[ultimate_heading main_heading=”The New Valve : Story by Laura Solomon” main_heading_color=”#1e73be” sub_heading_color=”#8224e3″ spacer=”line_with_icon” spacer_position=”bottom” line_style=”dotted” line_height=”1″ line_color=”#1e73be” icon_type=”custom” icon_img=”id^48|url^http://ashvamegh.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Ashvamegh-ICO.jpg|caption^null|alt^Ashvamegh Journal Icon|title^Ashvamegh ICO|description^null” img_width=”48″ main_heading_style=”font-weight:bold;” main_heading_font_size=”desktop:34px;” line_width=”3″]a fiction from the NZ…[/ultimate_heading]

Faulty hearts run in my family.  My father had to have a valve replaced by a pig valve when he was in his early thirties and my uncle died of a heart attack in his fifties.  I work at a MDF plant in Nelson and my own heart is enlarged.  Two weeks ago they discovered that the valve wasn’t working properly and was only letting through 9% of the blood flow.  I was admitted to Nelson hospital and they told me they were going to fly me to Wellington to do open heart surgery and replace the valve.  At first they said they were going to use a pig’s valve like they did with Dad but then they changed their minds and said I was too young, forty-three, and that a pig’s valve would not last me for life and that they would use a titanium one instead.  I was a non smoker.  The dud heart was just a card in the hand I had been dealt.

My girlfriend Kerry likes to make a fuss of me and she was hovering around the hospital during the days before I was due to fly out to Wellington.  My parents look down their snobby noses at her because she’s a solo mother and does not have much money, so there was a bit of tension there.  I tried to ease the atmosphere by cracking jokes, even though I wasn’t in much of a laughing mood, lying flat on my back in Nelson hospital, wondering when they were going to fly me to Wellington and whether or not the operation was going to be a success, but I tried to lighten things up a little.  Kerry is a sensitive soul who likes to be liked and she did not take kindly to my parents snobbery.

“They’re judging me”, she told me.  “And they haven’t even taken the time to get to know the real me.  They’re just judging me on my exterior.  It’s not fair.  I’m a good, kind person.  I’m not after your money.  I help take care of you.  I care about what happens to you.  I’m caring all round.”

My parents did not seem to notice kind and caring.  They noticed money and status and what job a person was able to hold down.  Kerry worked for the DHB as a support worker helping a lady who’d had a brain tumour removed, but that wasn’t good enough for my folks.

They flew me out to Wellington on a Sunday.  It was windy and raining and I was dreading what lay ahead.  Donald Trump’s military had dropped the ‘mother of all bombs’ on Isis tunnels in Afghanistan the night before.  He had ordered a tomahawk cruise missile strike on Syria a few days previous to this and earlier in the year there had been a military raid of an al-Qaida affiliate complex in Yemen.  Trump was proving himself to be quite the war monger and people were saying that he would go down in history as the ‘war president’.  I wasn’t sure how I felt about being alive during the reign of such an aggressive and war hungry president, even if New Zealand was located half a world away at the bottom of the South Pacific.  They said the bomb was the biggest non nuclear bomb ever used in combat.  I watched footage of the testing of such a bomb online and I thought of the people whose lives had been destroyed.  The US claimed that only members of Isis had been killed but I thought that this was bullshit.  The dropping of the bomb made me feel small, powerless and insignificant, as if my life too could be snuffed out in an instant.  The Pink Floyd song ‘Mother’ kept playing in the back of my mind.  The bombing made me extra nervous before my big operation.  After all, they were going to saw through my chest and breast bone and operate on my heart, the muscle that kept me ticking, kept the blood pumping through my body.  It would only take one slip of the surgeon’s blade and it would be all over for me too, lights out, game over.  Died on the operating table, they would write on my death certificate.  Or died in theatre. 

I was disturbed by Donald Trump and his actions.  What did it mean that America had voted him in?  Or had it been not so much a vote for Donald as a vote against Hilary and therefore a sign that America was still deeply sexist.  I didn’t have the answers but that didn’t stop the questions from forming in my mind.

An orderly from the hospital met my flight and took a taxi with me from the airport to the hospital.  They settled me into Ward 6 South.  To one side of me lay Wayne, who was having a triple bypass and to the other side lay Karen, a smoker, who was having a tumour removed from her lung.  All fun and games in Ward 6 South.  Somebody had sent Karen a bunch of flowers – pink lilies, the colour of a healthy set of lungs and somebody else had tied a Get Well Soon balloon to the end of Wayne’s bed.  All this false cheer and heartiness just made my own situation seem worse – my own bed and area was unadorned.  Still, I had only just arrived. There was still time.

My thoughts turned to my girlfriend Kerry and I wondered if she would send me anything – a card, some chocolates or some blooms.  Kerry was taking a paper in Advanced Fiction through Massey University and one of the stories they’d had to read was Stephen King’s ‘Autopsy Room 4’.  I’d read the story too and it had scared the beejesuz out of me.  It’s about a man who’s been paralysed by a snake.  He is pronounced dead but gains consciousness but can’t speak or move right before they are about to perform an autopsy on him.  Not the kind of story you’d want to think of right before a big operation.

I had brought my laptop with me.  I asked an orderly if I could have a password for the wifi so I could keep up with world news and distract myself from thinking about ‘Autopsy Room 4’.  She obliged and said ‘you take it easy now, don’t over exert yourself.  You’ve got the big operation coming up tomorrow.’  I smiled and nodded, then logged on.

By now, Donald Trump had redirected a ‘very powerful’ naval armada to the Korean peninsula and was telling North Korea that they were ‘looking for trouble’ via Twitter.  Sabre rattling.  Displaying military might.  Some people said that by bombing Afghanistan Trump was sending a message to Kim Jong-un in North Korea, although the president denied this.  Down here, down South, I was lying in wait for my Big Op, up there, in the Northern Hemisphere, two megalomaniacs postured and strutted on the world’s stage.  There was no doubt that terrorism and North Korea posed grave threats to the world, but was Trump’s solution – more war, really a decent one?  Still, what would my solution be?  To sit down with a few members of al-Qaida and a translator over a chai latte and have a rational discussion about a peaceable solution to the problem?  Probably get my head blown off.  My father always said that Americans considered themselves to be the cops of the world – was Trump now playing police commissioner?  In my chest, the faulty valve flapped to and fro, struggling to do its job.

I signed a consent form the following morning.  A nurse came and took me to a sterile hospital bathroom.  She stripped me off and shaved my stomach, chest and arms with a puny Bic razor.

I was taken back to my ward which had a window overlooking the hospital carpark.  I was gazing out the window, bored with my current sudoku, when I saw a flash looking Lexus SUV LX pull up in the parking lot.  The door on the driver’s side opened and a tall dark haired man with a confident stride stepped out.  He strode towards the hospital’s main doors – a man with a purpose.  Ten minutes later he was standing beside my bed, introducing himself to me as my surgeon.

“Hello I’m Graeme Young”, he said with a smile.  “I understand we’re dealing with stenosis of the aortic valve.”

I nodded grimly.

“It’s not entirely my fault”, I said.  “I’m not the world’s healthiest eater but it’s also partly hereditary and partly due to stress.  Job stress mostly.  I’m a non smoker.”

“I see.”

A nurse entered the room.

“Is everything under control?” she asked.

“Sure”, replied Graeme smoothly.  “Leave this one in my capable hands.”

He winked.

The wink made me feel uneasy.  Surely surgery was a serious business and not something to be winked about.

The surgeon left the room and I was left alone with the TV and my sudoku.  The TV was tuned into world news which was all about Trump and his naval armada, including a nuclear powered submarine which had been sent to the Korean peninsula.  I thought it was a bit ironic that he had sent a nuclear powered submarine considering that he was so vocal in his disdain for North Korea and their nuclear weapons.  Google also informed me that the United States had 1500 nuclear arms whereas North Korea was estimated to have only around 20.  I felt short of breath and my heart began to palpitate at the thought of all those nukes.

A nurse came and took me in a room next to theatre.  She showed me the consent form and asked me to confirm that it was my signature.  The anesthetist came and introduced himself to me as Karl Maine.  I felt far from psychologically ready, everything was happening so fast.  They wheeled me into theatre.  The anesthetist put a needle in my arm and that is the last thing I remember for a while.

So were you on your own last night, I heard a voice saying.

I thought at first that somebody was talking to me.  I tried to talk but there was something stuck down my throat.

It must be the breathing tube, I thought to myself.

I wondered if the operation was over and if they had just mistakenly left the breathing tube in.

Oh look this guy’s heart is really enlarged, check it out.  It’s massive. 

This time I recognized the voice of the surgeon.  How could he be looking at my heart?   I was awake, conscious.  Surely they couldn’t still be operating on me.  It was like a nightmare.  I attempted to open my eyes but it was as if my lids were stuck shut with Superglue.

Time for the valve please, I heard the surgeon say.

There was a tinkle of metal on metal, the titanium valve on its tray.  I couldn’t feel anything yet I could hear everything.  I was paralysed and could not open my eyes to signal to anybody that I was awake.  I felt helpless – an insect trapped in amber.  There was a mechanical humming noise in the background – I assumed it was emanating from the heart lung machine.  Why had I regained partial consciousness?  Did this mean that the anesthetic had partially worn off or had I not been given the correct dose?  If I had come round to this point, did this mean that I was going to regain further feeling?  I had researched a little about heart surgery and I knew that they stopped the heart.  Had I died during the surgery?  Was I now a ghost – was that why I could hear what was going on?  Had Kim Jong-un dropped a nuclear bomb on Australia during my operation?  Had North Korea been far further ahead in the nuclear game that anybody had realized?  The cold hand of panic gripped my bloodless heart.  The only other time I had ever felt so helpless was when I was seven years old and my elder cousin gagged me and tied me up and left me in the wardrobe on Christmas Day, then went down to have dinner with the adults.

Alright the valve’s in, time to stitch this guy up. 

I imagined the needle and thread running through my heart, stitch by stitch, holding me together.

Wire up his sternum, was the next instruction that reached my woozy ears.

I tried to indicate with one hand that I was conscious but my brain would not send signals to my muscles.  If only I could twitch a foot!  Why had the anesthetic worn off?  Were the people in charge of my operation a bunch of nincompoops?  Was it going to wear off any further?  Was I going to start to feel pain – the pain of a dead, still heart?  A female voice spoke.

Hang on a minute, I saw an eyelid twitch.  He’s not under properly.  Karl do your bloody job.  We need you to concentrate. 

O shit, sorry about that, came the muttered reply.  I’ll just increase the dose. 

So I was dealing with a bunch of amateurs!  Damned New Zealand medical system.  Hadn’t these people had a decent education?  Hadn’t they been trained?  The operation was almost over and now they were worrying about putting me back under.

The next thing I knew I was waking up in a stark bare hospital ward.  I was pretty doped up on morphine when the surgeon came around to see me with a nurse in tow.  Despite the morphine, I still managed to spit my story out.  I was angry.  Why hadn’t the anesthetist done his job properly?

“And how is our patient doing today?”

“Not good.  Why did I come to during the surgery.  I can remember large chunks of it.  I can remember your voice issuing instructions and then a female voice said that I wasn’t under properly and that she had seen an eyelid twitch.  What sort of mickey mouse outfit are you running here?”

The surgeon laughed as the nurse fidgeted.

“Oh sometimes our patients have these hallucinations when they’re under.  It’s an effect of the anesthetic.”

“Bullshit.  I know what I heard.”

My throat was sore from where the breathing tube had been stuffed down but I was determined to have my say.  The surgeon patted my hand.

“Don’t fret.  You’ve been through a traumatic experience, it’s normal to be a bit confused.  Your girlfriend rang and she says she’s made everything nice for you at home.”

His beeper went off.

“Oh, I’m a wanted man.  Gotta dash.”

He headed off down the corridor with the nurse following in his wake.

I stayed in the ward for another week.  Kerry called every night.  I was glad to hear her voice; it was good to hear something that reminded me of Nelson.  I had been told that I could not return to work for four months following the surgery so I would be spending a lot of time at my home, reading and walking on the beach trying to recover from my big operation.

One of the nurses instructed me to get up and walk around as much as I could.  I traipsed the corridors, back and forth, a lonely ghost, and then ventured out into the stairwell.

On the day they discharged me I went to the men’s room to relieve my bladder.  I heard a familiar voice coming from the direction of the urinal.

“God that was a great party the other night.  Got so wasted I could barely stand the next day.  Still came into work though.  Didn’t want to risk losing my job.  Did an open heart surgery that morning.”

I quickly flushed the toilet and came out into the main room, just in time to see the anesthetist zipping up his fly.  I didn’t say anything but at least I’d had my suspicions confirmed.

I flew back to Nelson the following day.  Kerry had made the house into a home, triangle pillows on the bed and everything.  Against my parents wishes Kerry moved into the house with me to provide maximum care – she still kept her job.  I was on Warfarin and pain killers.  The Warfarin made me bruise easily.  I was so traumatized by what had happened that for the first two months after the surgery all I did was lie in bed all day clutching a stuffed bear named Fuzzy that Kerry had bought for me.  My mother was very concerned and sent me to the doctor for a dose of anti-depressants.  What I felt was not depression but fear and anxiety.  How could so-called ‘trusted medical professionals’ get it so wrong?  Why had the anesthetist been allowed to go in to work – did nobody notice the state he was in before the operation?  Why had such an irresponsible person been employed?  Eventually Kerry managed to coax me out for walks at the beach followed by a cup of hot chocolate.  These walks – and the chocolate reward became a daily routine for us, and something I looked forward to each day.  We would do a loop – along the front beach and then around the back beach where people walk their dogs – to the café.

Although it might sound childish, I also played a lot of games in order to keep my brain working.  Catan, Agricola, Discworld, Cluedo and First Around the World.  Work had said that they would hold my position open for me for four months, to give me time to recover.  You can’t sue a medical professional in New Zealand but Kerry said I should write to the Health and Disability Commissioner and make an official complaint.  I wrote in stating that I had gained consciousness during the surgery and then later, after the operation, overheard the anesthetist boasting about how drunk or stoned he had been the night before.  My letter was acknowledged with a perfunctory slip and then eight weeks later I received a note stating that the anesthetist no longer worked at the hospital and that no charges would be pressed.

Fat lot of good that did, I thought to myself.  So much for justice.          

I cursed my bad genes for my faulty heart.  Towards the end of the four months I found myself looking forward to going back to work, back to some sense of normalcy, back to structure and routine.  Aren’t these all that keep a man from floundering in the abyss?  Kerryn had a few books lying around the house and I recognized one as being the short story collection that contained Autopsy Room 4, but I dared not open it up and read the story for a second time.     

I suffered recurring nightmares, the worst of which was that I was back in hospital being operated upon by Donald Trump.  No amount of walking at the beach could take my nightmares away.  As for Donald Trump, he had calmed down a bit and was even talking about conciliatory talks with Kim Jong Un.  However, all the bombs they possessed between them played upon my mind.  The nukes were like a time bomb, ticking away like the titanium valve that was implanted in my heart.

 

Introduction to the Author: 

Laura Solomon has a 2.1 in English Literature (Victoria University, 1997) and a Masters degree in Computer Science (University of London, 2003).

Her books include Black Light, Nothing Lasting, Alternative Medicine, An Imitation of Life, Instant Messages, Vera Magpie, Hilary and David, In Vitro, The Shingle Bar Taniwha and Other Stories, University Days, Freda Kahlo’s Cry and Brain Graft.

She has won prizes in Bridport, Edwin Morgan, Ware Poets, Willesden Herald, Mere Literary Festival, and Essex Poetry Festival competitions.

She was short-listed for the 2009 Virginia Prize and the 2014 International Rubery Award and won the 2009 Proverse Prize. She has had work accepted in the Edinburgh Review and Wasafiri (UK), Takahe and Landfall (NZ). She has judged the Sentinel Quarterly Short Story Competition.

Her play ‘The Dummy Bride’ was part of the 1996 Wellington Fringe Festival and her play ‘Sprout’ was part of the 2005 Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

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