The boy who LIVED!: A second chance at life - a memoir

By Stephen Young

In his raw and inspiring memoir, "The Boy Who LIVED!", Stephen Young takes readers on a roller-coaster ride through his exceptional life. From a disastrous motorcycle accident at age 19, which nearly claimed his life, Stephen's journey is marked with trials and triumphs, medical challenges, business ventures, and the ceaseless pursuit of his varied interests.

Living through five heart surgeries and additional motorcycle accidents, Stephen's resilience is nothing short of astounding. However, his life is far more than just a tale of survival. It's a testament to a spirit that refuses to be bound by circumstances, a spirit that finds joy and meaning in the journey itself.

Amid the medical hardships, Stephen renovates houses, immerses himself in the adrenaline rush of car racing, and ultimately fulfills his bucket-list dream: flying a plane. In his spare time, he teaches sailing, ventures into the wilderness for camping trips, nurtures an interest in art, and enjoys a tranquil life with his loving wife and their two dogs.

"The Boy Who LIVED!" is more than a memoir—it's a testament to the power of the human spirit, showing how life, in all its unpredictability, can be embraced with courage, optimism, and an unfailing thirst for adventure.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jul 29, 2023
• ISBN: 9798350909111

Book preview

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©2023 Stephen Young. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

No copyright infringement is intended, as all pictures other than my own or otherwise credited are believed to be from public domain sources

ISBN: 979-8-35090-910-4 paperback

ISBN: 979-8-35090-911-1 ebook

Contents

Introduction

Dedication

How it started

Heart 1

Preparation

The operation

Recovery

My near-death experience (based on my recollection of events)

Back to the routine

Out of ICU

Broken Jaw

Wrist

Knee

Bloodletting

Celebrity patient

My first car

University

Motor racing

Homes 1

Football (Soccer to North American readers)

Starting work

Introduction to Business Travel

Bike accident 2

Moving up

Hanover (Hannover to the Germans)

Accommodations

Fiddling Expenses

An American in Hanover

More cars

Heart 2.

More motor racing

Celebrities met through racing

Our own car

Career moves

Customer service

Off to Canada

Somewhere to live

Settling in, and Immigration

Sailing

Homes 2

Wildlife in the city

Remodelling

Helicopters

Corrigan

Fired again

Cuba

Cubans in Canada

Great places I have been - Australia

Great places I have been - Mexico & South America

Great places I have been - China

Heart 3

Goring Kerr

Central and South America again

Crazy trips

Restructured out of existence

Seeing the world on other peoples’ dime

Trade Shows

Las Vegas

9/11

Camping

Bikes again - in Canada

Humour

Out on my own

Homes 3 – and a new love

Nutty things - Hang gliding

Nutty things - Parasailing

Living Large

Homes 4

Nutty things - Dog sledding

Cancer

Nutty things – ziplining and rappelling

Cruises

Wedding in our own back garden

Mediterranean Cruise

Nutty things - Submarine

Nutty things - surfing

Insomnia

More nutty things‘Jeep safari’

ATV riding

Bike Accident 3

Amazing things and places - Volcano

Earthquake

More metal parts - Inner ear

Nutty things - Horseback riding

Alcatraz

Nutty things - Go-karting

Heart 4

Nutty things – skiing

Nutty Things – Swimming with dolphins

Heart 5

Alcohol

Nutty things – snakes

Music

Nutty Things - Race car driving

Snow machines

Knee

Not nutty – but enjoyable

Flying a plane

Nutty things – where I said no

Bucket List

Biography

Introduction

In searching for a theme and title for this book, I kept coming back to one inspiration – in J.K. Rowlings’ book and movie series about the boy-wizard Harry Potter, a recurring reference was "The boy who lived. The backstory was that as a baby, Potter survived a should have been fatal" attack by the evil wizard Voldemort and in doing so, got an immunity that allowed him to seek revenge on Voldemort for the murder of his parents.

While I had no such quest, I had a miraculous escape from death and beaten the odds. My "should have been fatal injury was similar to that which killed Diana, Princess of Wales. It is from surviving this that I became determined to live life as fully and meaningfully as possible, taking a few chances on the way, experiencing and seeing as much of the world as I could. There have been successes and joys, fun and disappointment, but I feel that it adds a second meaning to The boy who LIVED".

I once saw an interview with The Who’s singer Roger Daltrey who described how he nearly died of Meningitis, and he said that he did not fear dying but looked back at "all the great things that had happened" in his life. Another entertainer, Ricky Gervais, said that (as an atheist) he "doesn’t see death as the beginning of something, but it gives him every reason to enjoy being alive".

As this book was nearing completion, my best friend Don died suddenly of a heart attack, aged just 55. My sister Sue died of cancer at 56, and my friend Derek also died in his mid 60’s.

I hope that this book will be an inspiration to those who survived major life-altering experiences, and of interest to motorcyclists, car enthusiasts, businesspeople, travellers, and other adventurers. There is so much out there to explore, and I hope you enjoy this book and LIVING your own life.

Stephen Young Niagara, Canada 2023

Dedication

I literally owe my life to several medical heroes.

Firstly, to Cardiologist Dr Monty Goldberg of Groby Road Hospital for determining that something was seriously wrong with my heart, and to their lead Surgeon, Mr Slade, for persisting for over 14 hours to fix the damage.

To Cardiologist Dr Ian Darcel for monitoring my situation and dealing with later issues, and Dr Tirone David, the megastar Heart Surgeon for difficult cases.

Last and not least to the many Doctors, Nurses, Technicians and Ancillary Staff who have cared for me over the decades.

How it started

I awoke to see my High School friend Simon seated at the end of the bed. "Do you know where you are? he asked, and I quickly realized that I was in the hospital. Do you know what happened? - You had a bike accident. Immediately, visions of life in a wheelchair flashed through my mind; but being a trained First Aider, I did a quick body scan and found all fingers and toes working OK. I had difficulty speaking because my jaw was wired shut, and I could barely move since I was bound all over with bandages and plaster casts, with pipes and wires everywhere. My parents appeared, looking understandably concerned. Where am I?" I asked, to which my Dad said that I was in Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham (close to where we lived in central England).

My friend Nick, who was studying Law at Trent Polytechnic, and I were at Trent’s Clifton campus one Saturday night in 1977, but finding no action there, we were heading back into Nottingham on my recently acquired Honda CB750 motorcycle. It was cumbersome and heavy, so unlike the lithe and responsive Yamaha RD350 it had just replaced, but I wanted to go touring in Europe, so I bought the larger and more comfortable Honda.

All I remember after leaving the bar was that ‘something funny happened’.

Somehow, a catastrophic accident left me spread-eagled against an Armco crash barrier (or guard rail), but the cause of the crash was never explained. When I later asked Nick what happened, his response was that he "had his head down and didn’t see anything". Nick was the only witness, the matter was never questioned further and so I was found guilty of Driving Without Due Care And Attention, standard for an accident with no explicable cause. It seemed odd that I was the one flung into the barrier while he had just a minor injury to his hand, as the Police told my parents that "Normally in motorcycle accidents here, the passenger gets flung over the top, onto the road below".

A vision popped into my mind many years later - the funny thing that happened was that I was sitting astride the bike as Nick struggled to climb in front of me so that he could drive. Later, on a visit to England, I described this vision to him and asked him if this was the case; but he was evasive, just saying, I was the only one who remained conscious through the accident. The thought that Nick may have been driving haunts me to this day, as I ended up with a major life-altering experience, facing decades of pain, multiple surgeries and being unable to get life insurance.

My Honda CB750, only slightly scuffed after the accident.

Soon after I awoke, a Doctor appeared, and one of the first questions he asked was, "Have you ever had problems like a heart murmur?" to which I replied that I had recently passed an Air Force Pilot’s medical, so no. He said that something was amiss with my heart, and so a Cardiologist would be in to see me the next day.

Dr Goldberg said that he couldn’t figure out what was wrong, so he recommended that I be transferred to his speciality heart hospital (Groby Road Hospital, in nearby Leicester). I was bundled into an ambulance, and I just remember the rain falling on my face when they unloaded me at Groby Road, where I was taken straight to the Critical Care Unit.

Heart 1

As I settled into the Critical Care Unit, the staff went about their business, Nurses hooking me up to various equipment and Doctors examining me. I shared the CCU with another patient, but divided by a curtain, so other than snippets of conversation and the coming and going of visitors, it was just another body the same as mine.

At some point in the evening, a Nurse cheerfully asked me, "Do you like beer? to which I gave the obvious answer. Do you like Guinness? she followed up, to which I replied, Yes, as my Grandparents drank the stuff regularly, and as a small boy, I was able to pour them the tricky, dark Irish Stout. Well, would you like one? Sure", I replied, and to my astonishment, a case was produced and put in the locker beside my bed. Why Guinness? Answers include that it was believed to be rich in iron, so doctors would often prescribe Guinness to patients following an operation, or to pregnant women.

It must have been at about this point that I realized I could not fully open my mouth because my teeth were wired shut, the broken jaw being the first of various sundry injuries that would come to light. My right wrist was in plaster, my left knee was buried in a mass of bandages, and I was also told that I had a cracked rib.

Once I was stabilized, they had to investigate the curious sounds from my heart and the source of the ongoing hemorrhage in my chest. This involved an Angiogram, which is a real-time X-Ray where a radiologically opaque dye is injected into the bloodstream via a catheter inserted through an artery to show how it flows. As the dye was injected, it felt like a flush of hot liquid coursing through my system, reaching every part of my body. The scan showed that not only was a valve damaged, but the aorta was torn at the root, the main exit for blood flow from the heart. I can imagine a collective exclamation, "Oh ****!" Everything was cancelled for the next day. I was Job Number 1.

My parents were reassured, "Don’t worry, it’s a 4-hour operation to replace the valve. We do them every day". It was decided that, in view of my young age, they would not install a mechanical heart valve because then I would need to be on anti-coagulant medication for the rest of my life, but instead, they would use a prosthetic valve made from a pig’s heart and mounted on a metal frame. The only caution was that being dead flesh, it had no resistance to infection, so I would need to take antibiotics any time I got an infection or had dental work done to protect the valve and the aortic root.

Preparation

I had to be prepped for the operation the next day, and they required that my body be free from bacterial sources. In those days, that included a full-body shave (except the head), which was to be done by the Hospital Barber, a cheery and pleasant little old man. He lathered and scraped his way around my body, causing some consternation when it came to the naughty bits. Looking down at this none-too-steady hand-wielding a cut-throat razor around the family jewels is not one of my favourite memories. I also have (fortunately) vague memories of an enema being performed by one of the Nurses, an indignity I was not prepared for!

The operation

I have no real recollection of the runup to the op, other than my response to the anaesthetic. When told to count to ten, I rarely get past 3 before I am gone.

The basic procedure for this type of operation, as well as bypass and others that require the heart to be stopped while delicate surgery is performed, involves cooling the body, which allows a longer time without blood flow before the brain starts to degenerate. They use a Perfusion machine, which acts in place of the heart and lungs to oxygenate and circulate the blood while bypassing the stationary heart.

In my case, the Surgeon had to cut out my damaged aortic valve and then sew in a replacement prosthetic one. As previously mentioned, this was the equivalent item from a pig, which had been sterilized and sewn into a metal and cloth mounting ring for ease of handling. Then the aorta is sewn back in place over the prosthetic valve. That is all well and good when they are starting with an undamaged heart, but mine was more complicated because the aorta had been torn from the valve. This was described to me as follows: when the body and its contents are travelling along at high speed, then come to a dramatic stop (like when I hit the crash barrier in a full-frontal impact), the heart keeps moving until stopped by the blood vessels. If the force is too much, the blood vessels (my aorta) are torn out from their root. Shortly after my case, Groby Road Hospital had a similar incident with a Hang Glider pilot who impacted the ground, and many years later, Princess Diana suffered a similar fate (in her case, the Pulmonary Vein) while riding in a limousine without a seatbelt when it hit a concrete pillar.

Reconstructing the aortic root and sealing the joint to the aorta was at heart (sorry!) of my surgical challenge. Once the sutures were in place, the heart was restarted, and they checked for leaks; then, the heart was stopped, and repairs were performed and repeated. Again, and again. The Surgeons had great difficulty in repairing the tear and getting it to seal, and this took many cycles, and they had to be creative in making it work. I even heard mention of adhesives being used. I also heard that my heart stopped beating (on its own) 3 times during the procedure.

All the time that the heart was leaking, blood was being lost. A certain amount is recovered by suction, but a lot apparently went everywhere else. In all, I required 23 pints of blood (almost 3 times the body’s normal capacity), which brought on a complication of its own – my body began to reject the donated blood. To rectify this, a special serum had to be given, which was rushed from the UK’s National Blood Bank in Sheffield, about an hour away. In later discussions, my parents were told that this stuff "is worth its weight in gold and costs about as much".

So much for the "4-hour operation", they had said. The surgery began at 8am, but it was not until 10.30pm in the evening that my parents got the phone call they were awaiting – it was over, and he is OK. This means the surgical team had been working furiously and on their feet for over 14 hours. The dedication and determination of the highly skilled staff are appreciated beyond all I can say. Without them sticking to it until I was fixed, I would have become just another statistic, one of several of my High School cohort killed in motorcycle accidents in their teens.

The extended time under the knife led to another complication - the prolonged cooling to protect the brain led to Hypothermia, and there were problems in getting my body temperature back up to normal. Wrapping me in one of those metallic ‘Space Blankets’ was part of the solution.

Recovery

Once the surgery was complete, I was moved to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), where I was to spend the next two weeks because of my delicate condition. Emerging from the anaesthetic, I was aware of blurry visions of people bending over me and working away at my chest. While not able to think clearly, my scientific mind tried to rationalize what was happening. I knew from my first-aid experience as a St. John’s Ambulance cadet that it is important that air is not allowed into the chest cavity or it will impede respiration, so I reasoned that they must be closing me up under water! Another vague, blurry vision was of a bright light and a rainbow spectrum over me. Could this be the "Come towards the light" reported in some near-death experiences? Clearly, I was hallucinating from the effects of the prolonged anaesthetic, but once normal service was resumed, I figured it out. The people working on me were probably just attaching ECG contacts, cleaning the incision or doing other routine matters, and I was not under water - but under the remains of the anaesthetic! As for the rainbow – that was from a glass cupola in the ceiling of the ICU above me, and when the light struck it at certain angles, it refracted into a rainbow. Talk about the brain playing tricks on you!

The ICU is run by routine. Nurses regularly came around and checked vital signs, fluid input and output and monitored whatever instruments I was wired up to. I was breathing on a respirator, with a tube which felt like an inch in diameter down my throat. My body was provided with water and nutrients via an I.V., but to prevent the stomach from collapsing through dis-use, a measure of water was regularly injected via another