Nicola, 32, was left in a coma and her family was told she may not make it through the night
A 32-year-old woman who was left in a coma says she saw what is on the other side after life, and there are no Pearly Gates. Nicola Hodges wasn’t expected to survive the night when she was rushed to William Harvey Hospital in Ashford, Kent after a change in her epilepsy medication caused her blood to turn dangerously acidic.
Nicola was placed on 24-hour dialysis and quickly slipped into a coma. Her loved ones were told to gather at her bedside. The chances of her pulling through were just 20%.
Nicola said: “My family were hearing all those awful words you hear in medical documentaries, that the doctors are doing all they can, for example. They’ve all said it scared the living hell out of them and showed how serious it all was. I wasn’t expected to make it through the night, but I did, luckily.
“My family were warned that if I woke up, I was going to be very different. This wasn’t the type of thing you can get over quickly.”
Amy said she experienced something when she was in a come, close to death. She said: “The only way I can describe the coma is as a near-death experience. But it wasn’t like all those things you hear, there were no pearly white gates. I didn’t see anything, I just remember feeling warm and an amber light.
“But that gave me the feeling that there must be something after death, a life or an energy, and that’s where the basis of the idea was born.”
Despite defying the odds and waking from the coma, Nicola was left confused, disoriented and struggling to process what had happened to her. Six months later, during a seizure, she suffered a fall and hit her head – triggering four separate brain haemorrhages.
“It wasn’t anything that could be fixed and literally overnight, I just, I changed,” she said. “The only way I can describe it is feeling like my head was wrapped in cotton wool. I used to be very quick, funny, witty. I’d done lots of different things and never struggled, but then I couldn’t remember what day it was at first.”
For years, the constant confusion continued, and with it, a deepening sense of isolation. “It can be very frightening to feel like you have no control over your mind, no matter how hard you try,” she admits. Family gatherings also became a source of anxiety.
“I’d go to family events and sit at the adult tables, and I wouldn’t know what’s going on or know what people were talking about. Rather than isolated, the feeling was more like I was stupid,” she remembers. “I would delegate myself to the kids’ table because I could keep up with them. It felt like I was still engaging with the family, but I wouldn’t feel stupid trying to keep up with the adults.
“I thought I could easily disappear and no one would notice because I wasn’t adding anything, I didn’t have any points of view because nothing made sense.”
The years that followed were marked by migraines, sensory overload, and more seizures. I live with my parents because I can’t live on my own anymore, it’s just not safe,” says Nicola, from Folkestone. “It’s not an ideal way to get by, but it’s sort of a needs must kind of thing.”
A fall down the stairs left her deaf in one ear, and another seizure in a swimming pool nearly ended in tragedy. But out of her darkest moments came an idea – and a list.
Frustrated by what she’d lost, Nicola wrote down everything she wanted to do before she turned 40. At the top was an ambitious goal – to beat her brain damage and write a book. “There were all sorts of stuff on my list, a bungee jump, jumping out of an aeroplane, but writing a book was at the top, and the idea had been milling around in my head since the coma,” she says.
Armed with a makeshift “franken-laptop” built from two broken machines and her signature red notebooks, Nicola began writing the story that had lived in her head since waking up. “I’d tried to sit down and write it a few times, but you know those nagging voices we all have sort of told me, ‘you’re setting the bar too high, kid, you can’t do this’, but I sort of had enough of thinking like this,” she says.
“But I wanted to try, I felt like the idea was good enough. Whether it was in one of my red notebooks or at the computer, I felt this peace I’d never had before. It felt right, and that helped me fight the insecurities.”
It was a slow and difficult process, but also healing. “With writing, I was coming back to myself. I was peeling back the cotton wool that was wrapped around my head, and I felt like I could breathe again,” she adds.
“I felt like I was me again, like I had been asleep for years and I’d just woken up.”
Once the first draft was complete, she turned to the person who’d once sat silently by her hospital bed – her dad, Nick, a former Navy engineer and avid reader. His review was short, but life-changing: “Thoroughly enjoyed it. This needs publishing.”
Nicola, now aged 37, recalls: “It’s one of those moments that I will remember for the rest of my life. He’s a man of very few words, but I knew whatever he said would be the truth. I was not expecting anything more than a pat on the head, ‘well done’, and advice to find my next adventure.
“But when he said those six words, I knew he meant it, and he was proud of me for it.”
Encouraged, Nicola spent eight months querying publishers without success before finally signing with indie firm Morning Mist. Not only did they love her book, Spirit Born, but they also wanted more. “After about eight months, I found a publisher, and after telling them it was part of a series, they immediately wanted the lot. So, as a first-time author, I was signed to a five-book deal. It sounds crazy, but it’s a dream come true.”
Book two is out in September, with a third instalment already underway. And now Nicola is using her second chance to help others write theirs. In 2024, she launched “Crazy’s Creative Corner” on TikTok – a virtual writers’ hub for people facing similar battles with disability or mental health.
“I really don’t like social media, but I wanted to give something back. There were so many writers sort of crying out for people to give them advice,” she said. Now, hundreds join her live-streams each week to share their work, get feedback, or simply be heard – many of them dubbed “the Crazies” in her growing online community.
“I think a lot of writers struggle and end up self-publishing, but it’s such a saturated market, so they can struggle to be seen, and we all help each other.”
Her dad Nick, meanwhile, remains her biggest fan. “Once we get people to read these books, they’ll sell themselves, I’m absolutely 100% convinced about that,” he said.
