Stories and Viewpoints

Access & Impact

By: Niki Kapsambelis

March 26, 2025

In June 2021, Sue woke up in the middle of the night with what she thought was indigestion or a pulled muscle. At 56, she had just started piecing her life back together after separating from her husband. Her son, Louis, was 19 and still living at home with her in Solihull, near Birmingham in the UK.

Louis tried to convince her to call an ambulance; Sue resisted. It was the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and she worried about looking foolish if she went to the hospital and it turned out to be a minor ailment.

But when her condition rapidly worsened, he called for help anyway. It was a turning point in his young life. With his father gone, he saw himself as the man of the house.

He told himself: “Get this done because you might make a decision here that could mean you don’t have your mom anymore.”

For Sue, it felt like the moment had come when she would die. Three years later, she can’t answer why she didn’t want to call an ambulance.

“That just wasn’t there for me,” she said. “All I could think of was that Louis would have nothing – just photos, but nothing from me.”

He was her only child, born 11 years into her marriage. Having Louis was a defining moment in her life.

Now, in her state of distress, she grabbed a notepad and pen and tried to write him a letter: something to remember her by.

At the hospital, Sue learned she’d had a heart attack.

When she told Louis what had happened, she said: “You saved my life.”

Three years later, that fact is starting to sink in for Louis. While he is proud of saving her, he also believes he only did what anyone would do for their parent in the same situation.

It took Sue time to regroup from her heart attack, both mentally and physically. Once she returned home, she was frightened and angry. Her life felt forever changed.

“When you’re in hospital, you’re safe; you’re wired up to the machines, there’s all these people coming to see you,” she said. “And then you go home and you think, ‘OK, I’ve had this massive event. And here I am on my own, in my bedroom. It was overwhelming.”

Her friends came to see her and that helped; so did being able to get outside and walk her golden retriever. She went to rehab and learned exercises to recover. Eventually, she joined a gym, found a Zumba class and began to feel better. Her physical and mental health improved dramatically.

Louis moved out in the summer of 2024. He still worries about his mother, and what might happen to her now that she lives alone.

When he moved, he left behind the letter his mother had written on the night of the heart attack. He tucked it behind a picture frame in his room, unread since he received it.

“I’ve never read it,” he said, “because she never died.”