The past 18 months have been an intense journey, building a business while striving to find the rightbalance between work and family life. But on Saturday, June 18th, everything changed in a way that no amount of stress or planning could have prepared us for.
Saturday morning, my beautiful,intelligent 8-year-old daughter, Mae, woke up with a severe headache. She was neverone to complain, but within minutes, the pain became unbearable. Then, suddenly,she lost consciousness. Mandy frantically called for an ambulance, the atmosphere in the house shifting from concern to sheer panic.
The worst part? I wasn’t there. I had been out finishing our Simpson & Partners website, unaware ofthe nightmare unfolding at home. In that moment of fear and uncertainty, Mandy, Mae, and Jack were alone, desperately awaiting medical help, without me thereto support them.
When I rushed home, I found thre eambulances parked outside our home, paramedics working on Mae right there on our bedroom floor. Everything was moved at lightning speed, leaving no time to process what was happening. Before we knew it, Mae’s ambulance was being met down theroad by the trauma team from Western Air Ambulance, her condition deemed critical enough to require immediate intervention.
At Bristol Children’s Hospital, we were met by a neurosurgery team, who quickly diagnosed Mae with a brain bleed caused by an AVM. An condition we had never even heard of just hours before. Within moments, Mae was being prepped for emergency surgery, a ten-hour life saving operation that would ultimately decide her fate.
Nothing prepares you for this. Running a business is stressful,but nothing compares to the terror and helplessness of watching your childfight for their life. In moments like these, you enter a tunnel where nothing else matters, and your mind and body collapse under the weight of the unknown.
At 8:00 PM that Saturday, Mae emerged from surgery. Seeing her hooked up to life support in intensive carewas, strangely, a relief, not because the battle was over, but because themorning’s chaos had finally settled into something we could process. Mandy and I were no longer waiting in terror, now, we could focus on Mae’s recovery.
The next few months will be tough,and we’ve been told that Mae will remain in hospital for many months. But right now, the only thing that matters is that she made it through. She’s still here. And for that, Mandy and I are beyond grateful.
