Fierce Love at the Threshold (Part 2)

A continuation from Part 1

Opening her eyes, she saw the doctor emerge and motion to her. "We had some trouble. . . ", details fading away, "but he's fine, everything is going well now." So it wasn't yet over. She counted the hours. All she remembered was that he went in early in the morning, and now it was dinner time. "A long surgery, it will be a few more hours before you can see him." She returned to her seat, asking no questions this time. Hands patted her shoulders, smiles appeared on faces of strangers as if this was very good news. She sat waiting, perfectly calm, strong, feet square on the floor.

She knew this danger had passed, only the first leg of the race. He was tired, in his body, in his soul. Tired of the tether that held him. There would be another battle later. Inside her sure determination, she rested for now. Time passed, and all memory of the waiting room faded back.

In the end, the surgery took 14 hours. Another three in recovery.

It was nighttime now, and he was in his room, still on a ventilator, asleep, the word you tell children, improperly, when someone dies- "your grandpa went to sleep" or "we had to put the dog to sleep". He looked pale and lifeless, with the machine breathing for him.

She flashed back to the terror of the first surgery some years back, when he was fighting the machine that breathed for him. Fighting the pressure rising in his chest, awake and panicking. Then, his attendant was standing outside the room, engaged in meaningless conversation with another nurse. Just another day in the ICU. She went outside to interrupt, to tell them he was scared. He had written on paper, "I can't breathe", eyes wide, as if suffocating. The nurse entered routinely, asking stupid questions as he wrote answers. Turned something on the machine and explained in hushed tones, "we have to wean him off so he begins to breathe on his own. He's fighting it. I changed the setting, but we will have to slowly take it down so he can learn to breathe on his own." Trapped and awake, he continued to gesture, still fighting the unnatural rise and fall of his chest. Going to his side, she held his hand, explained what the nurse had said, saying "Don't fight it" and "Soon they will be weaning you off, it will be uncomfortable, but you will breathe on your own." He wrote "They almost killed me." Inside, she shuddered, feeling the truth of what he said, discounting it as something he experienced in the haze of trauma. "Does it feel better now?" "It's better, enough air now". That time, she kept watch all night until he was breathing on his own.

This time, the machine was more gentle, not the abrupt in-filling of the lungs and exerting of an outward push. This was not the same experience. She reminded herself that this was a better hospital, one of the top 10 for cardiac surgery. But he was weary now, none of the fight present that she saw the last time. He still seemed too close to the edge of the threshold. Holding his hand, she willed him back from the edge. Talked to him and told him stories of their life together, as you would for someone in a coma. He was heavily medicated, she knew this, but the medication conspired with the haunting image of the threshold to rob him of his fight. He was not restless or in pain. And his heartbeat had not returned to normal rhythm; something was still very wrong.

Outside the room, a bank of monitors showed the heartbeats of every person in this wing. One staff member was assigned to watch them, like a security guard watching the screens of hallways and offices to prevent break-ins. There was comfort in the attentiveness of medical staff who requested this assignment over all others. Alarms were fixed to the rows of monitors, alternately going off when heartbeats slipped into an irregular rhythm. His monitor's warning light glowed red, irregularities showing in spikes and drops, rather than the steady repetition of the same pattern that showed on other monitors. His alarm had been adjusted not to go off continually. The nurse explained these irregularities were normal after such a long surgery.

When he woke, alone in a private room, his voice was thin, weak and rasped when asking for ice chips. She moved into the room from the shadow of the curtain, bringing a green swab to moisten his mouth. She held his hand, willing her strength to flow into his fingers and up the long passage to his heart, which was still working too hard to adapt to the new mechanical valve.

A day or two passed that seemed like a week. She slept on a cot with a hospital blanket, waking with every cough or rustle that came from the bed. Never far enough away that she couldn't close the distance in two seconds. She thought strength was beginning to leave her. Friends and family came and went in a blur, but he was never outside her peripheral vision when she met their eyes or accepted their hugs. Dragged away once and a while for food, a piece of her remained in the room, red alarms ringing in her mind. When she was by his side, holding his hand, her focus returned as if they were both stronger when physically connected. She ground them both to the earth, the green wire that prevented a short or fire in an electrical circuit. Her dad, an electrical engineer, had always taught her that electric current was exchanged in a handshake. He had passed on three years before, or he would have been on the other side, holding his other hand.

It was the middle of the night, and they came forcefully into the room, explaining in tones you use with a child, "We need to do a procedure". They said it to him, looking at her. He was too weak to understand, now surrendered to the will of those who cared for him, on medication that muddied the consciousness and stole the will. "What procedure?", she asked. They explained that they needed to shock his heart into synchronizing- the new valve, in essence, was not "talking" to the old one, creating a dangerous arrythmia. They said they hoped this would establish a normal rhythm.

She flashed back to a rainy night when she followed an ambulance, sirens and lights running, watching the shadow of the paramedic using the paddles to shock his heart. That time, it worked. This time it was something they would try, and it would fail. She knew this deep in her soul- saw them in her mind's eye trying the paddles three times, driving him out of his body, his spirit rising as if catapulted above. She saw him depart with a last glance at her before he was gone. He was too tentatively tethered to this form not to flee at the moment of a sudden shock.

Her "no" was filled with power and authority. This was no weeping wife. She was angry at their arrogance, at their lack of clear insight into his condition. He was more than just a body to be fixed. They tried to explain again, but her answer was only more clear, nonnegotiable. "I do not give my permission for this procedure to be done. We will not sign your release." She could feel their anger now, as she stated, "I want to see his doctor." They told her his office was on the other side of campus, and she gave a last instruction to her husband not to sign anything, as she wrote on the paper "we do not give permission for this procedure to be done", signing and dating it. She told the staff that if they proceeded in her absence, she would sue them and the hospital.

She moved swiftly now, down corridors of people that parted for her passage. The office was across a large campus, but her defiant march did not slow, filled with the power of determination and fear. Into the doctor's office, past the gatekeeper secretary who was not fast enough to stop her, facing the surgeon who sat writing at his desk. In hurried speech the story tumbled out, clear and concise the way doctors like it, enough command not to be interrupted or soothed into submission. He easily agreed, with one qualification: if the valves did not synchronize by morning, the procedure would have to be done.

With the same stride, she left the office and walked back across campus to deliver the doctor's message. They called the doctor and confirmed his orders. As they rolled the cart away from his doorway, she said aloud, "You haven't given him enough time. He just needs more time." Then she went to her husband and said gently to him, "I know you're tired, weak enough to give up. But you must tell your heart to find its rhythm again. If the two valves continue to fight against each other, they will shock you in the morning. Do you understand?" He nodded weakly, and said, "Call my aunt".

His aunt had been a missionary and a strong presence for God all her life. She was a prayer warrior disguised as a demure, old-fashioned lady. In a minute, they had reached her by phone, and sharing the receiver so they both could hear, they heard his aunt pray with confidence and faith for his heart to be mended. He calmed at her voice, relaxing into the prayer. They both felt in the surety of her faith that it would happen. It was midnight.

At 2:00 am, his heart responded, slipping into normal rhythm as the valves worked with each other rather than against each other. He had just needed more time, and the strength that returned to him from his aunt's faithful prayer. The haze of medication and a long surgical journey had so depleted his will to live, only the prayer of a powerful and faith-filled living saint could restore him for this difficult task. They called his aunt and prayed a prayer of thanksgiving.

That night, she wept, then slept for four straight hours, through the 2-hour bed checks and medication rituals, through the constant hums and beeps of the machines.

Author's Note

Part 2 of a 3-part story. The messages: Love transcends physical limits, allowing those bonded in true love to reach each other in ways we do not always expect or validate when they happen. Spiritual intuition, when felt deeply in the soul, can stand against rationality or science, when listened to and followed with faithful determination. Prayer works- but sometimes we need gathered prayer when situations seem impossible or too difficult for one or two of us to effect change.

Reviews

[. serah .]

~ i had a very different experience... ~ my mother was treated for stage 3 cancer without any intervention whatsoever from us... and the doctors, nurses and surgeons are absolutely spectacular... ~ they are kind, considerate and qualified... and in the last five years... post the active part of the treatment... they have been even more caring and vigilant to ensure that cancer doesn't return... ~ what i like best about them is the sheer amount of energy and attention they give to every patient and the family members of every patient... and they don't charge a thing... because it's a government-run hospital with the most brilliant oncologists here...

[Marianne Rose]

Sounds like a wonderful experience, to find people so caring at a most needed time. Are you here in the USA? I saw both parents through cancer treatment and palliative care, and found the same caring. This experience was very different- having to fight for what we knew was the right course. Thanks for getting through the whole story, and for sharing your own experience.

[. serah .]

~ i'm an indian national and i reside in india...

[Inject Positivity]

How to explain what I felt, I really don't know... It was gripping and truly touching... Is that called the power of love where everything surrenders on its feet? I can tell you I have hardly passed through relationships like this, as I have lost my father when I was 2 and a half years old, I never got the chance to see the love that my father and mother had but through your story I think I have felt it...

The way you always stood their by his side like a protector, who knew the deepest cores of his heart and his pain... I'm completely blown away by the way you responded to the situation, and how you believed that the waiting would settle down the rhythm of his vulvs, most people would have agreed to the decision of the hosting authority... I'm still in awe and overwhelmed by what I just read...

God bless you frnd... My prayers are there for your whole family...

Sincerely
Dhiman

[Marianne Rose]

I so appreciate your reflections and review, Dhiman. You always see deeply into the writing, let it touch your heart, aren't afraid to be vulnerable in the face of a story. I really appreciate that you read this one! I know it is long, for this site, but it's another miracle story I longed to tell. Thank you for your prayers and blessing me with your presence here. You're in my prayers also.