My husband suddenly died at 47 after collapsing in our sons’ bedroom at 1am – his only symptom was back pain
A MUM lost her husband suddenly after he collapsed in their sons’ bedroom at 1am – having complained of back pain for months beforehand.
Kate Marillat, 44 lost her husband Nigel, aged just 47, to a sudden heart attack in May 2020.
His death left Kate the sole parent to their two boys Kieran, 13, and Seb, 10.
After Nigel’s death, Kate initially felt she was living in an “altered state of consciousness”.
“It was the hardest day of my life when Nigel died,” she said.
“All of a sudden, you go from married to a widow to solo parent, you have these labels, and you think, ‘Who am I now? What do I want to create? What life do we want to lead?’”
In November 2019, Kate and her husband Nigel had just welcomed a new puppy into the family.
At the time, Kate – an emotional resilience coach and mentor – worked from home, running online training sessions for practitioners.
Nigel, a Buddhist, worked at a merchant bank in Brighton.
Kate said: “He was a very ‘Steady Eddie’ and a real family man – he was my rock.”
Although Nigel had always generally been healthy, he had been experiencing backache for several months – but it didn’t occur to the couple that they had cause for concern.
Kate continued: “He used to get a bad back and would practice something called breath work to help him with the pain.
“Since he’d had back pain before, we thought it was just back pain.”
A heart attack occurs when the supply of blood to the heart is suddenly blocked.
Symptoms can include chest pain, feeling lightheaded or dizzy, sweating, shortness of breath or nausea, according to the NHS.
Other than back pain, Nigel experienced none of these symptoms – but one night in May 2020, he suddenly collapsed.
“It was very sudden, it was at night, and it was the worst thing that can happen,” Kate said.
“He went into the boys’ bedroom at one o’clock in the morning, which was unusual, and I think on some level his soul knew something.
“The next thing I heard was, he’s collapsed and the boys shouted out.”
Kate called 999 and performed CPR while waiting for paramedics to arrive, but despite their best efforts, Nigel died hours later from the sudden heart attack.
Describing how it felt in the days afterwards, Kate said: “I remember feeling that I had been hit over the head – it felt like a physical bruise on my brain.
“You have brain fog and you wake up in disbelief but… I still felt very close to him.
“He feels like an angel to me now.”
‘Life reset’
Around a year after Nigel’s death, Kate and the children moved from Peacehaven, East Sussex, to Saltdean – but the mum felt that an even bigger change to their environment would help her and the children “heal”.
Kate had dreamed of becoming a digital nomad – someone who travels and works remotely – and previously worked in Paris.
She started looking at options to expand her online business globally and fulfil dream of travelling and working abroad.
She finally took the leap in September 2024 and moved to Sanur in Bali, where she and her Buddhist husband Nigel had spent their honeymoon in 2010 – she described it as a “healing, beautiful place”.
She and her sons now live in a three-bedroom villa with a pool and enjoy daily activities like surfing and snorkelling, and she said her money goes “three times further” – allowing her to privately educate her sons and eat out more often.
Subtle signs of a heart attack
A HEART attack is when the supply of the blood to the heart is suddenly blocked.
It is a medical emergency and needs to be treated right away.
Around 100,000 people are admitted to hospital due to heart attacks every year in the UK, according to the British Heart Foundation.
That’s 290 each day, or one every five minutes.
Some symptoms, like chest pain, shortness of breath and feeling lightheaded or dizzy, can be fairly obvious.
But the signs aren’t always so blatant, the NHS warns. Other more subtle symptoms of a heart attack include:
- Pain in other parts of the body (it can feel as if the pain is spreading from your chest to your arms, jaw, neck, back and stomach)
- Sweating
- Feeling sick
- Vomiting
- An overwhelming feeling of anxiety (similar to a panic attack)
- Weakness or fatigue
- Coughing
- Wheezing
A heart attack and cardiac arrest are similar, but not the same.
A cardiac arrest is when the heart stops pumping blood around the body.
Kate explained that Bali has been “wonderful” but “lonely” at times, and she still has to “navigate the emotional waves of solo parenting and financial freedom”.
The mum says she plans to remain Bali for the time being.
But in future, once her children are grown up and settled, she wants to adopt the life of a digital nomad travelling and working across the world – and hopes to visit Australia or elsewhere in Asia next.
Kate said the move has brought her and her children closer together during this grieving process and she would encourage others to “step outside of their comfort zone”.
She said: “When you go through a big life reset and you try and figure out what the next steps are, it’s given me the space to figure myself out again for this next season.
“It has brought us closer as a family, I’ve definitely got more energy here, I’m feeling more grateful, at peace, and it’s made me ready for this chapter and the next one.”