Grace Victory: 'Three months in a coma has taught me how to live'

YouTube star Grace Victory had just given birth to her baby boy when she was placed in a coma.

The 31-year-old blogger, from High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, was so sick from coronavirus that she was kept asleep for three months.

She was only given a 5% chance of survival after she went into cardiac arrest.

Here, in her own words, Grace describes overcoming the odds and the lessons she has learned.

I was seven months pregnant when I started to feel unwell. It was December 2020 and my son Cyprus wasn't due to be born until February.

I went to hospital and my oxygen levels were really low. I asked the doctors to deliver him and he was born by emergency C-section, on Christmas Eve.

My intuition saved him and I believe that he then saved me. I fought and fought to come back to him.

When I think back to the birth, I don't feel like it was traumatic at all. It was very calm, very chilled, and I remember briefly touching him. Then the decision was made that I needed to go to intensive care.

On Boxing Day, I agreed to be put in a coma. I remember my partner Lee crying and I couldn't understand why. I was confused and I didn't realise how serious it was.

In the coma I thought I was in a very long, weird dream. I saw a green light and spiritual things and I had a conversation with God. I was flying and I flew to Malaysia at one point.

After a month I had a cardiac arrest and they said I actually died for five minutes.

When I woke up in March, my consultants said to me, 'You are literally our miracle. You will be talked about for years to come because you shouldn't be alive'.

I believe the reason I am here is because so many people were praying for me, everyone on social media and my friends and family.

It is incredible that I had no brain damage and I felt like I was a miracle for about a month. Then the reality of what I had been through kicked in, the sheer trauma of it. I realised I had to learn to walk again and I thought, that's a joke.

And I had so much guilt around not being there for Cyprus. I know when he was crying before, he was crying for me.

I am still mourning the early stages of Cyprus; his first smile, his first cry, his first bath, I missed all of that. I wasn't able to breastfeed him. People always say he won't remember, but I remember.

I was only allowed to see him for an hour while I was still in intensive care. Watching him being parented from hospital on FaceTime was very difficult.

Cyprus didn't feel like he was mine. I was obviously very weak, I was still on a feeding tube and I was worried about germs so I didn't want to kiss him.

But when I was moved to a rehab hospital in Hillingdon, I started feeling like an actual mum. I had my own room and he was allowed in from 2pm to 8pm every day. I could change his nappy, feed him and I was constantly doing skin to skin.

I used to work with children in care and I know how important those first few months are for bonding. There could have been some attachment problems but he's a real mummy's boy.

I shaved my hair off before I was discharged because it was so matted and I was worried about what drugs might still be in my hair. I needed to get rid of the energy and smell of the hospital; it was very cleansing for me.

Doctors have been amazed by my recovery. My thumb doesn't do a grip movement yet but I've been told it will heal and if not, I can have an operation. It doesn't really affect my life.

My organs and lungs have all been signed off. My specialists said they've been discussing my CT scans in meetings and they just can't believe it, it doesn't add up.

My tracheostomy scar hasn't healed that well, but doctors say I could get it sorted out. My voice is a lot more husky now but it doesn't bother me.

But mentally I have needed a lot of support. I'm actually now in a place spiritually where I'm quite angry at God and I feel a bit disconnected.

I know the spirit world is real because of what I have been through and seen, but I can't deny the anger and confusion that I feel. I'm at peace with what happened but I'm not at peace with how hard it has been.

Dying and coming back was not hard for me. I grew up around domestic violence so surviving isn't new to me. But living, and the past year of learning to live again, has been much harder than being in hospital.

I was terrified in January when I got Covid again. I texted my consultants because I was freaking out, but I just had a runny nose. I have had the vaccine now, which was a really difficult decision because they couldn't guarantee I would be OK, but it was fine and I feel protected.

The worst case scenario happened to me with Covid and the likelihood of that happening again is very rare. I feel strong and healthy and I don't think about Covid any more.

For me, I can't live in fear. I came back from the dead and what's the point if I'm going to live in fear.

Therapy has been my lifeline. I wouldn't be able to live without it, it's been my backbone. Being able to process things with someone, having that support, is something I would really recommend.

Being a mum is incredible. Cyprus is the best boy ever and we are so excited that I'm pregnant again and we will be welcoming a baby girl into the family in October.

Everything that I've been through has changed my perspective. I used to work so much before. I was so used to that grind culture of being working class and being told that you had to work really hard to achieve anything, but now my priorities have changed.

Now I just want to be a present mother. My relationships come before work.

I'm very proud to be an ambassador for Mind and I want to help nurses get mental health support. In the future I would love to go into hospitals and change little things for patients. For example, they don't have any black hair products - and even though I was on my deathbed, that annoyed me.

Apart from that, I'm not sure what I want to do next. The one thing that being sick taught me was to live in the present so I'm not planning too far ahead.

I am more in tune with my body now and I'm better at putting boundaries in place and trusting myself.

This whole experience has taught me so much and I wouldn't have changed my life otherwise, so I have to be grateful for that.

As told to Charlie Jones

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