Kjærgaard - The blink of an eye: a memoir of dying--and learning how to live again

Foreword

BY BILL BRYSON

I n the winter of 2016, as part of a project I was involved in, I spent some time at the Natural History Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen. One evening, after a long day at the museum, I went for dinner with my host, a genial English-born geneticist named Tom Gilbert. At the last moment we were joined by his boss, the museums director, Peter C. Kjrgaard.

I had only met Peter that day, but I liked him immediately, as I imagine most people do. He is clearly super-intelligent, but also charming and kindly, with a distinctly approachable manner. If you were lost in a strange city, he is the person you would ask for directions.

Early in the dinner, Peters phone rang, and he asked if we minded very much if he took the call. His wife had been ill, he explained, and he wanted to be sure she was all right.

We assured him, of course, that he should speak to her. Their conversation was brief and murmured, as you would expect in a restaurant, but the news was evidently good. Peter looked pleased, and indeed relieved, as he returned the phone to his pocket and told us all was well.

Tom or I said something to the effect that we hoped it was nothing too serious.

Well, actually, she has been really quite unwell, Peter responded rather suddenly. He hesitated, as if unsure whether to go on, then proceeded to tell us the most spellbinding and harrowing story I believe I have ever heard. It is the story you are about to read.

I dont wish to give away a single detail of what follows. It is Rikke Schmidt Kjrgaards story to tell, and no one could tell it better or more feelingly. I will just say that I met Rikke soon afterward and liked her immediately, too. She has much the same qualities as Petershe is gracious and urbane, kindly, a good listener, very learned, deeply and obviously devoted to family. I can say at once with confidence that you would like her very much yourself.

She has given us a most exceptional book, and exceptional in many ways. At its most immediate level, it is a calm, measured, impeccably lucid account of a truly horrifying experience told from the all-too-rare perspective of the sufferer. Rikke is a scientist by background, and she recounts the details of her ordeal with a kind of forensic precision that makes the horror of the experience all the more vivid and chilling. No one should have to go through what she did, but you could hardly choose a more skilled and insightful victim.

But this is much moremuch, much morethan a clinical record of a terrible experience. It is above all a highly personal, deeply affecting account of what it is to be yanked from a happy, well-ordered life and thrust into a sudden, unimaginable, terrifying darkness. Rikke has done the impossible of putting into words an experience that would seem to be beyond expressing.

And she has done it with the most abundant generosity. This is at its heart a book about familial bonds. Nothing says more for Rikkes character, as both writer and person, than that you come away profoundly touched not only by the wearisome awfulness of her ordeal, but by the emotional and physical fortitude of Peter and her children. This was, from beginning to end, a shared horror.

Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about this book is that it exists at all. What happened to Rikke is not as rare as we might think or hope. No one knows how many people in the world exist in comas or are otherwise minimally conscious, as the medical jargon has it. Almost nowhere are records systematically kept. But according to the journal Nature Neuroscience, the number globally is in the hundreds of thousands. Few of those poor people will ever be able to resume normal lives.

Rikke Schmidt Kjrgaard is a brave and lovely exception. As The Blink of an Eye proves, we are lucky, in every sense of the word, to have her.

BILL BRYSONs bestselling books include A Walk in the Woods, Im a Stranger Here Myself, In a Sunburned Country, and A Short History of Nearly Everything.

one

Dying

M y death could not have been predicted. It came suddenly. I was my usual self the day before. Wed had houseguests for New Years Eve and spent the evening chatting, singing, playing music, and eating great food. We stood to toast 2013 circled around the TV, sharing in the drama of the Bell Tower of Copenhagen City Halls countdown to midnight. I loved that magic beat between the last second of the old year and the first one of the new: the micropause between the past and future, the promise and the expectations. Later, I tumbled into bed, full of happiness and celebration.

The following morning we were still in a festive mood. It was a beautiful day. Cool, clear winter with just enough snow to cover the ground, and frozen puddles waiting to crack from the force of a childs playful jump. We went for a walk along the river near our house. We lived in a large Danish town; a nice, somewhat sleepy place. Wed bought the house several years earlier, shortly before our youngest son, Daniel, was born. We had moved from a larger university city further south, because we wanted more space and a garden for our three children.

Over the years we had worked on it, knocking down walls and building new ones, laying new floorboards and painting everything in light colors. This was the first place we had owned and we had made it ours. When our jobs took us abroad for several years, we kept the house, coming back for the summer holidays, which made Daniel think that Denmark was a land of perpetual summers. I loved our house. When storms raged, if we had bad news to cope with or stressful days, our home was where we retreated. It was our haven. A safe place where nothing bad could happen.

The river we were strolling along ran all the way to the sea. The kids raced along the track: Johan, just eighteen and home on visit from his studies in Hong Kong, and Victoria, four years younger, two teenagers following their younger brothers lead, forgetting how busy they were growing up. My husband, Peter, was deep in conversation with an old friend and colleague from England, who had stayed with us overnight. Watching from a distance, I saw him waving his arms in the air, a gesture so familiar to me it almost felt like my own. I had seen this many times before, when he was making a point or putting a funny spin on a serious topic.

Peter is a charmer, eloquent and charismatic. From the very first time I met him, I admired his immediate way of engaging with people and making them feel special. We had met at a university Christmas party where wed been paired up for a science quiz, completely by chance. Pure luck. Wed won. We make a great team, you and I, dont you think? hed said.

Walking along the banks of the river I felt chilly, cold through to my bones. My limbs felt leaden and heavy. Nobody noticed I was lagging behind. I tried to catch up but couldnt. I wanted to call Peter, but I felt as if I had run out of air. I dismissed it. Everybody feels a bit tired on New Years Day. Moments later, Daniel, our eight-year-old happy, carefree boy, came running to hide behind me so the others wouldnt catch him. As Victoria tagged her father and they all ran circles around me, laughing, I just stood there, smiling at their playfulness.

Back home, I was still feeling cold. As everyone dispersed around the house, I went straight in to run myself a bath and lay in the hot water, wondering why I couldnt get warm. I wanted to make sure my body temperature stabilized. When I was twenty, I had been diagnosed with SLEsystemic lupus erythematosusa chronic autoimmune disease where the cells of the immune system mistakenly attack healthy tissue. Having SLE means you are more prone to being ill, and even though I wasnt receiving medical treatment for it any more, having lived with the risks and necessary provisions to stay healthy for so many years, the fear of having relapses and severe recurrences still frightened me. If my temperature rose noticeably and for longer periods of time, I had to call a doctor.