“It was good. I’m super tired though. Can we talk about it in the morning?” I rush out, already headed towards the hallway leading to my bedroom.
“Oh,I— I thought you would want to talk about the cute boy?” she asks, confused by my demeanor.
“I do! Raincheck?” I call over my shoulder, feeling guilty as hell for brushing her off but not enough to stop me from running away for the second time tonight.
“Yeah— sure. Love you!” she shouts. I’m halfway down the hallway now, my bedroom door is in sight. I practically sprint the rest of the way there.
“Love you too!” I say right before shutting my bedroom door a little too loudly, jerking from the sound reverberating around the silent room.
I sink down on my bedroom floor, the door to my back, my room coated in darkness. My fingers go up to my pulse point like it’s my lifeline, and in many ways it is.
Thump, thump, thump.
My fingers push in deeper into my skin.Thump, thump, thump.
I don’t understand what’s happening. Was that just a panic attack? Or was it something more. My heart races right along with my mind as I try to unravel what just took place.
I’ve had a panic attack before but it was nothing like that. This was so much more intense and at times I felt like it wasn’t me that was experiencing the pain and panic.Just like my dreams.But how is that possible? I was the one on the side of the road struggling to breathe and tightness consuming my chest.I was the one crying.
I drop my hand from my neck and push up from the floor, heading straight to my computer that’s sitting on my desk in the corner of my room. It only takes a moment for the screen to light up. I pull up the search engine and type:Side effects of a heart transplant
A plethora of results pop up, most of which I’m already familiar with. It’s not like you go into something like this blind. No, there’s endless classes, so many pamphlets I could havelined my entire street with them, not to mention all the research I did on my own.
My eyes frantically scan what I’m looking for, but I don’t see it. I try another search.Unusual side effects from a heart transplant.
Of course, there’s chest tightness, shortness of breath, increased heart rate or bradycardia, all of which I experienced but it felt like so much more than that. It’s just more of the same results. None of it all that unusual considering they take your faulty heart out and replace it with a new one.
I sit back in my chair to think. I don’t even know how to describe what I felt outside of a panic attack and that’s not what it was. I know it was something different, even if I can’t explain it.
Suddenly I sit forward and type on my keyboard:Out-of-body feeling after heart transplant.
There aren’t nearly as many search results as my first two inquiries but there are a few. I click on a link that shows a thread from a kidney transplant recipient.Is it possible to adopt the same likes and dislikes of your organ donor?
This isn’t exactly what I’m looking for but I feel drawn to it, nonetheless. My eyes frantically scan the page.
I had a kidney transplant one year ago and now I suddenly like tomatoes and broccoli, two things I absolutely detested before my surgery. I’m told those were two of my donor’s favorite foods. But it’s not just food, I like the smell of cinnamon now which I was indifferent to before, but my donor loved because it reminded her of fall which was her favorite season. I also feel different. Like sometimes my body isn’t my own or reactions I have don’t feel like mine. Does any of this make sense to someone? I’ve tried talking to my doctors, but they shrug it off as though it’s nothing and maybe it is. But sometimes I feel like I’m going crazy. I feel like my donor has ahold on my body that I can’t explain and can’t control. Someone please tell me I’m not going crazy.
My breath hitches and my lungs seize. I scroll up and look at the date of the post. Three years ago. Then I quickly scroll past her passage to see if there are any replies, there are, but only a few.
My eyes snag on one comment and then just one phrase.Cellular memory.
I toss the phrase around in my mind for a few seconds. The commenter goes on to say that scientists theorize that the cells from the donor actually contain memory and can influence the recipient either through memories, taste or personality traits.
What the hell?Is this dude saying people have entire personality changes?
My pulse picks up as I quickly open up another browser tab and type the phrase in. There’s much more information on cellular memory. I gulp when page after page comes up. I don’t know how to make sense of what I’m reading, though.
Cellular memory is a well-provenscientific process. But there’s nothing here about how those cells behave when they are literally pulled from one body and placed in another. Is it possible that whatever I’m feeling is all stemming from my donor heart?
That can’t really be possible can it? I switch back to the thread tab and keep reading. There are a few other accounts of weird taste changes or suddenly liking smells that all seemed to be linked to donors, at least superficially. There’s nothing describing what I felt, like my body was out of my control.
I haven’t had any cravings that would be out of the ordinary or really anything weird.Besides the dreams of a little girl and her best friend that seem so familiar but you've never met them in your life.I swallow thickly as I remember the episode in the ice cream shop and how I reacted at the smell of orange creamsoda. My stomach twists uncomfortably. But just the same as the panic attack this evening, the events involvedfeelingsmore than anything else.
It isn’t as though I now love orange cream soda when I didn’t before. No, it was more like I was transported to an entirely different place than the little shop onMain Street. I could feel warmth on my face and I was happy. Which is so unlike the feelings I had tonight.
Is it possible that somehow all of this is related to whoever my donor was?
I toss the questions around in my head. But the thing is I have no idea who gave me their heart. And there’s no way to answer those questions without knowing.
