Sara Pietrzak
Waiting for a Second Chance / Never Alone
I am twenty-five and alone for the moment, but this is not the moment I want to be alone. Alone in a seventh floor hospital room, I am full of tentative hope. My doctor just came to tell me that after eighteen long months of surviving on hope, prayers, and sheer will today is the day I will receive a lifesaving double lung transplant. Buoyant in my hope, I am grounded by fear and something more—the knowledge that somewhere, maybe in this same hospital, a family is grieving because of my chance to live.
I call my husband, who tells me not to get too excited—most people waiting for a transplant have a false alarm—and that he will be here soon. The next call is to my mom and dad, telling them that they can begin the six hour drive from N.Y. and that I couldn’t have picked better parents if I tried. My voice cracks as I tell my dad that I love him. I talk to my sons; they are 6 and 2, too young to understand what’s about to happen, but I need to hear their little voices one last time. I need to say, “I love you,” maybe for the last time. I wish I could hold them, smell their little boy smell, and place “I love you” kisses on their cheeks.
The cleaning lady comes in and says, “Hi.” I have been here for three weeks, and we have become friendly. I tell her my news, and she drops her supplies to hug me, sputtering in Spanish words that I don’t know but comfort me nonetheless. Her smile feels like the sun right now. The transplant coordinators arrive with my husband, and things get busy very fast. New IVs are put in, and questions are asked. The coordinators speak as if I’m not even there, but it’s ok. My husband is there, and I am not alone. He is the dock where I am secured, steady on the turbulent, unsure sea.
Transplants require so much more than the patient, so the professionals disperse to handle the details. I hardly notice as the doctors, nurses, and coordinators leave us. Jim, my husband and hero, lies next to me on the hospital bed, and we just exist together. We don’t speak; there is too much to say. How do you distill a lifetime, a marriage, into words when they hang on an unspoken precipice?
My arm aches from the fresh frozen plasma being pushed through the IV into my veins. Hot packs, warm blankets, and a dangerous hope combat my need to complain. I feel unworthy of this chance at life, and yet I refuse to believe it will be anything but a success.
The nurses come to collect me. It’s time. I fervently wish my parents had made it; I want my dad to tell me that everything will be okay. Adorned with my pumps and tubes, I settle into the wheelchair. My husband is allowed to walk with me beside my wheelchair all the way to the operating room door. We refuse to say good-bye, but we eat each other’s face with our eyes, committing every feature to heart. His eyes are fathomless, holding emotions neither of us can name. A hug, kiss, and “I love you” later, I leave him behind to face the biggest unknown.
The operating room is freezing and busy. A million different people with a million different jobs don’t even notice I’ve arrived. My nurses, the ones who will care for me after surgery, are there, and the nurses and anesthesiologist responsible for me during the transplant are introduced. They are excited and friendly. Transplants are not an everyday occurrence, even at Johns Hopkins. I’m moved and clucked over. In the rush before, the floor nurses forgot to have me change from my flannel nightshirt into a hospital gown. I reluctantly surrender my last piece of home to assurances that it will go straight to Jim. It feels silly to be sad over an old, worn nightie, but it is the only thing that is mine in this foreign place.
Once I am dressed in a backwards gown, my nurses help me onto the operating table. I take as deep a breath as my sick lungs allow and lay on the impossibly narrow table. As the anesthesiologist explains what happens next, I am strapped onto my own crucifix – my arms spread from my sides. There isn’t much time to be concerned. My oxygen is removed, and a mask takes its place as a voice tells me to count backwards from one hundred. I only remember counting to eighty-seven.
Some people describe out of body experiences, visits from long lost loved ones, or even visits from angels. I have no such encounter. I am here, and then I am gone. It is as if a light switch is turned off and then back on again. There is no perceived passage of time, just a blink. For my family the night is much longer. Jim spends the duration of my surgery alone in an empty waiting room, the clock on the wall his only companion. My parents arrive just in time to see me wheeled out—a bump, bundled under blankets and machines, their little girl, alive for now and most definitely not alone.