Dry Heat

The Flowers

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by Shannon Fernando

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            I sit in my milk-stained La-Z-Boy recliner in the corner of the living room, hugging the warm, solid body of my son as he sleeps. It is morning, another beautiful day in sunny Arizona, and I am terrified. In a few minutes, we will leave for the hospital for what will hopefully be my last surgery. It is two and a half years after my mastectomy, and I am finally having reconstruction.

Steve enters the room and pauses when he sees us. He smiles slightly, acknowledging the tender moment. Then he takes in my face, and the smile falters.

            “What is it?” he asks softly, not wanting to wake our son. He approaches us and I obligingly stop rocking so he can perch on the arm of the chair.

            “I’m scared,” I whisper. Steve eyes me earnestly, though I can see he doesn’t understand. Steve views this surgery as a rebirth of sorts, something to be celebrated. My perspective is simpler: what if I don’t wake up? The surgery is a long one, over ten hours, and the entire procedure will be done under a microscope, a demanding task for even the most experienced surgeons.

            Steve takes Jacob from me and lays him in the playpen near the window. Kneeling before me, he places his hands on my legs.

“Babe, you don’t have to do this,” he says. “I love you. And I love your scars. They’re proof that you fought and won, and if you never have reconstruction, I will still think you’re the most beautiful, smartest, bravest woman in the world. If you’re going to do this, it has to be for you. Not for me, not for anyone else. Just for you.” His thumb wipes the silent tears that fall from my burning eyes. “It’s not too late to cancel,” he adds gently.

He looks into my eyes, and I feel my strength returning, the warmth pricking at my heart, flooding my body in a rush. As scared as I am, I have wanted this for a long time. I had done my homework and trusted my own judgment through all of my cancer treatment, and it had not yet led me astray. I would continue to trust myself.

            I press my lips together and nod shortly. “Let’s do this.” Not wanting to disturb Jacob, I leave him to his nap, stroking his dark hair in farewell. We go to the kitchen, where my parents sit at the dinette with their steaming cups of coffee. I hug them both. My mother strokes my hair, just as I had Jacob’s.

            “We’ll see you in a couple of days,” Mom says. I glance toward the living room. Mom reads my thoughts. “He’ll be fine,” she reassures me. I nod and kiss her cheek, and Steve and I leave for the hospital.

            Thirty-six hours later, I struggle toward awareness. My first lucid thought is that the business of waking is exhausting, and I want to go back to sleep. My second thought is that I feel ill. The moment I think it, I am sick. The involuntary contraction of muscles pulls at the wound where the surgeon harvested the transplanted tissue. It stretches, red and raw, from hip to hip, setting my entire abdomen afire with each movement. I spend two wholly miserable days in the intensive care unit, vomiting from the anesthesia, in pain from the vomiting, suffering migraines from the anti-nausea medication. The room is kept at an unbearable 85 degrees to encourage blood flow to the transplanted tissue, and nurses interrupt my tenuous moments of rest every hour. Surely this is a dream, I think. I pray for wakefulness.

“Why did I do this to myself?” I ask, knowing that Steve is there, but I am so consumed by my own wretchedness that I don’t hear his response.

Finally, on day three, I am aware of something besides pain and sickness. I am hungry. The nausea has at long last subsided, taking with it the headaches and the excruciating wrenching of my tender stomach. I am moved out of intensive care and placed on the ward. Shortly after I am settled in my new room, my parents arrive.

“Where’s Jacob?” I immediately ask, not even taking the time to greet them. Mom and Dad smile as one and turn to the door. My eyes follow theirs, and my three-year-old son toddles into the room. His face wears an expression of fierce independence, and his chubby fingers clutch a small wicker basket of lovely purple flowers. “Mama!” he cries, proudly holding out his gift. He can’t reach me, so Steve lifts him to my eye level.

            I am crying, deeply touched by my son’s obvious desire to make me happy. I take the basket and exclaim properly over the flowers. I want to clutch Jacob to me, but the surgical wounds are prohibitive. Steve knows me well. He gestures to my mother, who takes the flowers and arranges the basket prettily on the rolling bedside table. Steve lifts Jacob and nestles him gently next to me in the bed.

            “Mommy has ouchies,” he explains, “so you can hug her, but you have to be very, VERY careful.” Obligingly, Jacob places his little hand on my arm and pats me, pressing his cheek softly against my shoulder. Steve raises the bar on the side of the bed so Jacob can’t roll out. Comforted by the presence of my loved ones, fatigued by emotion and recovery, I drift to sleep with a smile on my face. I am no longer afraid.