“Hi Sarah, my name’s Dr. Lewis,” the Hispanic man smiled at me as he walked in with my chart, reading over it as he went. “I just read over those results from the tests this morning…” he trailed off a bit and then caught my gaze with his eyes once more. If the pain in my chest was any indication, I was pretty sure I was going to need this surgery. “Sarah,” he said a bit more seriously, sitting down in front of me. “We’re going to need to do this surgery.” I closed my eyes and silently prayed. I didn’t know what to pray for…my health? My safety? Anything I could get, really.
“What do you think will happen? Will you be able to fix it or are there risks?” I questioned, swallowing the lump in my throat.
“There are risks to everything,” he allowed a small smirk to crease his lips. “I could die driving my car to work tomorrow. Or I could die from a fire here in this room this very second. So yes, there are risks. But I know what I’m doing. I’ve studied this in med school. I don’t want you to worry right now. Worrying only makes this all worse,” he began to explain. “Basically every time you stress or you lift something heavy or you have a heavy work out, your tissue around your pulmonary artery stretches out a bit more and more. It’s causing it to rupture. After scanning it, we’re pretty sure the rupture has started and is only getting worse.” Even though it sounded horrible, it was finally some kind of understanding. “It hasn’t ruptured completely, but we still need to do the surgery and replace it with an artificial artery. Just so you know, we have a donor here with a heart. The blood type matches yours completely. We need it just to be safe.”
“To be safe…safe of what?” I asked, not completely following him.
“Just in case the replacing of the artery doesn’t work properly, we have a transplant ready. I can guarantee you I’ve done many transplants before and 90% of them have been successful. This surgery replacing this specific artery will be my first. So, if all else fails, we’ll just give you a new heart.” He tried to make it sound as light as possible, but it wasn’t helping much.
“A-a new heart?” I stuttered out. I wasn’t expecting that at all. It was one thing to have an artery replaced, it was an entirely different situation to have an entire heart replaced.
“Again, please don’t stress about this. That’ll only make it worse,” he patted my knee reassuringly. I swallowed the lump in my throat and nodded. “We’re going to put you up in a patient’s room until we can get the surgery going. I’ll bring in your family so you can visit with them and they can keep you relaxed.” He winked.
I sighed and nodded. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to see Connor or Nick yet. I didn’t want them seeing me like this. As the nurse wheeled me into a room and handed me a gown, I tried to make myself look at least a little decent in the bathroom. Luckily I had the room to myself. I ran my fingers through my long brown hair and wiped underneath my eyes to rid myself of any leftover mascara or eye liner. I sighed and got comfortable in the bed as the door opened to my room.
“Momma!” I heard Connor and grinned.
“Hey baby,” I smiled and kissed the top of his head as he ran up to me and jumped up on the bed.
“Be gentle,” I heard Nick from behind him. He had bright orange and white lilies in his hand with a ‘Get Well’ balloon. I beamed. He remembered that, too. Lilies had always been my favorite flower growing up and carried with me into adulthood. That was one thing Nick was great at – sending flowers. Most of the time I wondered if he even wanted to…he probably had some assistant do it. But nevertheless, he had remembered today…when it mattered most.
“Aw, thanks Nick,” I smirked and took the flowers from him, bringing them to my nose to smell them. “Thanks for everything. For the flowers, for bringing me here, for filling out paper work -…”
“Hey,” he cut me off and sat down at the edge of the bed. “It’s definitely the least I could do. Besides, the flowers are from Connor.” He winked. Connor nodded and smiled a toothy grin, making me giggle.
“Baby, I got here as fast as I could!” Jake rushed through the door, a dozen red roses in his hand. “Oh my God, are you okay? What’s going on? When’s the surgery?” His questions began flowing but without even being able to answer them, I looked at Connor. I was almost sure Nick hadn’t explained it all to him just yet.
“Surgery?” Connor looked at me with wide blue eyes and a scared expression.
“Baby, it’s not a big deal,” I reassured him, bringing my hand to his cheek to comfort him. “The doctor said I’m going to be fine.” I tried to smile the best I could.
“How about I take Connor to go get a snack, okay?” Nick glanced down at Connor with a wink to try and persuade him to go. “We’ll be right back. Let’s just give Mom and Jake some time alone.” He took Connor’s hand and gave me an encouraging grin before he walked out.
“I wasn’t going to tell Connor,” I immediately said to Jake. No ‘hi’ or ‘hello’…I almost felt guilty for my lack of kindness. But I was disappointed he’d bring that up.
“I-I’m sorry…” Jake looked confused. “Shouldn’t he know? What if something happens?...” Part of me was angry that he would even say something like that.
“Would it kill you to stay positive for a little bit?” I snapped. “I need positivity, Jake…” I felt the tears in my eyes. “If I don’t have the support from you, my son and everyone else around here, I’m not sure I’ll be able to get through this and recover. So, I just need you to be a little bit more optimistic about this.” My anger was a mix of nervousness, sadness, fear…all rolled into one.
“Hey,” he sat down on the edge of my bed quietly. “It’s going to be okay, alright? I’m sorry I said that…I don’t know what it’s like to have a kid. I have no room to talk.” He immediately brought his hand to my cheek to wipe away the cascading tears. “Baby, we’re gonna pull through this. It’ll all be okay.”
I nodded and wiped at my eyes some more. “Can you go get Connor and Nick? I want to see Connor some more before I go in…” I tried to regain my composure as Jake nodded and kissed my forehead. As the door opened and the little blonde head of energy popped back in, I smiled. “Are you being good for Daddy?” I asked him as Nick took a seat in the back of the room, just watching everything unfold.
“Uh huh,” Connor grinned. “Daddy said he’d take me to school on Monday if it’s okay with you.” I realized Nick was trying to prepare him that I might not be home from the hospital just yet to take care of him as of Monday. Considering today was only Saturday and I was about to undergo heart surgery, I figured that was a pretty fair estimate.
“That sounds great,” I smiled up at Nick. “Listen, buddy.” I wanted to try to explain this as best as possibly. “My heart’s sick. And the doctor knows just how to fix it. But I might have to stay here for a little while. Do you think you could stay with Daddy for a few days? Maybe you could come visit me after school some days?” I glanced at Nick and he nodded.
“Okay…” Connor seemed a little hesitant.
“Hey Connor,” Jake butted in. I felt my heart nearly stop. Please don’t say anything offensive, I thought in my head, picturing Nick and Jake getting into a fist fight right here in my hospital room. “You could come and spend some time with me, bud!” He tried to sound enthusiastic. I watched the grimace across my son’s face.
“No thanks,” he said politely, but surely.
Instead of giving Nick the chance to say something, I cut in. “Jake, I think it’d be best that Connor stay with Nick.” I said rather softly. I could read the pleasure all over Nick’s face and the disappointment on Jake’s.
“O-Okay,” he nodded.
Before we even had the chance to get more into the conversation, the door opened and I saw Paige there, tears streaming down her face. “Hey, they just called me and…oh, hey Connor!” She quickly tried to dry her eyes and I thanked her silently for it. “How are you, sweetie pie?” She winked and knelt down to his level.
“Gooood,” he dragged out with a grin.
“Hey kid, let’s give your Mom some more alone time…” Nick chuckled.
“What’s with all this ‘alone time’?” Connor quoted, making all of us laugh – even Jake, a little.
“It’s some dumb girl thing,” Nick winked. I blushed, thinking about how Jake was probably a little offended by that comment. I’d have to talk to Nick about it later. Jake sighed and stood up, placing the roses on the edge of my bed.
“I’ll be out there…” he motioned to the waiting room and I nodded.
“Talk about awkward,” I sighed as soon as the door closed.
“Damn girl, I just can’t believe this is happening,” the tears quickly filled her eyes. “It’s like, one minute you’re perfectly fine and then next, Nick is calling me telling me you’re here.” She sighed and wiped at the corners of her eyes.
“Wait…Nick called you?” I frowned. I didn’t realize he had called everyone. Then again, who else could have done it? He was the only one that knew I was here.
“Yeah, he called Jake, too,” she nodded. “He’s really stepping up to the plate, Sar. He really cares about you,” she mumbled and played with her fingers. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m okay right now…” I nodded. “But I’m starting to have second thoughts.” She frowned, obviously curious about what exactly. “It’s like, Nick is really, really being great about all this. And I’m starting to wonder…”
“Oh no, that’s never good,” Paige shook her head. “Sarah, you’ve been there done that already. And besides, Jake loves you. Very much. And he’s great to you and Connor.” Paige nodded. “You should stick with that. True love always wins.”
I felt tears filling my eyes again. This time not because of fear of the surgery, but because of fear of my love life. Fear of what was going to happen.
“Look, Jake even brought you beautiful roses,” she brought the roses to her nose and smelled the sweet scent, a smile creasing her lips.
I licked my lips and shook my head. “He doesn’t know anything about me, Paige. I don’t even like roses. He knows that, too. He knows how I feel about roses.”
Paige couldn’t help but giggle. “Never knew you had such strong feelings about a flower.” I rolled my eyes, trying to be serious.
“I don’t, necessarily. I’ve always felt like roses were so cliché and the typical ‘romance flower’. I swore I’d never be with a man that bought me roses all the time. It isn’t true love to me. Nick used to buy me roses all the time when we were dating and married. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t true,” I sighed. “I told Jake that. He thought it was cute. My favorite flower is the lily…” I whispered as I absentmindedly ran my fingers over the lily petals.
“Well, who brought you those?” Paige frowned, pointing to the lilies.
A smile formed over my lips and tears flooded my eyes. “Nick. He remembered.”
