Like A Dishwasher
Unfortunately all that curried warmth wasn't enough to fend off a cold virus. I have my first cold of the season, which seems early, but maybe the transition from student to full-time employee has been more tiring than I realized. It's a different kind of feeling of tired, but still tired, nonetheless. While school pervaded every aspect of my life, where at any given time, I could/should have theoretically been doing something school-related. Work is self-contained. While I have some autonomy and flexibility as a post-doc, and in this university environment, it still is a more regimented commitment, and so when I come home at night, I'm spent.
My dad's 2nd heart valve replacement surgery has been scheduled. It's exactly four weeks from now, at the medical center/teaching hospital here where I live (the same as where he originally had surgery). Once again, I have to step up to (gladly) being the host and caregiver as my family stays with me during and right after it. I have every reason to be confident that he'll be just fine. The uber-rational scientific side of my brain knows the statistics and success rates, and all that. Why do you think I chose my other screen name of Be11curves? Right? Statistics is a bunch of cold hard numbers, and you can distance yourself from them unless they pertain to you. 1 in 100 means nothing, unless you happen to be that 1 out of 100. Then the human emotional side of my brain kicks in. It is the one that connects to my heart and it panics and feels the fear of a loved one going under the knife and tells me to tell my father either explicitly or through action or in as many words that I love him, every day leading up to his procedure, and to tell him I am confident it'll go smoothly and he'll be more energetic than ever before.
I've been wanting to write about it here, but it took me a while to compose my thoughts. I think that in some ways, having gone through this experience once makes me more prepared for it because there's some baseline idea of what to expect. In 2003 I was scared by the thought of a family member having open-heart surgery, and in the time leading right up to it, I started to panic and found myself bursting into tears whenever I thought about it. This time around, I'm tougher in that way. But my dad is also seven years older than he was then. That scares me.
I think most of all, I feel disoriented by all of this because it all came together so suddenly. Something that I thought was in the distant, eventual future was, instead, sprung upon me. In 2003, we were told to expect the new porcine heart valve to last a good 10-15 years. So you can imagine how surprised I was at the development of a new murmur. At the same time, we were told that they'd just continue to watch it with follow-up every 6-12 months to monitor its progress. If you've ever heard a heart murmur, then you know the distinct whoosh WHOOSH sound it creates, thereby replacing the thump THUMP of a normal heart with a sound almost like quiet dishwasher with the water swirling around inside.
Fast forward to August and Dad goes in for a 2nd opinion with an "expert" cardiologist, thinking he'll be recommended for eventual valve replacement again. Instead we leave that appointment with the recommendation that we not wait until spring, that we do it now, and that this time, a bovine valve will be more reliable than a porcine valve, and we don't really know why this happens to some people and not others.
This is why I am so thankful I didn't end up taking the job in Chapel Hill. That one was a good job, but I am realizing more and more that it was not the right one for me. Things happen for a reason, and I think there's a reason I bought myself time here and took a post-doc in VA and didn't move away. This is where the universe put me, and where I consciously wished to be a while longer, and I have to go with that. I'm in the right place at the right time.
So yeah. It's overwhelming. Scary. Stressful. And a whole bunch of things I can't even articulate. My dad deserves a special and happy birthday celebration this weekend, without a doubt.
I want to scoot on out of here, go home, take those bitter, bitter Chinese herbs my acupuncturist gave me, and let this cold leave my body in time to enjoy the weekend. Fair enough? I think so.
