Chapter 14
The next morning, I get up even before Nurse Garrison can come for me and when she finally comes, it is no surprise she has a shot in her hand.
“How do you feel?” she asks.
“I feel fine,” I answer, thinking nothing of this question.
“Let me see your arm,” she says, hands outstretched with the needle grasped in her left hand. I assume it is another vitamin shot, but the moment the yellow fluid enters my arm the room starts to move. I try to stand, only to lose my balance and fall to the floor as rough arms grab me. I can no longer keep my eyes open.
When I awake, I am strapped to an operation table, a bright light overhead is all I can see. I hear Dr. Pruitt’s voice call out to me.
“Count backward from one hundred, John.”
I don’t want to, but what choice do I have? I want to shout at Dr. Pruitt and tell him about the thing nurse Garrison had done, but it is too late.
“100, 99, 98, 97...” and I know no more. I don’t know what I thought would happen, whether I would dream or something, but there is nothing, only darkness.
When I awake, the bright, blinding lights of my hospital room greets me. As my eyes focus, I can see Dr. Pruitt standing over me. He looks tired, there are dark circles under his eyes and his hair looks grayer than it had before. My heart feels terrible. My lungs feel squished, and it is hard to breathe with such a heavy heart. It has to be five times the weight it was before.
“The surgery was an immense success. Your body is taking to the new heart very well.” He smiles and I can suddenly see every wrinkle in his face.
“Can I go home now?” I ask, trying to sit up. The doctor places his hands on me, stopping my painful movements.
“No, John, you can’t go home. You have to rehabilitate your body so it can get used to your new heart.”
My chest hurts. My heart feels like a hundred pounds. The pain is so intense, it feels like my lungs have no space to breathe. “The pressure, it hurts, it hurts so much.” I wrench the words out. Speaking only makes the pain worse.
“The pain tells you that your heart is growing into your new body. It is a good sign,” he says with a sad, faraway smile.
I thrash back and forth, kicking my legs. I want to rip this new heart right out of my chest and throw it away. I know my behavior is atrocious, but I don’t care. The pain is too much.
“Nurse Garrison,” Dr. Pruitt calls, pushing the little red button beside my bed.
“Yes,” the voice of Satan answers.
“Bring John a sedative and the painkiller.”
“Yes, Doctor,” the voice says, and Dr. Pruitt lets go of the button.
“You’ll be all right, John. Just give your heart a chance to take root.”
Nurse Garrison comes in with a vial full of something.
“What are you giving me?” I ask. She does not answer me, she just empties the vial into my IV bag, which injects the fluid into my body. I can no longer stay awake.
When I regain consciousness, I decide to no longer complain about the weight of my heart. It is as if my heart is twice the size it had been and is made of bricks instead of tissue. The very act of breathing is painful, as the heart seems to be taking up the space the lungs once possessed. I lay there concentrating on the meditation exercises my father taught me. It helps the pain. I breathe as deeply as I possibly can, stretching, growing my lungs and heart with each breath. And with each breath, I pray and praise God.
Inhale. “Thank you, Lord.” Exhale. “For delivering me.” Inhale. “Out of the hands.” Exhale. “Of death and sin. For Lord, you are a powerful deliverer with the power to deliver me from any situation.” I continue to breathe and pray to God. “You are my light and even in this dark place, I can see because of thee. God, you are my strength and my peace and I thank thee and praise thy name, oh, Lord.”
The discomfort actually starts to go away, surprisingly, but I assume it is the medication they have administered to me. Within a few hours, I’m able to rise from my bed, and I realize I am in a different room than the one I had first been assigned. This one is pretty much the same, with green instead of blue and a sofa pushed up against the wall. I think momentarily about calling the nurse and asking for my IV to be removed, but I’m afraid I’ll get Nurse Garrison. So I slowly, carefully remove the IV myself. I wrap the cord of the IV up around itself and dispose of the needle in the red container that hangs on the wall. The space where the needle was in my arm starts to bleed, so I search through the various drawers in my hospital room to find bandages. I use the bathroom and carefully remove my shirt and unwrap my bloodstained bandages and stare down at my chest; it is red and raw with black angry looking stitches sticking out. I can no longer stand to look at myself, and the wounds are beginning to bleed. So with clean gauze and bandages, I wrap my chest, making it as tight as I can stand it.
Then I walk slowly, carefully, out of the hospital room. My legs don’t seem to want to obey me. I call upon God and continue to breathe as deeply as I possibly can, as I make each painful stride forward. I begin to walk down the hall; a nurse who isn’t Nurse Garrison stops me.
“Good, I see you’re up and about, but you’re not supposed to be walking here. We have a track for rehabilitation. Stay right there, and I will get you a wheelchair and then I’ll take you there,” she says with a perky smile. Whether I want to stay right here is really not an option as I move more slowly than a snail. I place my hands against the wall to steady myself while I wait for her. She may have been gone only for a few moments, but those moments seem to last and last as I stand here, arms outstretched with the wall supporting me.
She returns, placing the wheelchair behind me. I sit down, breathing in and out, grateful to now be sitting when I had been so anxious to be up and moving. She wheels me down the hall and into an elevator, out of the elevator and down another hall to a door leading out to a track. The track is suspended over an indoor pool. It is very warm inside the room. The nurse puts the brakes on the wheelchair and waits for me to stand. It is even harder to stand now after sitting in the chair, but I do it. The nurse smiles at me and tells me she will be back in a little while. I shuffle to the inner lane, grabbing hold of the railing and hold onto it as I make my way very slowly around the track.
I notice other young men dressed in the same white hospital jumpsuits moving at various speeds around the track with little or no greetings to each other than “Hey.”
I wonder again, do we all have new hearts? Why do so many need a new heart at the same time? My father had always told me if something doesn’t make logical sense then most likely there is something else at play. I keep thinking why us? What purpose does this surgery truly serve? While I slowly walk on the track, this helps to keep my mind off the pain. At this point, I know that I do not have all the pieces to this mysterious puzzle, but I was trained by my father that in time and with patience, the true nature of why I had this surgery will come to surface. The question is: When do I find out what the State really wants from me? And when I do, what then?
After once around the track, I just stand there, holding on to the railing, wondering when and if the nurse is ever coming back. My legs feel like lead weights, and I hope someone comes soon or I may just have to collapse to the track and lay there until help arrives. Eventually, a male attendant opens the door with a wheelchair in hand. I don’t ask if it is for me, I just assume and sit down gratefully. He takes me back to my room where he helps me out of my wheelchair into bed where I fall into an exhausted sleep.