Swimming with Sharks
It's been 8 weeks since my heart transplant. That's kind of astounding because to me it seems like a lifetime ago. But it's only been 8 weeks.
I sat down with my laptop this morning to post a blog about what I've been up to, to share what great progress I've been making. But before I started writing, I checked my Google news feed and saw an article about a Great White Shark lair that scientists have discovered in an open patch of ocean about 1200 nautical miles from Hawaii. They call it the "Great White Cafe."
Sharks... oh yes, I remember the sharks.
The Discovery Channel's annual "Shark Week" began the day I received my new heart. In the days that followed my surgery I often had the TV tuned in and watched when I could. And in the 2 months since, the news has often been full of shark sightings and attacks. I feel strangely connected to sharks since my transplant, which is something I never imagined would happen. It felt as improbable as... having my heart cut from my chest and replaced with that of a kind stranger. And reading about the "White Shark Cafe" this morning has me thinking of the night in the hospital that I don't usually talk about.
The first 24 hours post-transplant were an emotional rollercoaster for my family and a time of extreme physical trauma for my body. Within that timeframe I had my heart removed and replaced, had my sternum wired shut and had my incision closed... and then due to complications, the team had to re-open my incision, un-wire my sternum, and shorten one of the blood vessels between my heart and lungs which had a kink in it that was causing blood to back-up on the right side of my heart. Hey, even my blood vessels are kinky! #curlygirl
My first memories are of being highly drugged up but conscious-- and still intubated. This means I still had a tube down my throat and in my airway. My hands were restrained at my waist (they do this because otherwise patients would pull the tube out) and I was only able to communicate with my eyes and small motions with my head and hands. It was reeeeally uncomfortable and I remained in this situation for about 5 hours, silently willing my throat over and over not to clamp down on the tube, trying to remain relaxed, trying not to panic. I remember with absolute clarity what it felt like when they finally removed it.
And then things went dark again. I awoke and it was night time. My nurse was a man named Ben and he had kind and really beautiful brown eyes behind his Clark Kent glasses. Those eyes looked very worried. It felt very dark in my room and I could hear myself saying the word "NOOOO" over and over, although I wasn't aware that I was talking. It's like an involuntary sound was coming from me, and my voice sounded so strange and unfamiliar. It was small and weak, like a little girl's voice, and I didn't like it at all.
Ben was hovering nearby and in a voice rich with concern he asked "Andrea, what are you saying 'no' to?" The question surprised me because it didn't even seem like it was me saying "no," but in my drugged-up haze I felt like my answer was really important. Not just to Ben, but to me... to my survival.
So I thought about it. What was I saying no to? Ben asked again, this time a little more urgently "Andrea, what are you saying 'no' to?" And finally that little girl's voice coming from my mouth said "To giving up." Ben seemed satisfied with that answer and things went dark for me again.
I gained consciousness at some point in the early morning hours. I wasn't sure if Ben was in the room with me because I couldn't see anything and I felt really frightened. I was in pain and having trouble breathing and I felt desperately and completely alone. We now know that my right lung had collapsed, but it wouldn't be discovered until the following day. I'm sure there was all manner of noise in the room emanating from the many machines that were monitoring me and providing me with all of the fluids that were keeping me alive. But in my memory, it was absolutely silent.
In that silence, my body was speaking to me. It told me that we might not make it. That voice was crystal clear. It admitted to me that while we went into this with high hopes, it wasn't looking very good... and it told me that we might not see morning light. I remember that I wasn't scared, I wasn't afraid of dying. I just felt incredibly disappointed and profoundly sad... but I could feel the truth of what my body was saying. I knew death was a possibility.
And so I made my peace with God. Alone in my hospital bed and unable to move, I asked for forgiveness of my sins, I professed my faith, and I asked God to take care of Derek and my family and my friends and to make sure that they all knew how much I loved them.
I wish I could say that I felt God's presence at that point and that it brought me tremendous peace, but I didn't. There was no sense of peace at all. I just felt alone and full of sorrow that this was going to be how it ended, that I was never going to see the gorillas or elephants or big cats in Africa, or kiss Derek in a gondola under the Bridge of Sighs at sunset, or see my beloved pets again. And then I disappeared.
I awoke to the sound of my strange, tiny voice calling out Derek's name over and over, but he wasn't there. I thought briefly about using the hospital phone to call him, but I couldn't remember any phone numbers, couldn't will my arms to move, and couldn't see the phone. At some point, Ben came and sat with me. I don't know what time it was or if it was daylight yet because my brain was having a very difficult time processing anything that I was actually seeing.
What I do I know is that I could "see" a huge school of sharks swimming over my head, as if I were on the bottom of the ocean and looking up at the surface. Light bounced off of their white underbellies as their bodies swayed from side to side while they swam. The walls of my room were blue and shimmering, dappled with light from the surface. I told Ben about the sharks but he couldn't see them.
I wasn't afraid of those sharks. They were beautiful and powerful and unconcerned with the passage of time. They had no idea I was there watching them-- they just swam. The hallucination was extremely vivid but there was still a part of me that knew I was safe in my hospital bed, a part of me that knew I had conquered the night, that my body had been wrong, that I had lived.
And 8 weeks later, I'm still here.
I lived.
And I'm so grateful.
It feels like the clock is ticking on this new life, that I need to get out and start really living. That Jordan (the name I've given my new heart) and I need to go to all of the places and see all of the things. I don't want to waste another moment stuck in neutral and I'm struggling to not push too hard and do too much because we don't want me to have a setback.
But there are sharks out there... and I need to swim with them.
Maybe I already have.