sleep
It’s 2:59 a.m., the brink of 3:00 a.m. In six hours, I was going to die.
Maybe.
Possibly.
A five to ten percent chance that I was gonna die. That was the risk of having open-heart surgery.
And don’t get me started on the risks before and after a heart transplant: blood clots, kidney problems, some complicated shit called Coronary allograft vespo- vessu- …I don’t remember what the doctor was spewing. Look it up yourselves.
And then there’s my favourite risk of this whole bullshit operation: death. Yup. My immune system could end up just rejecting whatever heart they harvested from whatever stranger. If that happens, it’s likely I won’t drop dead so soon after surgery, but I could develop other health problems that won’t really get better, and could stick around until the life in me just gives out.
At least the percent to stay alive after a transplant’s done is also pretty good. But it doesn’t totally erase the suckiness of the death percentages that still exist. One year post-transplant, 85-90% are living; annual death rate after that, around 4%.
It’s exactly 3:00 a.m. now. My phone’s usually a few seconds behind on the time though, yet I’ve always lived by whatever numbers are displayed on its screen.
The room’s pitch black except for the square of light piercing through the doors’s window from the hallway. The only sound inside the space, aside from my uneven breathing, were the infuriating beeps of a heart monitor. My eyes are open, trying to stare at the ceiling, but I can’t even see it cuz of the lack of light.
I stare anyway, occasionally glancing at the square of light, keeping watch for a nurse that might see me awake and fiddling with my phone when I should be resting for my ‘big day’ tomorrow.
How can I sleep, though? There’s a five to ten percent chance that I’ll go to sleep forever when the doctor slices my chest open and cuts out my defective heart.
I shimmy upwards in bed, trying to readjust the back of my head against the pillow. I’ve tried turning to lie on my sides a few times, but the electrodes and wires from the heart monitor don’t make it easy. They usually give me a portable one a night so I could have more freedom to shift around while sleeping, but I shift a lot while I sleep, and the damn mini beeping box always ends up getting my way .
ghrgcdhuhifklrrr…
My stomach’s restless. The last time I ate was 9:30 p.m. A junior-sized burger with a side of stale-ish fries and a miniature cup of apple juice had been my final meal. I had to start fasting at the stroke of midnight; no food or any beverages until after surgery, which in itself was like four to six hours and wasn’t due to start till nine, meaning my stomach still had a loooong day ahead of it.
A long shadow creeps into view past the window. Its shape sticks to the wall in the hall and grows as it gets closer. I instantly recognize it. In a blink, I stuff my phone beneath the pillow and roll without hesitation onto my left side, my back to the to the doorway. The portable heart monitor got tugged along with me, but it doesn’t matter; it’s out of sight under the blanket.
My eyes stay open as I track the shadow in between the slender ray of light cast on the wall I’m now staring at, while the shadow stalks me on the other side of the door. It’s gotten so close that the light in my room briefly vanishes. The door opens, quietly, squeakless. I almost don’t hear it at all.
For a moment, it’s just silent. I’m even making a show of inhaling and exhaling, peacefully slumbering. Then…
“Sleeping yet, Suzie?” came the most gentle voice known to humanity, whispering into the room. The shadows of her insanely curly locks were more prominent now with the opened door providing more light.
Nurse Jarvis has definitely been the best part about my hospital live-in situation; her peppy attitude; her passion to accessorize, even while at work; her willingness to dance the hand jive or the macarena in the middle of a room where patients and other coworkers can pass by — it was hard not to like her.
Although only a week after being admitted to this place, I got sick and tired of her nightly checkups to see if I was still awake. Doesn’t matter what age your sickly ass is; nurses will forever baby their patients.
I didn’t answer her, obviously. Because I’m asleep, obviously.
More silence follows, and then before I know it, the squeakless door clicks shut. The room stays dark so I know I’m alone, but I wait at least sixty seconds to make sure.
That’s been my life for the past month, all because of my crappy heart. I bet you’re wondering, ‘what’s even wrong with it?’ Better question to ask, ‘is anything even right with it?’
It all started seventeen years ago, April fourteenth. The day I was born. Right out of the womb, I wasn’t breathing, so a doctor had to shoot off thirty chest compressions with two fingers. The first set didn’t give the jump start that I needed, so they tried again. Sixty was the lucky number, but several heart scans later that night revealed that my luck was going to be short lived.
A hole in her heart? No a few holes, actually. No, it really is just one. Actually, it’s like a tear. One of the valves is leaking blood. One quick operation to sew it up and she’ll be better in no time.
Bull. Shit.
They did manage to sew up that leaky valve, but not long after that surgery, another ‘hole’ had appeared elsewhere on my heart.
Atrial Septal Defect. Atrioventricular Septal Defect. Ebstein Anomaly.
So many operations. So many surgeries. So many tests. So many diagnoses’.
Still to this day, doctors aren’t entirely sure what’s wrong with my freaky heart. But a month ago when I collapsed one morning and was admitted to the hospital, the doctors decided they were gonna both diagnose me and solve the problem once and for all, no matter how long it took this time.
They had even called in one of the top cardiologists in America: Altair Fadel. Nearly every doctor in this hospital had been stopping by my room to speedrun facts about that guy that they thought would make me feel ‘hopeful’ and ‘in good hands’: had four successful heart transplants and five successful open-heart surgeries in just one year; was recommended for medical director three times in another year, but turned down the position each time; everybody is so fond of him, even dogs and babies!
No matter what anybody told me about that Fadel guy though, the last things I felt were ‘hopeful’ and ‘in good hands’. If no one in seventeen years could give me a proper diagnoses or solution, then what luck did a top cardiologist from America have? I know I might sound a bit dramatic, but anyone would in my situation.
I met the Fadel guy like two weeks ago, and on the first day he was the one who proposed a heart transplant would be the only fix. Everyone in the room had stared at him like he was a madman, yet no one in the entire hospital had questioned him.
The procedure was almost immediately set for the end of the month. Today.
It’s 3:02 a.m. now, or it had been already a few seconds before. In six hours, I was maybe, possibly — a five to ten percent chance — going to die.
