The Heart Holder
Rent from DeepDyve- The Heart Holder
It is 7:30 a.m. and my body prickles electric with exhaustion and adrenaline. The surgeon glances at me over his left shoulder: "You ready?" I can see only his eyes and relaxed brow between his face mask and his cloth surgical cap. My answer to his question forces its way out of my mouth, choking my animal impulse to faint or run.
"Yes."
I coax myself into believing that I am ready.
I am the heart holder. I have held forty-eight human hearts. My official title is Cardiovascular Operating Room Support Technician. But my abbreviated title, written on the surgery assignment sheet next to my name, is "heart holder." It is a far more accurate description of what I do. Every morning, the first assistant nurse assigns every member of the surgical team a role in each surgery occurring that day. Today, like most days, my job is to hold the heart.
Years later, when I slip pork loin dinner from its vacuum-sealed pack and hold the chunk over a skillet, my hands ache as if they had never let go. They will forever remember the weight and texture of human life. [End Page 41]
Can you count down from ten for me?
10 … 9 … what really happens while I'm out?
It's okay. My hands are good at their job.
Once the surgery begins and the heart ceases its pumping, I move forward to stand, feet planted in an athletic position, directly to the left of the surgeon. After holding my first heart, this position became muscle memory. With one foot slightly in front of the other, as if I am about to charge forward, I have to find a position I can maintain, without so much as an adjustment, for at least an hour. If I am lucky, I can break in as few as fifteen minutes. Depending on how many coronary arteries the surgeon has to reroute, I repeat these lengths of stillness anywhere from one to four times, like a game of heart surgery freeze tag.
Tag, you're it. Imagine mountains. Imagine silver street mimes. Imagine a house settled in sand.
I must also avoid pressing up against the IV lines that travel from the patient's hand up along the arm, which is tucked beside the body, and toward the hanging bags near the anesthesiologist's head. The sliding metal clamps on the side of the table, used for attaching armrests, can come loose if leaned on. Their location, right above the surgeon's feet, is motive enough to not touch them, not even slightly, not even on accident. I have to be prepared to assume this position at any moment after the surgeon cracks the chest and the heartbeat ebbs to slow-motion convulsion. Before I move into position, I put on cotton gloves over my purple nitrile gloves. Cotton gloves create the friction I need to grasp the slimy exterior of the heart. My own heartbeat compensates, pounding a sporadic tempo on my ribs, as I wait for the surgeon to say those two words: "You ready?"
I am never ready to hold a stranger's heart. To be ready would mean to treat the heart like any other object needing to be held: a wrench, a purse, an open door. To be ready to hold a heart requires a severing of belief from truth that I am unable to achieve. I have to believe I am [End Page 42] holding a replaceable and mundane object, an object that, if dropped or mishandled, will not change anyone's life. I choose to believe that, instead, I am holding a thawing chicken breast, and I reaffirm this belief to myself throughout the surgery.
You are holding raw chicken.
This is not a dead chicken. Don't move. Stop shaking.
This is just a raw chicken breast. Same weight, same texture. Yes, this is chicken. It's chicken.
If you move, Dr. B1 will sigh, whiny and exasperated like he does, and he'll doubt you. This is the heart of...
