My Life-saving Heart Transplant Surgery

On the Sixth Day, I Was Born Again

If you’ve been following along with my recollection of this week in 2018, you know I’m taking you through the buildup to my second heart transplant.  In the two previous posts, I got the call on October first and went to the hospital while Jay flew to Nashville to join me, only to find out the heart was no good and surgery was cancelled.  On October second, he asked me to marry him, and on the third, we had a ceremony at the courthouse, followed by breakfast at the Pancake Pantry.

To be honest, that’s where my memories screech to a halt.  A plate of pancakes is my last lucid vision.  After that, a series of disjointed, jagged images exist in brief moments, but my mind is mostly blank. 

After our pancake breakfast, we returned to the apartment.  I have a flash of memory in which Jay opened the door and set our carryout boxes on the counter, then turned to me with a crazy look in his eye.  In my unclear memory, he lunged toward me, swept my legs out from under me, then landed on top of me in some kind of WWE wrestling move.

In reality, he attempted to pick me up and carry me over the threshold.  He failed to realize I was no longer the skinny little waif from a decade ago.  Three years of steroids for chronic rejection of my heart along with retained fluid from heart failure had boosted my weight to the highest level of my life.  He didn’t so much pick me up as flip me onto my back like a turtle. Another flash of memory reveals the magic of our wedding night as I rubbed pain cream on his strained back muscles. 

October fourth brings another flash.  We’re in the living room, me in the chair and him on the couch.  We were discussing the return flight he had just booked when my phone rang.  It was the transplant coordinator calling to tell me another heart had become available.

A few more flashes place me in the hospital before the surgery, but I can’t connect the dots.  Either the drugs they gave me were so powerful they managed to blank out my memory as if I were blackout drunk, or I dissociated away from the scene because it was too intense for me to handle.  I spent much of the first half of my life in a dissociative state, so it wouldn’t surprise me if I did it again.

October fifth, I have one clear memory of my final post on Facebook.  That had become my primary way of staying in touch with friends after I moved to Nashville. I used social media to keep them updated on the ongoing saga of my transplant wait. I wanted to leave them with something that was both uplifting and as sarcastic as I normally am. 

A few days earlier, I found a meme which was perfect for the occasion.  A cute little possum peeked out of a pumpkin with the caption: “If you stay alive for no other reason at all, please do it for spite!” His words captured my attitude perfectly.  I uploaded the meme then handed my phone to Jay before they wheeled me back for surgery.

My final post to social media before surgery. Artist unknown.

That night, Jay wandered aimlessly around the hospital until midnight, and the streets surrounding our apartment in the wee hours of the morning.  He updated his social media with his musings about wandering the streets at 3 a.m. while I was in surgery. 

He kept himself entertained by scrolling through the photo gallery on my phone.  Most of the pictures were of dogs since I had been part of an animal rescue group for seven years.  His favorite picture was of a little white Chihuahua wearing a pink gingham dress while standing in a crib with an apple green wall as a backdrop.  Her giant ears sprouted like antenna from either side of her head, and her expression combined with the absurdity of her outfit made him laugh.  Little Bianca the Chihuahua helped get him through the uncertainty of that night.

Bianca the Chihuahua. Photo credit to Leanna Sikes, Chihaven of Michigan.

October sixth, just as the sun was rising over the horizon, the surgical team rolled me into a room in the post-surgical ICU.  Just as I was born at sunrise, I was reborn with a new heart as the morning light flooded through the window.  This is the day I celebrate as my transplant date.

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