauty in things than before, I feel like I live a richer life precisely because I live slower," he says.
"My perspective has completely changed. I'm grateful to be alive," he notes.
His relationship with his family has also changed - for the better.
Now he can laugh with them at the strangeness of his own condition.
"I think we're stronger now than ever... the bond between us is much closer because of everything that's happened," he adds.
"The most important thing for me has always been my family, but now I can give much more of myself to them. Before, I was almost only superficially present in life with them," says Patrick.
His unique situation allowed him to break free from the daily grind of work.
"So many people feel the same way… they're too busy to live a real life. I wouldn't change what happened to me."
"Even with the limitations, I love my own life now. I love being home when the kids come home from school. I love not rushing from one obligation to another," he concludes.
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