Medical Miracles

For the first time, a real, raw, and incredible story is courageously being told in full. Embark on a journey of resilience and hope with Jerry Morrissey's memoir. Witness his remarkable tale of overcoming adversity and discovering the strength within.

Medical Miracle: Triumph Through Adversity

Through his journey of overcoming life-threatening surgeries and the resulting challenges, he has emerged as a beacon of hope and resilience. Despite facing blindness, loss of motor function  and the need to relearn basic tasks, he has conquered adversity and proved the strength of the human spirit.

What is an arteriovenous malformation?

An arteriovenous malformation (AVM) happen when a group of blood vessels in your body forms incorrectly. Normally, arteries carrying blood under pressure divide down, reduce in size and pressure, and form capillaries; blood then returns via the capillaries to the veins. In a high-flow AVM like mine, the mass of blood vessels that form run from artery straight to vein (doctors call this an arteriovenous shunt), missing capillaries out completely. The veins, wide and elastic, fill with blood, still under pressure. This can increase until the vein ruptures and bleeding occurs under arterial pressure.

"A mass of medical people surrounded me as the clothes I was wearing were cut from me with scissors and a urine catheter inserted. I felt physically and mentally naked. I was starting to feel so cold … my hands and feet in particular. The doctors were trying to put a line in to replace some of the blood I was pumping out, but all the veins the doctors would normally stick a line into had just shut down due to the blood loss. All the remaining blood had moved to protect my vital organs from organ failure. It was as if my cells had all gone into the foetal position to protect me. The medical staff had to go for bigger vessels in the neck and groin."

"Panic consumed me, driven by the fear of the unknown and the impending, inevitable end. Despite a desperate survival instinct, I grappled with the harsh reality that the situation was beyond my or the surgical team’s control. With each beat of my heart, blood pumped out of my body and my strength ebbed away, accompanied by dizziness and a chilling coldness as blood loss escalated. This physical deterioration paralleled a profound emotional experience – feelings of isolation and loneliness, and a stark confrontation

with my own mortality."

"Being fully awake without general anesthesia amplified the torment, transforming the pain into a vicious onslaught of sharp, intense stabbing sensations that contorted my body in a frenzy of agony. Each passing second dragged on like an eternity, every moment an anguished plea for relief. The pain reverberated through me, leaving me gasping for air as beads of sweat dripped from every pore of my body, a physical manifestation of the

overwhelming fear and anguish I felt. For the love of God, could this pain just stop! It was a hellish nightmare with no escape."

"His theory was that they would carry out a heart-lung bypass on me. They would disconnect my heart and lungs from my body and connect my main arteries to a heart-lung machine. This would enable them to control the blood flow through the body and brain, and keep a sufficiency of blood flowing to keep me alive. It would also give them time to operate on the AVM. They would make an incision from ear to ear, lift back my skin like a face mask, ligate all the feeder vessels, remove all the lower teeth, inject me with a solution called STD (a gluing agent used in the treatment of varicose veins) and rebuild my jaw by using part of my pelvis (iliac crest), which they would remove for that purpose."

"At midnight, I bathed and shaved all my body hair from the groin upwards, and took the pre-operation pills. I was already stained on the face and chest with a brown iodine-type substance in readiness for the next day. Considering the major operation I was facing, I slept surprisingly well. At 7am on Thursday, 8 March 1990, I went off to the operating theatre, thinking, ‘Here we go … today could be the last day of my life.’"

"Professor Allison told me later he had come into the operating theatre during the procedure and was shocked: it looked like a post-mortem was being undertaken. My chest cavity had been cut open and the ribcage spread apart. My heart had been stopped and connected to a heart-lung bypass machine. I’d had a tracheotomy so a breathing tube connected to a ventilator could be placed in my lungs through a hole in my throat. My face had been pulled back so they could access my jaw, which had been dislocated in order for them to remove the teeth one by one and perform the surgery on the mandible."

"The pain was constant and my body was screaming in those first few days. I couldn’t take it anymore. I decided a lethal injection would be the solution; it would be painless, like going into a deep sleep. A little injection to take all the pain away."

"As well as learning to eat, I had to learn how to speak again. The sheer frustration of not being able to communicate was massively disheartening for me. Sue explained some lip and tongue exercises, which I carried out daily – simple things like saying the vowels ‘A E I O U’ over and over, and then doing the same with numbers."