“Jared, wake up. Can you hear me Jared? Jared, you need to wake up! Jared, WAKE UP!”
As my eyelids begin to raise, the blinding glare of halogen lights halt my awakening. Many hands poke and prod at my body searching for a pulse, sensation, or any sign of life. Panic fills the room, while the sound of my heart beat fills my ears. Lub…dub, lub…dub, lub…………dub, lub…………
“Jared, can you hear me? Wake up Jared!”
Fear consumes me as I am jolted awake. Defibrillators are painful, even when doped up on morphine. As the moments pass, the panic in the air begins to subside, only to be replayed ten-fold in my head. “What the hell is happening to me?” I ask silently to myself. Time slows as the sound of my heart returns; however, this time it is masked by the sound of change in someone’s pocket as they walk. Many more people pass by—I know this because they too have coins in their pockets. Strange, the observations one makes when intoxicated.
The unmistakable metallic taste of bloods floods my pallet as a lump develops at the back of my throat making me gag repeatedly. The human body’s natural reaction when swallowing blood is to vomit, ejecting such a poison from the stomach. This must be the reason for the “barf-bag” and fluid vacuum. The pungent smell of various ointments applied to musky damp skin resonates throughout the hospital. These smells combined with others’ vomit and bodily fluids constantly bring me to the point of heaving.
Moments pass and I become more aware of my surroundings. Sounds of loud machines pumping fluids into my veins, fluids draining into buckets beneath me, and that nagging sound of two quarters tapping together fill my head. I mistakenly gasp for air--unbearable pains shoot through my chest. Each breath feels as if my lungs are going to burst through my sternum. The light finally dims and I am able to focus on my body. Wires stuck to my chest; intravenous tubes hang from my limbs, bandages cover me from collar bone to collar bone down to my belly button. My attempt to examine the thumb-sized tubes protruding through my flesh into my lungs fails; I am being restrained by Velcro straps around my wrists and ankles. Fear and panic, my two current nemeses, return to haunt me.
Questions compound in my mind. The only thing I know about my unfortunate circumstance is that open-heart surgery is not something I ever wanted to experience again. As I drift in and out of consciousness, the potent smell of petunia perfume drifts past my nose. Alas, a nurse. I do not know this nurse by name so I call her Betty. She accepted this, and begins to explain my situation. She tells me the tubes in my lungs are draining the fluid that has flooded them. The intravenous tubes are medicating my feeble body—I’d better get used to sleeping on my back, and, “here’s a little something to help you relax”. Then, just as quickly as she appeared, she was gone.
Darkness creeps in as the opiates Betty so generously provided circulate through my blood. The ceiling tiles begin to breath in sync with my own breath. Once again, I drift deeply asleep. Haunted by nightmares of panic and despair, shadowed by dreams of my toddler son and infant daughter, I lay uncomfortably afraid; all the while being taunted by the clicking of my newly placed titanium heart valves.
***
Bountiful, Utah is a suburb city a few miles north of Salt Lake City. It is a safe city. Safe enough that the doors to my home were never locked nor wore the cars. Bikes were left in the open without fear of being stolen. Our neighbors were our best friends -- it was a tight-knit community.
My family consisted of six: a mother, father, three boys, and a girl. I am the third boy. My dad worked multiple jobs to support our various sports, music lessons and extracurricular activities. My mom was a preschool teacher until my sister grew past that age. She then managed a video store for the next ten years allowing me and my siblings to gain employment at young ages, learning the benefits of hard work.
I spent 18 years in a middle-class neighborhood, living a lower-middle-class lifestyle. I had food in my stomach clothes on my back. I had my own bicycle and a Nintendo. We lived a simple life with few excessive luxuries, but we were happy. Other than a trip to Disneyland, multiple camping trips and national park driving tours, we didn’t travel much. We all had close relationships with our aunts, uncles, and cousins. Overall, when I think of the word “family” I think of all the loving people that I was surrounded by as a child.
I was a very active and curious child. These two traits not only helped me excel, they also led to misbehavior as a teen. I experienced crime, drugs, and sex at an early age. My son was born the winter after I graduated high school. This event thrust me into adulthood. My daughter was born two years later and my marriage ended the next year. This same year (2002) I survived open-heart surgery. In a way, this was a “re-birth” for me. My entire outlook on life was changed. I had taken living for granted, and I vowed to never do that again.
I am now a thirty-year-old college student pursuing a career educating our youth. They are our future and should be made aware of that. I breathe deeply, and love every moment of it. The essay which you read earlier is a true, first-hand account of a small period which I went through those dreadful months following surgery. I am who I am today because of whom I was yesterday and tomorrow I will be even better.
