(Photo taken by Dr. Adanna Akujuo, my cardiac surgeon, just after my successful double bypass surgery.)
“I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell.” – Tell-Tale Heart, Edgar Allan Poe.
Every writer or artist – or reader too probably – knows what is on my mind this morning. Can I write yet? Can I return to my book this morning, after breakfast, after my pills, after my blog? This was my vow. I don’t know yet, I am a warrior for dignity this weekend. In a couple of months, I’ll be able to put my socks on.
The job of the doctors, nurses, hospital, was to save my heart, and they seem to have done it beautifully. They did their part. My dignity is my job. There is a price to everything, and one of the costs of this miracle is the utter loss of self, independence and pride. Having other people wipe your butt for you is a profoundly spiritual and humbling experience. Much of my life was about not being seen and known in that way. I remember looking at my beautiful young nurse – Sarah – she was determined to give me a cloth bath, and stood patiently and determinedly holding a moist towel as I struggled off of the toilet right next to her. Is this me?, I wondered.
By then, all sense of privacy and control was gone. Sensing my hesitation, Sarah assured me she does it every day, it is not a big deal to her, she bristled a bit at my discomfort. And there was no way around it.
“Okay,” I said, “time to let go of something else. Dignity is inside, it is not outside of me, it can’t be taken away. Let’s do it.” Yesterday I learned to do it myself it again. Both things felt good in their own way, the yin and yang of surgery. I believe good comes from everything if one is open to it, Sarah brought me another step forward in self-awareness. I was a better man for the wipe.
Open heart surgery requires the literal loss of self. It is not metaphorical. Your heart is stopped, your live on machines, innumerable tubes, drips, piles, shots, pills, wipes, pipes. Wires and plates are inserted into your body, blood is drawn continuously, all kinds of machines are implanted in your body and are beeping and dripping and draining, and you lose the means to care for yourself in the most basic and elemental ways. It is the most efficient way, it is the only way.
The nurses are good, the nurses are busy. Needy people are stacked up like airplanes, I will be gone in a day or so, someone new to learn the same things, feel the same bewilderment, to move along with their lives. Talk about swimming in the river of life. These are friends that desperately want you to go away, friends you are anxious to leave.
That’s the price of a saved heart, and a fair one, too, given the centrality of the heart in one’s life. Good deal, fair deal. I feel as if I have been kissed by the grace of God, my heart beats strongly, it rings in my ears. I have heard many things in hell, my self was taken from me, my dignity and my soul, all that I have learned and lived. That is the rebirth and renewal, it is up to me to reclaim my self, my dignity. I am doing it, day by day, piece by piece. You lose yourself. You find yourself.
I walked too far Sunday morning – three miles – I learned what i need to know, my heart told me. We are intimate now, no longer strangers to one another. We talk all the time, we listen to one another, are getting to know one another. I think we shall remain close. This morning, I walked a mile and it was good. I told Maria I feel like Florence’s old lawn mower, my body restarts slowly. First, there is the painful coughing, the cleansing of the lungs. My surgery was less than a week ago, breathing is still a struggle, one breath at a time, the drip of life. My bowels are returning to life, my lungs are starting to take responsibility for my oxygen. I took all of my bandages off this morning, Maria washed my wounds, we stand in the shower together each morning, smiling and laughing at the nature of life.
Maria is an artist, not a nurse. She asked me yesterday if she was a good nurse, and I said no, not really, I didn’t marry a nurse, I married an artist. But she has done a great job caring for me, she does not trust me yet to be responsible, and she is burdened by worry and responsibility. But we are getting there, we had fun in the hospital every single day. We will have fun here every single day as well. My dignity is connected to her, it does not exist apart from it, and I will be happy and whole again when she is in her studio, weaving and spinning her magic, not helping me put my pants on.
This morning, Deb Foster came over to help us with the animals and chores and Maria went out to talk with her, and the two of them sat and talked on the porch for the longest time. I was hungry, waiting for breakfast – I can’t make it for myself yet – and I started for the back door and then stopped.
No, I said, this was a beautiful thing to see, these two are becoming friends, they talk so easily with one another, I went into my study and started writing. My breakfast can wait, or I can go and pour a bowl of cereal. I am not going to be one of those men you hear women talk about all the time, the ones that are anxious to be cared for, who get used to it, who accept it. I will never accept it, I let these two friends alone, their time was more important than me at that time.
I looked at my scars for the first time this morning, and I was simply shocked and began to cry. Look what they did to me, I thought, look what happened to me. So real, my poor heart, my saved heart.
And then I checked myself again, as one does with dignity. They saved me, I said, they saved my heart. This is a map of it, a picture of it. I do not have words for it yet, except I do not quite believe I survived it. I don’t care to see it again, but I will every morning, they are not yet healed. This morning, I will try to write, I will make about a half-dozen medical appointments, I will plan to re-launch my new e-book “Who Speaks For the Carriage Horses: The Future Of Animals In Our World.”
But first, I will try and figure out how to put my pants on.