In Case of Emergency
At 23-years old going on twelve, my chief responsibility lies in constantly monitoring my own heathen levels of happiness and animal-like grazing needs. I consider myself a good friend, always willing to help a pal out, am politically active and vote my compassion for others, I’ll admit that the comings and goings of my own little world largely dominate my thoughts. Not out of ego, or a pathetic helplessness, but because I’m a single 23-year old dude that still watches cartoons.
So, I’ll admit, I don’t understand the parental burden, the great weight that settles onto the cerebellum and grows proportionally with a child. And I certainly don’t have a clue about the motherly instinct, although I’m certain a scientific study would find an annoy gland that suddenly activates and pumps in full force in the mother once the kid hits about 13-years of age.
As such, I’ve largely focused on myself since finding out about this upcoming surgery, with my concern for others largely expressing itself in my assiduous effort to drop the weight of anger and frustration on the backs of my parents. You know, they don’t have enough to worry about, so I’m just trying to help them out.
Of course, it isn’t their fault that I’m going through this (so long as they didn’t smoke crack together during pregnancy, I’ll blame it on genes far beyond their control), but they’re the ones asking how I feel every single day, so I make sure to tell them, in every King’s English disapproved phrase I can muster.
But as cathartic as that is, I don’t think I need to tell them. They already know. As much as I’m loathe to admit it, they’ve experienced this in many ways that I haven’t. They haven’t borne the scar or ticked or spent the grueling days in the hospital bed, but they were the original victims of all this.
I know the story of my early years through their eyes, not some miraculous feat of memory. I soon took on chief victim duties, but while I can’t possibly understand what it’s like to have a kid in this situation (let alone two, which I’ll talk about later), they assure me it’s no cakewalk.
I concede that it sets off an initial anger in my bones when my mom tells me that, if she could, she’d take the heart problem, that she’d have the heart surgery, instead of me. And I stand by my assertion that anyone who wants this is either a. insane or b. really wants those horse-strength pain killers that will be coursing through my veins in a week’s time.
No, she can’t have the surgery for me, but there’s a different pain that’s starting to run parallel to all that I’m going through. My parents always been by my side in this, shepherding me to appointments, taking care of the administrative details and insurance hassles and managing that goddamn coumadin that I am about to slug down as I write this. When my burgeoning youth hockey career was cut down before it could really start, it must have felt like they were being cross checked into the boards.
Yesterday, I could see new wounds opening for them. Up until now, I was treated at the children’s hospital, if only because that’s where the doctor that saved and then managed my life, operated from. Dr. Gersony is now retired, and I’ve graduated to the adult’s cardiac wing.
That means, as we were told yesterday, limited visiting hours in Intensive Care, 15-minutes per hour and a black out while the doctors make their rounds in the morning and night. The horror on my mom’s face when she found out that she couldn’t be with me at all times was matched only by the painful resignation it showed when I glanced at her to sit back in the seat she had sprung up from, saying, “I’ll be fine, mom.”
Later, when I went for my tests, I had to glance her back down to her seat in the waiting room. A parent has often been by my side for the big echocardiograms and EKG’s, but this was adult’s, and I was more than capable of handling it myself. It took a few seconds of nervous hesitation, but they waited like pros until I came out, their 23-year old no worse for the wear.
It was a normal day, as far as pre-ops go, but the lesson dug further than any test needle could go. They’re still by my side, but we’ve both got to face certain new frontiers. Alone.
