Iron Heart: The True Story of How I Came Back From the Dead

by Brian Boyle

  My dad asks what I want to hear. He steps away, grabs a stack of my old CDs from a bag, and holds up Led Zeppelin IV. “Blink if you want me to play it,” he says. “Mom is here. Show her that you can blink. Come on, son. You can do it.”

  I shut my eyes, pause for a second, and then launch my eyelids triumphantly. She gasps, putting her hand to her mouth in disbelief, and touches my right arm. Trembling and smiling, she keeps dabbing her reddened eyes with a tissue.

  The song “Rock and Roll” plays softly in the background. I no longer hear the beeps and buzzes of the machines. Listening to Led Zeppelin with my parents, I no longer feel alone. My dad is sitting in the chair to my left, while my mom sits in the chair next to the wall on my right. They are both quiet. I suddenly feel movement in my feet. They are swaying several inches to the beat. My mom notices first. “Garth, look!” she cries. He sees my feet moving and rushes over to the foot of my bed.

  “I can’t believe it!” he shouts. He touches my feet to feel them moving as if seeing them shake isn’t enough evidence. He tells me to stop moving them, and I do. Seeking an explanation, he turns around to the two nurses, who are standing just outside the sliding glass door. One says that the movement is possibly the result of a lower dosage of medication. My dad asks me to push my feet forward against his hands and I happily oblige. The two nurses hug each other with joy. The hallway lights silhouette them as if they are angels.

  CHAPTER 6

  I WANT TO DIE

  Full-length ice blankets drape my entire body, and I’m shaking uncontrollably. The television is on. The 2004 Athens Olympics have begun, but I can’t watch because of the cold. I glance toward the door, hoping for a nurse to remove the frigid blankets. Instead, two police officers stand there, casually talking and sipping coffee from paper cups.

  A nurse arrives. She looks new, unfamiliar. I hope she notices that I’m cold and in pain. But I can’t speak or indicate anything to her. “Brian, how are you feeling today?” she asks while placing her hand on my forehead. “Can you blink for me, sweetheart? Your parents told me that you were able to blink the other day. They were so excited.”

  I try to blink but can’t. Shivering from this arctic chill, I watch her walk in and out of my room for what feels like forever. She finally returns and removes the icy blankets. What was the deal with that? Next thing I know, needles prick me. I see blood all over my left arm. I can’t even imagine what’s going to happen next.

  Two other nurses roll in a portable cart with an assortment of cleaning supplies—shampoo, soap, towels. They push the table next to my bed, grab orange sponges, dip them in water, and start bathing me right in the bed. With water so tantalizingly close to my lips, I’m in a state of near delirium. The nurses obviously can’t read my mind and I know I will remain parched, but their touch is soothing and refreshing. When was the last time I took a shower? Or more precisely, when was the last time I was given a sponge bath? The nurses tilt the bed so my head is closer to the floor than my feet. I’m getting a shampoo!

  One nurse pours water over my hair and lathers in shampoo. Small drops of water splash on my face, mouth, lips. I struggle to slide my tongue out of my mouth and catch one of these falling drops of liquid goodness. Unfortunately, I have no luck, but my mouth is open a fraction for the breathing tube, and then out of nowhere, a water drop scores a direct hit!

  The shampoo that they are using smells like strawberries. It takes me back to when I was in kindergarten and went to a farm and picked strawberries with my class. My mom and grandma were chaperones; it was a beautiful day and the sun was shining. I inhale the shampoo’s fruity aroma because I know in a short while it will be gone, replaced by the sharp odor of rubbing alcohol.

  The nurse rinses my hair with warm water, then dries it with a towel. My bed is set back to horizontal. My hair is combed, my fingernails and toenails trimmed. The two nurses lift me onto another table, replace my linens with a fresh set, and then move me back to the bed. The soft cool texture of the new sheets is pleasing.

  While I’m pampered and fussed over, I listen to their conversation about the patient next door. It explains the two cops’ presence. He’s a convict who got jumped in prison when he left his cell. The attacker slammed his head into a brick wall. He now has severe brain damage.

  The two nurses also discuss another gravely injured patient: a pregnant woman in her twenties who was stabbed by her husband. The knife tip broke off in her heart and she is listed in critical condition. The doctors are doing everything they can to save her, but her parents have been taking out their anger and frustration on the hospital staff and that is causing unnecessary interruptions. I can’t imagine my parents ever acting this way around my doctors and nurses.

  It might be the next day, but I can’t be certain. My dry aching eyes have remained open for the entire time. I must have slept this way. Everything is blurred. I feel nauseous and feverish. I’m lying on my back, with a slight incline to the bed. I hear my dad’s voice. Is he in my room? I don’t see him.

  A nurse sticks a needle in my arm, but I can’t feel it as I usually do. She applies liquid solution to my eyes and my vision remains foggy and distorted. I still don’t see my dad.

  I begin to see a figure by the door wearing a blue T-shirt. It’s Dad! I feel relieved. He’s talking with a nurse. I overhear fragments of what they’re discussing. Then two words—“bad news”—ambush me. They say a nasty infection has spread throughout my body. I now see my mom who looks more frightened than usual. The room begins to fill with big white fluffy clouds. I’m falling through them in a bright blue sky. I feel weightless in the bright sunshine, the breeze blowing through my hair. The white clouds are now turning gray and the sky has gotten darker, meaner. The room goes jet-black. My mind shuts down.

  The bed is moving. I’m being rolled through the hallways with several trailing pieces of medical equipment and IVs. We turn a corner and stop right before a set of folding doors. My eyes are rigid within their sockets. I’m drooling. This is no way to live. I sense bugs crawling all over my skin, biting me, trying to gnaw the flesh. My whole body feels like it’s rotting away from the inside.

  From my vantage point, I watch a revolving cast of nurses, doctors, hospital staff, and visitors walk by. Anyone who passes my bed rarely makes eye contact with me. Can you fault them? I must remind them of death. Best to ignore the corpse and keep on walking.

  Then I’m wheeled into a cold room, with a big gray electronic machine. I remember this room. It’s the CAT scan place. Because the bed is tilted, I finally get to see the machine. It looks intimidating, almost evil.

  The nurses carefully flop me onto a table. The machine swallows me up again and the same robotic voice tells me to hold my breath for thirty seconds. I try to obey, but still no improvement. Several sluggish minutes go by and the scan is complete. I feel woozy as the machine returns me to the world. I vomit violently all over my gown, the table, and the floor. The female technician rushes to clean me. Is she the same woman who was here last time? Her perfume smells familiar, but before I can see her face, I’m wheeled into another room for X-rays.

  Two nurses are talking right outside the room. I can hear them clearly. My name is brought up. One says that a doctor told her I’d probably be moved to a Baltimore nursing home for long-term care. The other nurse mentions that she had heard that too. Wait! Nursing home? And then it hits me as if somebody has just punched me in the face. Do doctors think that I will require twenty-four-hour care the rest of my life? Oh no, that can’t be. Give or take a few broken bones and full paralysis, I’m doing all right. I can think, hear, smell, see. But what would I be like if I didn’t have all those machines keeping me alive?

  The brutal reality of my situation can’t be glossed over. The machines in my hospital room are not for decorative purposes. Each one is playing a special role in allowing me to exist. Electricity and blood flow through my veins. Ten years ago, I wouldn’t have even made it this far. But where exactly have I
arrived? Those small, earlier signs of improvement, when I was able to blink and move my feet, now seem like false messages of hope. Being sentenced to permanent exile in a nursing home is worse than dying. I’d rather expire and have it end right here, right now.

  I just turned eighteen. I was a good son, athlete, student, and friend to many. I never did drugs or drank alcohol on the weekends like most teenagers; I performed community service at my local church and Special Olympics. Whether I’m dead or living out the rest of my life in a nursing home, the outcome will be the same. I’ll never know what it feels like to fall in love, get married, have a family. I’ll never attend college. I’ll never again get to swim in the ocean, take a walk with my dad, or have a long conversation with my mom. I’ll never go outside, breathe the fresh air, see the blue sky and colorful sunsets.

  I’ve held on for as long as I can. I’ve fought the good fight, yet it’s just not enough. It’s time to give up. As an athlete, you are taught never to quit. At swim practice, it was drilled into us. You train your body as you prepare your mind never to back off or surrender, especially in the heat of competition.

  We aren’t able to choose our destiny, but we can choose our reaction. Life can be beautiful, and it can also turn tragic in the tick of the clock or with a drop of rain on the windowsill. We are only here for a short time in this world. And my time is up. I’m ready to depart. I know what has to be done: I must shut down my will to live, and hope that my body obeys this final command. By doing so, I will finally find the peace that has eluded me. And when I go, I know that I will always be with my parents.

  My nurses wheel me back to Room 19. As we move through the white hallways, my life starts to flash by. I’m assaulted by random fragmented memories ranging from when I was a little boy to the present, with each vision carrying a heavier emotional impact than the previous one.

  As we approach my room, I see my parents standing by the door, talking with someone, a very large guy, the doctor. My parents look concerned. In reaction to whatever was said, my mom’s mouth opens as if she is gasping for air. My dad places his arms around her. The doctor looks like he is trying to console both of them, and then walks away. Watching them from a short distance, I realize that I made a huge mistake wanting to die. I feel guilty for wanting to give up. My mom is sobbing behind a wad of tissues, but she won’t look at me as I roll pass. My dad walks behind my bed, helping the nurses wheel in the rest of my equipment, IVs, and ventilator.

  The nurses move the machines and medical equipment closer to me, reattaching tubes. The electronic symphony of beeping and buzzing resumes. Before the nurses leave the room, one of them injects some liquid into my left arm and attaches a new IV.

  My dad approaches the left side of my bed, trying to force a smile that fails to mask his anxiety. It’s almost like he peers into my soul and reads my thoughts. Has he stumbled upon my desire to die? He has a look of frantic desperation, like he has to do or say something before it’s too late. But how did he know what I was thinking only minutes earlier?

  He slides the aqua chair close to my bed, placing his hands over the wires and tubes that are connected to my chest, and crosses his arms. His head is bowed. “Brian, please stay strong. Keep fighting.” He slowly gets up from his chair, pauses for several seconds, and walks over to my mom. “I don’t want to do this,” I hear my dad quietly say to her. “It’s been a little over a month and a half and there’s no real improvement. Not much progress at all. He’s only getting worse. He’s so tired; I don’t think he has the strength to go on.” I hear my mom sobbing.

  Watching my parents suffer like this is much worse than being paralyzed and constantly being stabbed by needles and being left alone to rot in this bed, plagued by constant loneliness and everlasting confusion. I don’t want to see my parents in perpetual anguish anymore. I can’t leave them, but I can’t continue like this either. Right now, I should be at a swim meet, being cheered on by them. As fate would have it, I’m being urged to keep going through the motions of living while stuck in my deathbed.

  My dad walks back to me and sits down in the chair. My mom stays by the door where I can’t see her. He stares blankly at the medical equipment. He struggles to speak. “Son, you have to be strong for us. We’re almost out of the woods now; just a few more days, that is all it will take.” He stands. There is frustration and anger in his voice as he paces around the room. “We want you to get out of this goddamn place!”

  “Garth, please, calm down; you’re scaring him,” my mom interrupts in a startled voice.

  “No, no, I can’t, JoAnne. Chrissakes, I can’t let this happen. He has to know that he has to keep fighting.” He stands over my bed. “Son, I know you can hear me. Look at me! Now is the time. You are very sick. But dammit, I am not going to lose you! You can beat this; we know you can. If I could switch places with you right now, I would do it in a heartbeat and you know that. We will get through it all together, but you have to make the choice to keep pushing through the pain. I know how tired you are, but please don’t give up.”

  He walks to the bulletin board, his hands balled up in tense, clenched fists, looking at the photos. “Everyone is praying for you; everyone wants you to get out of this damn room and come home. They all want to see you.”

  He walks back over to my bed and sits down in the chair, slumped and defeated. His eyes are glazed and vacant. Is he thinking about what it’s going to be like when I’m no longer in his life?

  “You can do it, son.” His voice is too choked to continue. As words fail him, a nurse enters the room and says that the visiting hour has ended.

  My dad kisses me on my forehead. His parting words are, “We love you, and we will be back in a couple of hours.” He asks my mom to say goodbye. She walks over to my bed. He’s holding her up. She’s unable to say anything, so she just holds my mitten-covered left hand, trembling and softly weeping.

  CHAPTER 7

  GARTH AND JOANNE BOYLE

  My parents don’t look the same to me. Their gestures are twitchy, nervous, awkward. Their blue eyes are bloodshot and puffy from sleepless nights. Dad’s brown hair is going gray from stress. Mom’s makeup is usually smudged from wiping away tears. They seem unsure how to approach me, what to say, how to act. They must be asking themselves, “Is that really our son lying there?”

  As their only child, I was blessed by their generous attention. When I went to preschool, my parents would take turns during the week dropping me off in the mornings. I remember sitting at the window of that small school, madly bawling as I watched them get in their cars to leave for work. Every day we would go through this same routine, even though I knew that they would return in several hours.

  I feel like that toddler now, waiting for them to rescue me, to take me home. They don’t realize it, but they are bringing me back to life in a way that the most powerful medicine could never do. But will their devotion be strong enough to keep me alive? I can only hope that it does. It sounds selfish, but I can’t imagine how life would be for them without me. We’ve always been best friends.

  I have my mom’s facial features and blonde hair and my dad’s traits of hard work and self-discipline, but I also inherited their positive, outgoing outlook.

  My dad was born in 1958 in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, a small town near Pittsburgh in the western part of the state. He was the youngest and scrappiest of seven children. His father was a concrete subcontractor in the construction industry. In 1962, my grandfather moved his family to Accokeek, Maryland, for better business opportunities in pouring concrete. Accokeek is a small town on the Potomac River located on the outskirts of Washington, D.C. At the time, it primarily consisted of sprawling horse farms and working-class people. My dad lived there for three years before his family moved to Oxon Hill, closer to the nation’s capital.

  My mom, born a year after my dad in Kansas City, Missouri, was the oldest of five children. Her father was a lieutenant in the Air Force and her family moved around a lot. When he mad
e colonel, he was transferred to the Pentagon and moved to Oxon Hill with his family.

  In the summer of 1970, my dad watched a moving van pull into the driveway across the street from his home, and that is when he saw my mom for the first time. She was moving into her family’s new house. He thought she was the cutest girl he had ever seen. They were both eleven years old.

  The town was small and their neighborhood was full of kids, so everyone hung out together, doing typical childhood stuff like softball, dodgeball, swimming, riding bikes, bowling, watching movies.

  At thirteen, they were going steady, which continued through junior high and high school. During summers, she worked part-time after school at a day care center. My dad worked in the family construction business with his father and brothers. Weekends for the Boyle clan were spent at the beach at Ocean City, Maryland.

  After graduation, Mom headed to college at Salisbury University, which was two hours away. Dad stayed with the family business, so he would drive down every weekend for visits. After four years, Mom graduated with a degree in business administration and began working for the U.S. Government at Bolling Air Force Base in Southwest Washington, D.C.

  Two years later, they married. Not long afterward, I was born, on April 27, 1986, at 3:10 a.m. I weighed ten pounds, ten ounces, and I was twenty-two inches long. Dad always teased me about how my feet were hanging out of the newborn’s bed because I was such a big baby. The same day I was born, NBC News was doing a special segment called “Healthy Babies” and they brought the cameras up to the maternity ward and filmed me being held by my mom.

  I imagine that I was destined to like the water because at six weeks, my parents dipped my tiny toes into the Atlantic. When I was ten, our family spent two weeks in Oahu. Our hotel was near the famous Waikiki beach. From our balcony, I could see Diamondhead. There were many surfers riding the waves. I said to my parents, “Let’s go swimming!” I rented a bodyboard and my dad went with a surfboard, which I thought was cool. I watched him paddle out about two hundred yards in the water to join the surfers. It was only his second time on a surfboard, but he was determined to sample the Hawaiian surf.