Heartbreak of Chesterfield man who lost his voice, his soulmate and control over his life

Tears are never far from the surface as Stan points to the artist Our Kid bracketed by Stan Played Bass on his jukebox. The song on which Stan played peaked at number two in the charts 47 years ago this week.

A bass guitar stands in the living room, an instrument that Stan took up as a teenager and played for more than three decades. “I stopped playing when I lost my hand,” he writes on his computer.

His right hand had to be amputated because of painful contractions after he lost the use of it – among the devastating repercussions of brain damage that he suffered as a result of a medical procedure.

A hip resurfacing operation to treat arthritis, which he paid to have done privately at Chesterfield Royal Hospital in 2008, changed his life.

His wife Kay said in the book, A Voice for Stan, that following the operation the anaethetist delivered shocking news: “He explained that as Stan was coming out the anaesthetic, he became very agitated and required sedation to settle him. When it didn’t pass he was taken for an MRI scan. It showed damage to three major areas of his brain.”

The last words Stan had said to Kay before surgery were: “I love you – see you later.” He didn’t wake up for a week after the op and when he did, he no longer recognised his wife and was unable to talk or walk.

Kay says in the book that there was no way of proving what had happened to Stan during the anaesthetic and surgery and no-one was deemed to be responsible. In the absence of evidence they were told by their solicitor that culpability would be virtually impossible to prove.

Fifteen years on from the operation, determined Stan can walk but he still can’t talk and is unable to live independently, relying on help from carers and solicitors. He writes: "I’m not in control of my life – it makes me sad. I miss driving so much – I used to drive over 60,000 miles a year and I used to own a Saab 9-5 Griffin.”

Four carers operate a rolling rota to look after 64-year-old Stan around the clock in his immaculate bungalow at Chartwell Avenue in Wingerworth. A feeding tube into Stan’s stomach is flushed every two hours to keep him hydrated and a bag of food is slowly infused once a day.

Mum of two Lisa Cantrell, who lives in Pinxton, is among the carers who tend to Stan at home as well as taking him to medical appointments and out to the theatre and cinema. This is 46-year-old Lisa’s first job as a carer and she says: “Stan treats me really well. We get on and we never have arguments. I love it.”

Stan has a home gym with a treadmill, vibration plates and a handbike. There’s a desktop arcade machine for ten-pin bowling and a specially adapted computer for other games.

Films featuring Marvel and DC Comic characters are neatly arranged alongside a large screen in the living room. On the day I visit, Stan is dressed in an outfit similar to one of those superheroes.

He loves watching his beloved Liverpool FC on television and resorts to his trusty computer to listen to audiobooks. Stan writes: “I can’t read properly – I get confused about which line I am reading.”

Author Sue Pacey, who wrote and edited A Voice for Stan, says: “Stan can be as fully occupied as he wants in that house. The one thing he needs in his life and can’t replace is Kay.”

Kay was the love of Stan’s life, a courageous woman who fought like a tiger to get the best for her disabled husband right up until she passed away in 2018.

Sue, 71, who works as a nurse vaccinator and was a midwife for 55 years, says: "Kay was bubbly, vivacious, talkative, funny, dedicated. She’d got a larger than life personality and frightening determination.”

Stan and Kay’s story of love and courage flows through the pages of the book. Kay describes how they met through a dating website and she fell for Stan’s deep Liverpudlian accent and his intelligent mind. Stan was an IT architect designing systems for Rolls-Royce and the Ministry of Defence and had never married. Kay had been married twice and had a son. She says in the book: “It’s probably a very old and overused cliche, but it was love at first sight for both of us. Here we were, both in our 40s, feeling like a couple of teenagers in the first throes of passion.”

Stan proposed 19 months after they met and they married in 2005.

Their blissful life together altered after Stan had his hip resurfaced. Kay visited Stan in hospital for nine months following the procedure, showing him how to turn over flashcards that were printed with YES and NO. She bought him a Scrabble set to see if he recognised the words that went with the pictures. She brought in a tin of beans to help him strengthen his good arm.

She badgered doctors and her MP to get him out of hospital and defied many people who thought Stan would be better off in a home.

Sue Pacey, 71, who lives in Wingerworth, says: "Stan came home from hospital not being able to stand, walk, lie or turn over. Kay taught him to walk.”

Kay researched stem cell treatment, reasoning that if the feeling could be restored in Stan’s tongue he might be able to speak and eat again. But at that time stem cell treatment was only available to a man of Stan’s age in America or China and was costly.

Stan’s warrior queen launched an appeal to raise £36,000 through donations from the public, events and support from celebrities including cricket legend Dickie Bird and television antiques expert James Lewis.

The appeal hit its target and Kay accompanied Stan to Beijing just four months after she had gone through a preventative double mastectomy because she carried the BRACA 1 faulty gene.

Stan had four stem cell treatments and began to get sensation back in his tongue. But Kay’s hope that this would lead to Stan’s speech and ability to eat returning was in vain. The underlying brain damage meant that the link between his brain and his tongue was severed and couldn’t be reconnected. Kay writes in the book: “I knew then that I would have to be Stan’s voice forever.”

Back home in Derbyshire she contacted Sue, the author of several novels, asking her to ghost write Stan’s story. Sue, who is 71 and lives in Wingerworth, says: “A Voice for Stan came from Kay because she wanted to give him the voice back that he lost. That’s why I thought the narrative should be in her voice rather than mine.”

Sue suggested that it would take about a year to put the book together but it became a race against time to complete it.

Kay received the devastating diagnosis that she had inoperable bowel cancer in March 2018 and was given six months to live. She opted to have chemotherapy as that would give her more time to arrange for carers to look after Stan so he could continue living in their home. Kay was 59 when she passed away at home in November that year but not before she had read the book in which she had poured her heart out.

Stan gets visibly distressed when asked how his life has been without Kay. He writes: “She was my soulmate.”

Sue says: “They adored each other. When they were doing up their bedroom they wanted a big Velux window so they could lie in bed and watch the stars.”

A true gentleman with impeccable manners, Stan taps “Thank you” on his keyboard when I ask what his response is to the generous people who donated towards his stem cell treatments. He writes that the pioneering procedures had given him “more energy.”

As I leave, he rises from his chair and wraps his arms around me in a warm hug.

A Voice for Stan is available from Amazon, priced £9.99, with proceeds going towards Stan’s continuing care.

Private health care group BMI Healthcare dealt with Stan’s operation. A spokesman said in 2012: “Under our arrangements at the time, patients were admitted to the Chatsworth Suite for their care. Operating theatres and other clinical services were provided by Chesterfield Hospital. All types of surgery carry risks and complications and sometimes have very sad consequences but are not due to any fault of the clinicians or treatment.”

A spokesperson for Chesterfield Royal Hospital added: “All surgery no matter how routine carries risks, and an outline of these will form part of the consent to have an operation. Care and treatment can be absolutely appropriate but sadly some patients still go on to experience complications, some of which can be life-changing and devastating.”