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Brian (V)


The baby was crying again. Brian followed the sound down the darkened hallway and into the colorful nursery. He crept toward the crib in the corner, where the mobile twirled a menagerie of animals around in a slow circle, tinkling the notes to a familiar tune. His memory added lyrics to the melody:

“Imagine all the people, living life in peace. You, you may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you join us, and the world will live as one.”

His eyes drifted upward, following a trail of stars to the ceiling, where a round mirror hung like the full moon in the sky, reflecting the red face of the screaming infant in the crib beneath it.

He reached down into the crib and plucked a plush toy out of one corner. It was a stuffed octopus, pastel-colored, with eight legs and a smiling face. He held it out for the baby to see, shaking it a bit to make the legs wave about, but the baby’s cries only escalated.

Sighing, he took a step backward, away from the crib. He could feel the blood rush to his pounding head, as his heart began to race. His fingers tightened around the octopus’s head, slowly squeezing and releasing… squeezing and releasing… squeezing…

“Brian?”

Brian blinked, and suddenly, Becci was standing beside him, her hand on his shoulder. He looked down into the crib, and Calhan wasn’t crying anymore, but sound asleep. The mobile was gone. Calhan hadn’t had a mobile over his crib since he was a small baby. Bewildered, Brian turned to Becci. She was staring back at him, her brow furrowed. The concerned expression on her face was all too familiar to him; he’d seen that look too many times over the past year not to recognize it.

“Are you awake?” she asked.

"Yeah,” he said, frowning.

“Are you okay?”

He stood still, assessing his condition. Up until then, he’d felt fine, but at that point, he became aware of a fluttery feeling in his chest, the familiar sensation of his heart beginning to pick up its pace. He raised his hand to the side of his neck and felt his pulse pounding beneath his fingertips. It was fast, but strong and steady. “I think so,” he said. “Was I dreaming again?”

“You were sleepwalking,” whispered Becci. “I woke up, and you weren’t in bed, and I got worried, so I came looking for you. I found you standing in here, just staring down at Calhan with that bear in your hand.”

Brian looked down and found that he was holding Calhan’s teddy bear. “Oh.” He held up the bear in confusion, turning it over a few times in his hand. Then he gently lowered it over the crib rail and laid it next to his sleeping son.

“Come on,” Becci said, squeezing his shoulder. “Let’s go back to bed. I don’t want to wake him.”

Brian nodded and followed her out of the room, his heart racing. “I was dreaming,” he whispered to Becci in the hallway. “I remember now.”

She looked back at him. “The same dream as before?”

He nodded. “The one with the crying baby.”

It was one of several recurring dreams he’d been having for three months now, although this was the first time it had caused him to sleepwalk. As far as he knew, he’d never done that before. Usually, he woke up in his own bed, where he’d wait for his heart to start racing and gradually slow again, as the rush of adrenaline worked its way out of his system. He was used to the sensation by now; it had become almost a routine and was no longer scary. Still, the dreams themselves left him feeling unsettled.

Becci seemed equally unnerved. She waited until they’d climbed back into bed to ask, “Has something been bothering you, honey? I mean, sleepwalking’s a sign of stress, and these nightmares you’ve been having… maybe it’s an anxiety thing? Are you worried about your appointment tomorrow?”

Brian considered the question. He was scheduled to go to the heart institute in the morning for his three-month check-up, where they would test his heart for signs of rejection. The procedures weren’t pleasant, but they were a necessary evil, and he’d become used to them by now. Besides, he’d been feeling fine – better every day, in fact – and hadn’t experienced any symptoms of rejection so far. There was no reason for him to worry. “No,” he answered truthfully, “not really.”

“Well, I want you to mention this to Dr. Robert,” said Becci, giving him a stern look. “The sleepwalking and the nightmares. If they’re stress-related, I’m sure he’ll have a suggestion for how to stop them, and if they’re just another side effect of your meds, maybe he can make an adjustment to them.”

“Aw, Becs, it’s not that big of a deal,” Brian protested, feeling that she was overreacting. She had a tendency to do that, especially where he and Calhan were concerned.

“It is a big deal!” she insisted. “To me, it is, anyway! If you could have seen how you looked when I walked into Cal’s room just now, the way you were just standing there with this vacant stare on your face… it was creepy, Brian! It freaked me out. And whatever’s causing this, whether it’s stress or anxiety or whatever, it can’t be good for your heart. So promise me you’ll talk to him tomorrow, please?”

She gave him a pleading look that Brian was unable to resist. “Alright,” he agreed, nodding. “I promise, I’ll tell him. But I can’t promise he’ll have any answers for us.”

“Just talk to him,” Becci repeated. “I’ll feel better if I know that he knows about this. If he says it’s not a big deal, then I won’t worry as much.”

“Anything to keep you from worrying. You worry too much already.” He leaned over and planted a kiss on the tip of her nose. “And like you said, all that worryin’ ain’t good for your heart. We gotta make sure yours lasts as long as this one.” Winking, he pressed his hand to his chest, where he could feel his heart starting to slow down.

Becci returned his wink with a sad smile. “It’s not mine I’m worried about.”

***

“I wish I was going with you,” said Becci wistfully in the morning, as she got ready for work. “It feels wrong not to.”

Brian was sitting at the kitchen table, where he’d laid out his morning dose of medications. Looking up from the line of brightly-colored pills, he said, “Well, we both know you can’t afford to miss any more work.”

Becci had gone back to her teaching job the week before, after taking the maximum twelve weeks of medical leave to care for Brian. “It’s like coming back from maternity leave all over again,” she’d told Brian after her first day back.

“Except, instead of having a little bundle of joy at home, you’re stuck with me,” he’d joked.

“You mean I’m blessed to have my big ol’ baby back home,” she’d corrected, grinning. Then she added, “But seriously, it’s like just it was when I came back from having Calhan – everyone’s always asking about you, and all I can think about is getting home to you again.”

Brian knew she still worried about him while she was at work, but it was different now: he wasn’t dying anymore. He was getting better, and by the time school let out for summer in another three months, he would finally feel normal again - as normal as a heart transplant recipient ever could. He couldn’t wait to get back to the life he’d left behind fourteen months ago, when the diagnosis of heart failure had brought it to a screeching halt. More than that, he couldn’t wait to feel like his old self again.

“Don’t you worry about me, babe,” he reassured Becci, plucking up a few of his pills and popping them into his mouth. He washed them down his throat with a swig of water, swallowing hard, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’ll be fine.”

“What’s with all this ‘babe’ stuff nowadays?” she teased him, crinkling her nose. “Don’t you go getting all cocky on me, Brian Littrell.”

Brian shrugged, not sure what had possessed him to use that particular term of endearment. “How could a guy not get cocky after scoring the most beautiful woman on the planet?” he replied, flashing her a cheeky grin.

Becci threw back her head and laughed so hard, even her hair bounced. “I love you,” she managed to say, breathless from laughing, her eyes bright and her cheeks rosy. In that moment, she had never looked more beautiful. When she bent down to kiss him goodbye, he savored the moment, tasting the flavor of mint toothpaste mixed with vanilla lip gloss as she pressed her mouth against his, inhaling the scent of her perfume as she pulled away.

“I love you too,” he said back, wishing she didn’t have to leave and that he didn’t have to, either. He wasn’t looking forward to what the day had in store for him. Reluctantly, he scooped up a second handful of pills and forced himself to swallow them. When he set his water glass down on the table, Becci was still standing there, watching him with an odd expression on her face. “What?” he asked, wiping his mouth again.

“Just… don’t forget the promise you made to me last night, okay? Make sure you talk to Dr. Robert about the nightmares.”

He nodded. “I will, I promise.”

Her face relaxed, the creases on her forehead ironing out flat. “Thank you. Alright, I guess I should grab Cal and get going. Good luck with everything today. I’ll see you this afternoon?”

“See ya later,” he confirmed, smiling. “Have a great day at school.”

She smiled back tightly. “I will,” she replied, but he knew she would worry about him all day.

He choked down the rest of his pills while she went to collect Calhan. When she came back into the kitchen, carrying the toddler on one hip with the diaper bag slung over her opposite shoulder, she leaned down to let Calhan kiss his father goodbye, and then they were gone, out the door, on their way over to Brian’s parents’ house, where Becci would drop off Calhan before continuing on to school. Alone in the house, Brian finished his breakfast and wandered back to his bedroom to get dressed for the day, knowing his ride would be there soon.

His cousin Kevin arrived promptly at eight o’clock to pick him up, and they left for Lexington right away. “Hope traffic’s not bad,” said Kevin, glancing at the dashboard clock as he pulled away from the curb in front of Brian’s house.

Brian laughed. “Relax, Kev, my appointment’s not for another hour. We’ll be there with plenty of time to spare.”

Usually Becci accompanied him to the heart institute, but now that she was back at work, they’d had to make alternate arrangements. Brian was allowed to drive again, but not after undergoing a heart biopsy, one of his regularly scheduled procedures, for which he would be given a mild sedative. Luckily, the appointment correlated with one of Kevin’s days off, so he had volunteered to drive Brian to and from the hospital.

They made small talk on the way, chewing over the weather, the family, and their plans for Valentine’s Day. Kevin, whose mother was the older sister of Brian’s father, was a commercial airline pilot who flew a regular line between Lexington and Orlando, Florida. He still lived half an hour from Lexington in the town of Harrodsburg, where he’d been born and raised, but he had a crash pad in Orlando and, apparently, a girl there as well. “Yeah, I’m flying on Valentine’s Day, but Kristin and I’ll do something Saturday to celebrate,” he said in his slow drawl, staring straight out the windshield as he drove up Route 68. “You got anything big planned for Becci?”

Brian grinned. “I’m gonna ask for a copy of my chest x-ray so I can turn it into a big card. It’ll say, ‘My old heart belonged to you, and my new one does, too’ – somethin’ like that, anyway.”

Kevin took his eyes off the road long enough to look Brian’s way. “You serious?” he asked, the hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

Brian shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. It’s creative, though, ain’t it?”

“I’ll give ya that one, cous. It is creative,” Kevin admitted, chuckling.

Brian spent the rest of the car ride thinking about romantic things he could do for Becci. She had done so much for him over the past few months, so many things that weren’t romantic, that the least he could do was show her how much she meant to him. He was still scheming when Kevin pulled into the hospital parking lot.

Brian led the way to the heart institute on the first floor. The front desk where he checked in was decorated with red and pink paper hearts. As he signed his name on the necessary paperwork, he could sense Kevin still standing behind him. “You don’t have to stay here the whole time, you know,” Brian said over his shoulder. “Like I said, it could take a few hours, so if you wanna go drive around or whatever, I can just call you when I’m done.”

Kevin returned his apologetic glance with a patient smile and held up a book. “It’s alright; I came prepared. I got nothin’ else to do today.”

So they sat down in the waiting area together, until Brian was called back for his exam. He left Kevin and followed the nurse to a private room, where she gave him a hospital gown to change into, checked his vital signs, and drew his blood for the necessary labwork. Then she sent in his cardiologist, Dr. Robert, who peppered him with questions as he listened to his heart and looked at the scar left by his healed incision. Was he diligently checking his pulse, blood pressure, temperature, and weight each day to watch for signs of complications? Was he sticking to his diet? Exercising? Had he experienced any shortness of breath or irregular heart rhythms?

“No,” said Brian to the last question, shaking his head. “I’ve been feelin’ great.”

“And your heart’s sounding great,” Dr. Robert replied, smiling, as he slipped the stethoscope out of his ears and draped it around his neck. “We’ll do an echocardiogram and get a chest x-ray and tissue sample for biopsy to check for signs of rejection, but it seems like you’re doing very well. Any other concerns you have, before we get you set up for the echo?”

Remembering his promise to Becci, Brian shifted on the exam table, causing the paper covering to crinkle loudly underneath him. Embarrassed, he said, “Well, there is this one thing… My wife wanted me to mention it.”

“And what’s that?” asked Dr. Robert with a knowing smile.

“I’ve been having these weird dreams lately… ever since the transplant, I guess.” Brian paused, struggling to put his experience into words. “There’s not much to them, nothing really that scary, just vivid images and feelings… I always feel scared in the dreams, and then I wake up and feel like I’ve just had a nightmare. I’m panting and sweating, and then my heart starts to race from the adrenaline rush.” Seeing the concerned look come over Dr. Robert’s face, he forged ahead quickly, “The first time it happened, it really freaked me out, but I’ve gotten used to it by now. It doesn’t happen every night, but often enough that I’ve almost come to expect it. I always check my pulse and everything when I wake up, and it’s always steady and slows back down to normal after awhile, so I don’t think it’s really anything to worry about… but last night, Becci found me sleepwalking, which I’ve never done before. She wondered if it could be a side effect of one of my medications or if it’s just stress.”

Brian stopped talking at that point and looked to Dr. Robert for a reaction. The cardiologist was frowning, his lips pressed tightly together. “Hm…” he said, stroking his chin. “Your wife may be right. Stress and anxiety can certainly cause nightmares or episodes of sleepwalking, but some medications are thought to trigger nightmares as well. If it’s something that’s really been bothering you, we could try lowering the dosage of your blood pressure medication and see if you notice any changes in your sleep.”

Brian shrugged. “It’s not really that big of a deal. I mean, like I said, the dreams aren’t even that scary.”

“If you don’t my asking, what are they about?”

“There’s two recurring ones I keep having. In one, I’m just running… running away from something, I think, but I never know what. The other one is about my son. I can hear him crying, but when I go to his crib to get him, he’s not there. Only sometimes he is. He was there in the one I had last night, when I was sleepwalking, only it didn’t look like his room.” Brian shook his head. “My wife Becci used to have nightmares like that right after Calhan was born, where she dreamed he was crying and she couldn’t find him. I think it’s probably just anxiety.”

“Have you been feeling anxious lately?” Dr. Robert wanted to know.

Brian shrugged again. “I guess I worry about my heart and my health, you know, but no more than anyone would in my situation.”

Dr. Robert nodded. “You’ve been through a traumatic experience. It might help to talk to someone about how you’re feeling. I’ll have the transplant social worker get in touch with you.”

Brian didn’t see how talking to the social worker again would help, but he nodded and thanked Dr. Robert anyway. They proceeded with the echocardiogram and chest x-ray, both of which were painless, and then Dr. Robert left Brian to be prepped for his heart biopsy, which was the part he always dreaded most about these check-ups, since it involved the doctor threading a catheter into his heart through a vein in his neck and snipping off bits of heart tissue to be examined under a microscope for signs of rejection.

He was lying flat on the table, wired to a heart monitor and with the sedative already kicking in, when Dr. Robert burst in and said, “So Brian, I was discussing your case with one of my colleagues, and she reminded me that sleepwalking has been linked to arrhythmias. When we’re done here, I’d like to send you home with a Holter monitor, so we can keep an eye on your heart activity for a twenty-four hour period and see if there’s any changes while you’re sleeping.”

By then, Brian was starting to wish he’d never mentioned the dreams.

When he rejoined Kevin in the waiting room later, he was wired with a series of electrodes that attached to a small monitor he wore under his shirt. He had worn a Holter monitor once before, in the days leading up to his diagnosis of heart failure, and although it wasn’t painful, its presence now was a grim reminder of the fear he’d felt then. For the first time since he’d come home from the hospital, Brian was worried about the results of his tests. What if his new heart wasn’t as healthy as he’d thought? He couldn’t bear the thought of going through it all over again.

“You okay, cous?” asked Kevin, looking at him in concern. “That looks like it hurt.” His eyes were focused on the large bandage taped over the puncture wound in Brian’s neck, but that was the least of Brian’s worries.

“Yeah… it’s nothing,” he said vaguely, but a voice in the back of his mind added, You thought the dreams were nothing, too.

***

When he shared Dr. Robert’s concerns with her that afternoon, Becci was understandably upset, but she didn’t need to be. As it turned out, neither of them needed to have worried. When Brian returned to the heart institute just days later to go over the results of his tests, Dr. Robert had only good news to give.

“Everything looked great, Brian,” he said. “No signs of rejection found in the bloodwork or biopsy, and no irregular heart rhythms recorded by the Holter device. Your new heart appears to be functioning just fine.”

“Thank God,” sighed Becci, squeezing Brian’s hand. She had been adamant about accompanying him to this appointment, insisting he schedule it for right after school let out on Friday afternoon. It was a relief to know they’d be able to go home and enjoy the weekend, worry-free.

“In the meantime,” Dr. Robert went on, “I’m going to adjust the dosage of your blood pressure medication, but I would also like you to sit down with Joan, the social worker, to discuss these dreams you’ve been having. If there’s not a medical explanation for your sleepwalking, there may be a psychological one she’ll be able to help you address. She can hook you up with some support groups for transplant recipients or even work with you one on one, if you’re more open to that.”

Brian did not want to sit down with the social worker, but of course, Becci piped right up with, “That sounds wonderful, Dr. Robert, thank you!” He knew then that he would have no say in the matter.

Despite his doubts about seeing the social worker, Brian didn’t hold it against his wife for long. On Valentine’s Day, they put Calhan to bed early and enjoyed a quiet evening to themselves. Becci cooked Brian a delectable dinner, and he gave her his homemade Valentine, the X-ray of his healthy new heart, outlined in red and adorned with the line he’d come up with in the car with Kevin: My old heart belonged to you, and my new one does, too. Beneath it, he’d written, Some things never change. Love you always, Brian. She laughed, then cried, then laughed again and told him she was going to frame it. He suggested they burn off the calories from dinner with a good cardio workout in bed. That night, they made love for the first time in six months.

“Wow,” whispered Becci, once they’d finished and were lying beside each other in bed, both of them breathing hard, their bodies slick with sweat. “You were something else. I didn’t think you’d have that much stamina!”

Propping himself up on one elbow, Brian looked over at her and grinned. “I’ve been saving it up since last summer, babe. That’s a long time to go without sex.”

“Tell me something I don’t know!” she exclaimed without missing a beat, and they both dissolved into giggles.

It felt good to laugh like that, to make his heart race with passion and pleasure, rather than pain or primal fear. As he rolled onto his back, relaxing into the mattress, Brian rested his hand on his bare chest and savored the feel of the strong, steady beats against his palm. His chest felt wonderfully light, like a huge weight had been lifted off it. There was no reason to worry.

But in his dreams, the baby was still screaming, and Brian woke, panic-stricken once again, and waited for his pulse to start pounding.

***