“I haven’t been completely upfront about my return here…” I begin a bit hesitantly. “My situation is not stable and hasn’t been so for a while. That’s the reason why my family and I decided that it was better for me to move back here where I would have a better opportunity of being cared for. We’ve tried a lot of different things but the medicines are not able to keep my symptoms under control.
“The medical tests I’ve taken so far have confirmed that the only thing left to try is an operation, which could help limit my episodes, keep my cardiac activity under control and improve my lifestyle. Another attack could be fatal for me.”
The silence on the other end of the line is interrupted by Rain’s desperate cries.
We have spent many years away from one another and with my disease and her accident, it hasn’t been easy to maintain our friendship. But since I’ve returned to Dublin we have started actively making up for lost time and seeing the fruits of childhood friendship re-blossom. I’ve known her forever and even if she doesn’t remember all of the moments we’ve spent together, it’s not important, because our connection is important and growing daily.
“Calm down, Rain. I am all right, really. I’m fine and will be okay. They will find a solution.”
“Do you promise me?” she asks like a child that needs reassuring.
“Yes, I promise. Nothing is going to happen.”
Seems like Jason isn’t the only one making promises he’s not able to keep. This is not an illness that can be stopped, but rather maintained. I’ve always known that. The problem is I’m not able to control it as I should. The medicines don’t always work as they ought to and I keep getting worse. Many people live with light symptoms their whole lives or are at minimum able to have a semblance of a normal life thanks to the drugs they take, but there are cases, I’ve learned the hard way, where nothing really works enough to make much difference.
I’m one of those.
Now, I’ve got one chance left at trying to maintain as long a life as possible. The operation, which I have held off on until now because I was too young for it, is one my parents and I were always hoping we wouldn’t have to face.
I’ll have to have a defibrillator implanted directly into my chest, which will be able to provide and regulate the necessary heart impulses and keep cardiac activity under control when it’s irregular.
It’s not a risky operation, they tell me, but everyone knows the truth. It’s a heart operation, for God’s sake, of course there’s a risk. What’s more it’s an operation on a heart that already isn’t working too well…The risk is that this too does not solve my problems and that my body does not respond to it or worse, that it rejects the machine. There’s also the risk that I don’t survive the operation.
The risk of losing everything, myself, this life—the only thing I’ve ever known and yet lived it only in the margins, always being alert to risks and always taking care.
Now I’m thinking instead of the life that I’d like to live now, together with the only man I’ve ever loved.
