Lady Justice and the Broken Hearts

by Robert Thornhill

  As before, the half-dozen ladies were waiting to gaze upon my junk after I was asleep. I could only imagine their surprise when Mr. Winkie was unveiled with the salutation, ‘Merry Christmas!’

  My dignity may have been in tatters, but at least I got the last laugh.

  CHAPTER 8

  Now that my bout with the kidney stones from hell was over, I was free to concentrate on my next challenge --- open heart surgery to repair a prolapsed mitral valve.

  I had been given some literature from my cardiologist/sister, telling me what to expect. I should have just been satisfied with that, but noooooo, I had to go to the Internet. There were dozens of pages and hundreds of articles on the subject and even video clips of the actual operation.

  Big mistake.

  If my imagination had been revved up with the kidney stone procedure, it was in red zone overload after reading the Internet material.

  It was difficult to get my head around the fact that my chest would be cracked open with a saw and my heart would be stopped while the work was being done.

  I went into the bathroom, stripped off my shirt and stood in front of the mirror trying to picture a six inch incision. It just wouldn’t compute.

  It’s human nature to consider oneself invincible. Kids are especially that way. That’s why they do all kinds of crazy stuff. They just don’t believe that anything bad can happen to them. I remember a couple of high school seniors. One had a van and the other did flips on top of the van while it was moving down the street. Dumb? Of course, but so what? They were invincible.

  Even at the ripe old age of seventy-one, I still had a big dose of invincibility coursing through my veins. I had never had a major illness or even a broken bone. During my five years on the police force I had flirted with danger, and on numerous occasions I had come close enough to death I could almost smell the carnations on the casket spray --- but I always walked away --- I always survived.

  Bad things always happen to someone else --- until they don’t.

  As I stood looking in the mirror, I didn’t feel invincible anymore.

  We are all mortal. Nobody lives forever. Everyone acknowledges that. We even joke about it, but our mortality takes on a new meaning when life throws us a curve ball and suddenly, it’s not the other guy --- it’s you.

  After reading the scary stuff on the Internet, I remembered Dad and Bernice’s words. “Some folks don’t wake up,” and “I wanted to tell you I love you --- just in case.”

  My rational me was saying, “It’s a routine operation. They do it all the time.” But the realistic me had to come to grips with the fact that I had lived three score and ten and like Jerry had once remarked, “If you were a cat, you would have used up all nine of your lives.”

  I figured I needed to talk to someone. My first thought was Maggie. She was the love of my life and my soulmate. She would certainly understand. But the more I considered that possibility, I knew that she would love me, comfort me, hold me and tell me everything would be all right. I certainly needed that. We all need that kind of nurturing when faced with a crisis, but what I was needing at that moment was someone more objective who could look at my situation and give me a level-headed assessment of what the future would bring.

  That person was Pastor Bob.

  While I have never doubted that there is a Higher Power out there, I have never been a big fan of organized religion. Too much pomp and politics for me.

  Pastor Bob was the same. He was the pastor of a huge mainline Protestant church until the higher ups insisted that he preach their political views from the pulpit. Instead of giving in to their demands, he left, taking a big chunk of the congregation with him.

  I happened to be on duty at the real estate office the day he stopped by looking for a building for his new congregation.

  I helped him find a place and we have been best buds ever since. I don’t attend his services regularly. Actually, I guess I don’t attend at all, but whenever I need counseling of a spiritual nature, Bob is always there for me. The added bonus is that he doesn’t take himself too seriously and has a great sense of humor.

  I put on my shirt and gave him a call.

  “Heavenly Hotline. For a mere thirty pieces of silver, we’ll forward your supplications to the Almighty.”

  “Bob, you need some new material. You’ve used that one on me before.”

  “I’m well aware of that, but I’m still waiting on my silver from your last visit.”

  “Very funny.”

  “How can I help you, Walt?”

  “If you have time, I’d like to come by for a chat.”

  “Walt, with you it’s never just a chat. It’s always a crisis. Sure come on over. I was hoping for a challenge today.”

  Twenty minutes later, I was sitting in his office.

  I told him about my recent kidney stone tribulations and my upcoming open heart surgery.

  Without saying a word, he pulled open a desk drawer and started rummaging through some file folders.

  “What on earth are you doing?”

  “I’m looking for my ‘Why me?’ sermon. I know it’s in here somewhere.”

  “Is that why you think I came over? That I’m looking for pity?”

  “Well, you are human, and when something bad happens it’s human nature to ask yourself, ‘Why me? What did I do to deserve this?’ You can’t tell me that thought didn’t cross your mind.”

  I had to admit that it had.

  “The way I see it,” he continued, “is that there are two kinds of people, those that deserve what happens to them and those who don’t. Take some guy that goes to a bar, gets schnockered, then gets behind the wheel to drive home. He loses control of his car, crosses the median and hits another car head on. One might say he got what was coming to him. He deserved it because he knew what was right but did what was wrong.

  “But what about the kid in the other car. He was a senior in high school with a sports scholarship to college. He was on his way home from practice when the jerk hit him head on. Now his sports career and his scholarship are down the tubes. Did he deserve what happened to him? What do you think?”

  In my five years on the force, I had seen so many people suffering tragedies that were not of their making. “Sometimes I think that life just isn’t fair.”

  “And there you have it, Walt. Nobody ever said life was fair. There are no guarantees. On the one hand, there’s the guy who smokes two packs a day, is a booze hound and his diet consists of super-sized Big Mac’s, and he wonders why his arteries are clogged and he has to have a quadruple by-pass. Then there’s you. I know you don’t smoke, you only have an occasional glass of Arbor Mist and Maggie has taken away your Ding Dongs and made you eat healthy, and yet your chest is going to be cracked open just like the other guy. One deserved it, the other, maybe not. Sometimes life just isn’t fair.”

  “Is this little speech supposed to comfort me? If the answer is ‘yes,’ it’s not working.”

  “What I’m trying to point out is that you’re not alone. Bad stuff sometimes happens to good people. They even have bumper stickers that say, ‘Stuff happens!’”

  I had seen the bumper stickers he was talking about, but the word wasn’t ‘stuff.’

  “Stuff happens to every one of us sometime. That’s just life. Thankfully, we are not judged by the stuff that happens to us. The strength of our character is defined by how we deal with the stuff that happens.”

  I was beginning to see his point.

  “Let me ask you some questions. How old are you, Walt?”

  “Seventy-one.”

  “Ever had a broken bone?”

  “No.”

  “Ever had a major operation?”

  “No.”

  “So you’ve still got your appendix, your gall bladder, your tonsils and your adenoids?”

  I had no idea what adenoids were, but I figured I must still have them. “Yes.”

  “I’d say for seventy-one years, you’ve had a pretty g
ood ride. There’s a young man in my congregation that was born with heart defects. By the time he was fifteen, he had his chest opened three times. There’s a vibrant young woman with two children that has just been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer.”

  I was beginning to feel like an ungrateful ass. “Okay, I get the picture. I’ve been pretty fortunate all my life and the stuff that’s happening to me is pretty mild compared to what others are going through.”

  “Think of yourself as a ‘57 Chevy that just turned over two-hundred thousand miles. I know you love that car. It’s still got original equipment. You’ve changed the oil, lubed it and maintained it well all these years. Now it needs a valve job. Our bodies are like that car. Stuff wears out. You put it in the shop for a week, get the valves ground, a new set of brake pads and fan belts and you’re good to go for another hundred-thousand miles.”

  I looked at him skeptically. “Is this really one of your sermons?”

  “Nope,” he replied, grinning. “I made this up just for you.”

  Pastor Bob had given me just what I needed.

  I was ready to put the old body in the shop for a major tune-up.

  CHAPTER 9

  After my little pep talk with Pastor Bob, I was anxious to get the process started. I figured I’d better commit before his positive influence faded away.

  I called Liz and asked her what the next step would be. She told me that I would need two additional tests before surgery. She said she would schedule the tests, then refer me to one of the best heart surgeons in the city.

  I said, “Let’s do it.”

  Then she proceeded to tell me what the next two tests entailed. One was a Transesophageal Echocardiogram where they would shove an ultrasound transducer on the tip of an endoscope down my throat. She didn’t actually use the word ‘shove,’ but that’s what I envisioned. It was supposed to give the surgeon a close look at the heart’s valves and chambers without interference from the ribs or lungs.

  The second test was a coronary angiogram where a catheter would be inserted into an artery in my arm and dye would be squirted into my heart so they could look for any blockages in the arteries leading to the heart. She said that if blockages were found, the surgeon could take care of them while my chest was cracked open. She didn’t actually use the term ‘cracked open,’ but that’s what I was seeing.

  As soon as she signed off, my imagination kicked into high gear again and in my mind’s eye, I could see Dr. Frankenstein surrounded by tables full of frightening instruments and vials of evil potions, and me, strapped to a gurney, helpless, awaiting my fate as he performed unspeakable rituals on my body.

  Needless to say,

  I didn’t get no

  I didn’t get no --- sleep that night.

  The day for my procedures finally came. Maggie drove me to the hospital, and for the fourth time in a month, I found myself in the prep room.

  Maggie gave me a kiss and a hug and they carted me off.

  I was pretty much zonked out for both, and the next thing I knew, I was in recovery with my sweetie by my side.

  As is pretty much always the case, the horrors we imagine are a lot worse than the actual events.

  The doctor came in and told us that my arteries were slick as a whistle. Great news for a guy my age. I had fussed and fumed when Maggie took away all my treats filled with MSG, hydrogenated corn oil and trans-fats and made me eat organic, but at that moment I wanted to give her a big hug.

  As soon as I got home, I gave Liz a call and told her that both my tests had been done. I was ready to talk to a surgeon. If I was going to do this thing, I wanted to do it quickly, before my imagination could talk me out of it.

  My first and only appointment with Dr. Ansari, the heart surgeon who would be tiptoeing through my chest cavity, went quite well.

  He explained the procedure, saying that once he had my heart exposed, there were three options: a repair of my own valve, a valve repair using tissue from a cow or pig or replacement with a mechanical valve. He said that the odds of having complications were only about 3%. I figured those were pretty good odds. He showed me where the six inch incision would be made in my chest, and assured me that as fit as I was, I would be on my feet in no time.

  Actually, that wasn’t exactly true. After he left, his nurse gave us some literature explaining what to expect after surgery. It turned out that we were looking at six to eight weeks before I could resume my normal activities and during that time, I couldn’t lift any object weighing over ten pounds.

  It looked like Maggie was going to be responsible for all the household chores, at least for a while.

  Another item of concern was the fact that we live on the third floor of our apartment building. I just hoped I would be able to climb the three flights of stairs after I was released from the hospital. Both Jerry and the Professor, who live on the first floor, said I could bunk with them, but neither of those options, especially Jerry, were appealing.

  In the last few days before my operation, Maggie and I tried to experience as many of our favorite things as possible. Knowing that it might be weeks or even months before things got back to normal or, God forbid, maybe never if things went bad, we spent our days and evenings jokingly calling the events, ‘our last movie,’ or ‘our last meal at Mel’s.’

  On the night before my operation, all my friends stopped by our apartment to wish me well. Naturally, there were tears and hugs, but Jerry gave us all a big smile when he presented me with a list of things you never want to hear from your surgeon while you’re on the operating table.

  Oops!

  Hand me that --- uhh --- that uhh --- thingy.

  What do you mean he wasn’t in for a sex change?

  If this is his spleen, what the hell is that other thing?

  So what if I’ve --- hiccup --- had a few drinksh?

  Ah shit! Page 39 of the manual is missing!

  You know, kidneys are worth a lot of money and this guy’s got two of them.

  What do you mean, “You want a divorce?”

  FIRE! FIRE! Everyone get out!

  Once we had cleared the room, Maggie and I fell into bed, exhausted, hoping this wouldn’t be ‘our last cuddle.’

  The next morning, I was to be at the hospital bright and early.

  After checking in, I was whisked off to the prep room. I had done this so many times in the past month, I felt like a veteran.

  I was given my gown and told to strip, after which I climbed on the bed. While one nurse was slipping an I.V. into my arm, another technician threw my gown aside exposing everything I owned, and came at me with an electric razor and proceeded to shave my groin.

  Since it was my heart that was being worked on, I wondered why they were giving Mr. Winkie a haircut, but I figured I’d better not distract the gal with the sharp instrument.

  “Careful down there,” I quipped, trying to hide my embarrassment. “I’ve already been circumcised once.”

  That brought a smile to her face.

  After shaving the right groin area, she started on the left side, and then she stopped, leaving just one little patch of hair in the middle. It looked like Mr. Winkie was wearing a Mohawk.

  There’s just no such thing as dignity in the prep room.

  When the prep was over, Maggie came in one last time. There were tears in her eyes as she leaned in, kissed me and whispered, “I love you.”

  Once in the operating room, it was just a few minutes before they knocked me out, but my last thought as I saw the surgeon and his staff huddled around me, was the first item on Jerry’s list, “Oops!”

  The next thing I remembered was waking with the sensation that I was choking. Then the breathing tube was removed and Maggie was there comforting me.

  The operation was over, but my recovery was just beginning.

  CHAPTER 10

  By the time I was awake and halfway coherent, it was almost ten o’clock at night. Poor Maggie had been awake since four in the morning and with the stress
of the day, she was dog tired. She volunteered to stay with me through the night but I wouldn’t hear of it. I convinced her that she had to take care of herself because she was the one who would have to take care of me when I was released from the hospital. Finally, she relented.

  That first night was a blur. Still feeling the effects of the anesthesia, I was in and out of consciousness, aroused every few hours by a nurse or technician checking my vital signs.

  The next morning, I was somewhat alert and told that I could eat, but was on a liquid diet.

  I said, “Sure,” and minutes later a tray appeared containing green Jell-O and chicken broth.

  There have to be at least a dozen different shades of Jell-O and green is my least favorite. Go figure.

  The chicken broth reminded me of the gruel served to nine-year-old Oliver Twist. When he finished his first bowl, he approached the Master saying, “Please, Sir. I want some more.”

  Not me. One bowl was plenty.

  I ate, figuring my poor battered body would require nourishment to heal. I needn’t have bothered. Minutes later, I started turning as green as the Jell-O. I reached for the barf bag and made it just in time. For the next eight hours or so, the barf bag was my best friend and constant companion.

  Evie, the RN on duty, was at my bedside at a moment’s notice. If I was nauseous, she shot some stuff in my I.V. line. If I was in pain, she shot something else. Maggie had returned right after breakfast, and between the two of them, my pillow was always fluffed and my blanket was pulled up around my neck. Given the circumstance, a guy couldn’t have asked for anything more.

  During one of my quieter moments, I took a peek at my chest. In addition to the six inch incision, three tubes and two wires protruded from my chest and stomach. I also noticed for the first time that a huge catheter was running from Mr. Winkie to a bag on the side of the bed. The poor guy had suffered through the kidney stone fiasco and now this. After experiencing all this abuse, I wondered if we would still be on speaking terms when all this was over.