Nolitangere

Early in the last century any attempt at surgery on the human heart was considered impossible. Every medical student was taught to never touch the heart. It meant certain death to any patient at the time and the prevailing concept of “nolitangere” would never change. Dr. Alfred Blalock and his lab technician Vivien Thomas swam against this stream and performed the world’s first successful surgery on the “blue baby” Ileen Saxon in 1944.

Doctors all around the world perform more than one million heart procedures every year now. What used to be a flight of fantasy is now such a commonplace concept. From quadruple bypasses to complete transplants. Extending life for decades where it would have stopped far short of that less than a century ago. Almost all of us have a family member or a friend who has gone through some sort of cardiac procedure.

If you are reading this, then you know someone for sure.

It’s raining outside today. Mist covers the grass in a thin layer between my window and the house across the way. Birds are quiet and the neighborhood dogs must all be inside. All I can hear are the drops of water falling from the sky as they land in the puddles their precursors filled up in the dirt overnight.

Chilly, but not too cold, the weather won’t start frosting for another month or so yet. I saw on the news how hot it is back out west. By the time I get home from my surgery next month we’ll be wearing heavier coats and probably hanging out under blankets in the house.

I remember coming home after I was first diagnosed with heart failure. I remember sitting down on the couch with my eyes closed. My dog Ringo jumped right up on my lap and shoved his nose against my chest. He held it there for a long time. Then he looked up at me and started licking my face. Anyone who says dogs aren’t intelligent needs to come up with a new litmus test. Ringo won’t be here to help nurse me back to health this time. But Sadie will.

I don’t know if I’m more apprehensive this time or not. I know what to expect at least. Though I’m not really sure if that’s good or bad. It’s such an odd thing to think about. I’ll be awake one moment, then nothing but black. I won’t remember waking up. I won’t remember yelling and screaming profanities at the recovery nurses. I won’t remember shouting at the top of my lungs “I need to pee!” because they just removed my catheter.

Unfortunately my wife will. She’ll have to deal with all of it. Once I calm down and regain a sense of myself, she’ll tell me everything I did and said. I’ll be completely embarrassed. I’ll shower the staff with apologies. They’ll smile and shrug their shoulders and say that a lot of their patients act like that when they come out of anesthesia. I won’t believe them and keep trying to convince them that, “I’m not really like that. I’m really a nice guy.”

I probably won’t be able to use my arms very much for a while. The operating table won’t have any supports so my shoulders will fall backwards for the seven or eight hours I’m being operated on. Small tears will occur in the muscles around the balls of my shoulders. That’s where most of the pain during my recovery will come from. My chest and the incisions in my nether regions will most likely not bother me at all.

We have a comfy couch and cable. Netflix too. I’m sure I’ll be catching up on all the crappy sci-fi that I’ve missed. Maybe I’ll watch “The Wire” or “Mad Men”. I don’t know. Any recommendations will be greatly appreciated. I’ll be on some great pain meds for the first few weeks so I might just be watching my hallucinations roam around the living room for a while.

I’m hoping I’ll be able to get in here on the computer from time to time. Since I won’t have to walk up stairs to get in my studio this time, I want to document as much of this process as I can. I may even see if Melissa will bring my hand held recorder in to my room so I can hear myself after I wake up. Maybe that’s a little dark, but for some reason it’s intriguing to me.

For now anyway, I plan on playing with my kids and kissing my wife a lot. I’m going to keep looking out my window and marvel as the leaves change colors. I’m going to read e.e. cummings, Danielewski, Matheson and Auden. I’m going to listen to Olafur Armalds, Bach, the Foo Fighters and the Damnwells. I’m going to work on my next book. I’m going to write music. I’m going to teach myself the Ukulele. I’m going to think about how hard Alfred Blalock and Vivien Thomas worked so hard to keep me and millions of others just like me alive.

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