‘Patrick was young, in his late thirties. His condition was worsening with each passing hour: he had bowel cancer with metastases, and he’d just started a heavy course of chemotherapy. But after the first treatment he’d also contracted severe pneumonia, and because the chemo had effectively nuked his immune system, he was left without any natural defences. We gave him three different types of antibiotics and as much oxygen as we could, but his breathing only became more and more laboured; he was coughing up blood, and his blood pressure was so low that it no longer registered on our instruments. We threw everything we had at him, but nothing seemed to help.
I had the night shift. When I clocked on, my colleague had just told him that the situation was dire, and there was a chance he might not live to see the sun rise. Oh no, he said, not now: I was planning to ask my girlfriend to marry me this week, on the day of our eight-year anniversary. His girlfriend – who was sitting beside him and had suspected nothing – burst into tears. In the meantime, friends and family had started gathering at the hospital to say their final goodbyes. One by one they found out he had just popped the question and that she had said yes. The news spread through the hospital like wildfire. Everybody was moved, and very quickly we all banded together with a single accord: to help him marry the woman he loved that very night.
One of the switchboard operators knew a civil celebrant in a neighbouring town. She was still awake, as her daughter was celebrating after her final exams. She was prepared to come to the hospital to perform the ceremony that night, and at two in the morning she arrived, daughter in tow – they had come straight from the party. There were more than enough witnesses, and the couple’s IDs had been fetched from home. And because all brides need something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue, her friends also picked up her new blue high heels and her mother’s old wedding ring.
The staff from emergency wanted to quickly decorate the nicest room in the hospital and take them there for the ceremony, but the man was not only shackled to a lot of equipment, he was also too weak to leave his own room anyway. And so, at three in the morning, in a deathly silent hospital, a very special “I do” was uttered in a tiny, overcrowded hospital room: around thirty loved ones had gathered around the bed, with the couple’s two daughters aged three and five seated beside him.
That same night, at the celebrant’s request, I wrote a formal letter to the public prosecutor’s office. The couple hadn’t registered their intention to marry in advance – a legal requirement in the Netherlands – so I asked the prosecutor to make an exception due to unforeseen medical circumstances. My colleagues who took over the next morning were glad, and touched, that we’d managed to make such a beautiful dream come true.
Patrick survived the night, and the next morning saw the sun rise with his new bride. His unexpected marriage must have given him strength: one-and-a-half weeks later he went home, with her at his side. He ultimately lived another five months and as a proper husband, since their marriage was eventually declared legal.
This all happened ten years ago, but every time I think of it, the emotions of that night come flooding back. Since then I’ve realised that doctors are not only there to dole out medical treatments, we can also help patients in the search for meaning in their lives, to help answer existential questions. His family’s grief at his eventual passing was alleviated somewhat, thanks to the memory of that unforgettable night.
I recently called up his wife, who answered the phone with his surname. I welled up and could see him lying there, battling bravely and happily on, with his two little girls at the foot of the bed. They may be growing up without him, but now they have a strong mother who bears his name, thanks to the events of that night.’