A Brush of Wings (26 page)

M
ARY CATHERINE KNEW SHE
was alive and not in heaven, because the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was Marcus Dillinger.

“Hey.” He moved closer, his hand on her arm. “There they are. Those beautiful eyes.”

She tried to move, but she couldn’t. Where was she? What was happening? Her eyes darted around the room and suddenly she understood. She was in a hospital bed, attached to a number of machines. Worst of all she had a tube in her mouth. She wanted to talk, wanted to ask him where she was and how she had gotten here, but it was impossible.

Marcus seemed to understand. “It’s okay. You’re in Los Angeles at Cedars-Sinai. Intensive Care Unit. We’ve been here two days.”

Mary Catherine felt her eyes grow wide. Two days? She shook her head, confused, her eyes locked on his.

“I went to the orphanage and brought you home.” He searched her face. “Do you remember that?”

She thought for a moment. Yes, she remembered. He had carried her to a Jeep and taken her to the airport. And then another airport and another. The details were hazy, but she remembered. He had stayed beside her the whole time.

“Your parents are here. They flew in an hour before we did.” He smiled. “They’re in the waiting room. I’ll get them in a few minutes.”

Her parents were here, too? She felt terrible that they’d found out the news like this, in the middle of a crisis. She blinked back tears. But at least they were here. She would see them again, after all.

Mary Catherine touched the tube in her mouth and the one in her arm. Again she cast a questioning look at Marcus.

“They’re helping you breathe.” He looked concerned. “You could barely take in oxygen when we got here.” He looked her over. “You’re on several medications. Something to take fluid off your heart and lungs. I’m not sure of the rest.” He ran his thumb along her brow. “Your fever’s been down for a full day.”

Her fever.
I was burning up. I couldn’t stop shivering.
Suddenly Mary Catherine remembered how it all happened. She woke up sick on Sunday morning and tried to send an email to Sami. Before she could put any more of the pieces together, Dr. Cohen entered the room.

“You’re awake!”

“She woke up ten minutes ago.” Marcus took hold of Mary Catherine’s hand and leaned back in his chair. “She wants to talk, but she can’t. The tube in her mouth.”

Mary Catherine nodded.

“Very well.” Dr. Cohen checked a few of the machines. “She’s only on a very partial assist. Let’s take her off the breathing tube and see how she does. Her fluid’s way down, so that should help.”

He called for a nurse and the two of them worked to remove the tube from Mary Catherine’s mouth. When they were finished, Dr. Cohen stood beside her; he seemed to study the rise and fall of her chest. “How do you feel?”

Mary Catherine coughed a few times. Her throat felt like sandpaper from the tube. Marcus helped her take a few sips of water and she coughed again. But after that she found a scratchy voice. “Better.”

“I’ll bet.” Dr. Cohen took hold of her bedrail and stared down at her. “We pulled volumes of water off your heart. More than I’ve ever seen on a patient who lives through it.” He lowered his brow. “I’ll never understand how you survived the trip home. Each flight puts pressure on the heart as it is. But in your condition?” He shook his head. “You must have someone watching out for you.”

Marcus grinned. “Dr. Cohen said I’m your bodyguard.” He looked from the doctor back to Mary Catherine. “I told him God needed more than a bodyguard to get you home. He must’ve given you a whole team of angels.”

“I like that. A whole team of angels.” Mary Catherine’s voice still sounded weak. But she wasn’t wheezing. That alone made her feel like she could walk out of the hospital without any help. “My breathing’s so much better. It’s amazing.”

“I’m glad.” He sighed and pulled a clipboard from the counter behind him. “The reality is you’re very sick, Mary Catherine. Your heart is finished. You need an immediate heart transplant. I moved you to the critical list. Even so it could be months . . . or not at all.”

Mary Catherine nodded. None of this was a surprise, but it still hurt. Hearing the reality that her heart had given up.

“So what happened?” Dr. Cohen looked from her chart back to her. “What made you realize you needed to get home?”

“The fever, most of all. You told me that was a danger sign.” Mary Catherine was glad for Marcus’s hand in hers. He gave her strength without saying a word.

“It’s a very bad sign.” Dr. Cohen looked over her chart. “Your heart’s not only very sick, it’s infected. Another reason it’s time.”

“But”—it was the first time Marcus had interjected—“you said there wasn’t a heart available.”

Dr. Cohen nodded. He looked at Mary Catherine a long time, the way a father might look at his troublesome daughter. “I have a question for you, Mary Catherine.”

“Yes, sir?” She was nervous, wondering where this was headed.

“Do you want to live?” He crossed his arms. “When you went to Uganda, basically against my orders, I wasn’t sure.”

“You weren’t sure?” She felt her heart beat harder. She squeezed Marcus’s hand, her attention still on the doctor. “Yes, of course I want to live. I just . . . Uganda was a dream for me.”

“Okay, then.” Dr. Cohen exhaled. “I’m glad to hear that. Because you have to want to live if you’re going to fight the battle ahead.”

“I’m ready.” She felt terrible. Was that how she’d come across to Dr. Cohen? Like she didn’t want to live? It was the exact opposite. She’d gone to Africa because she
did
want to live.

She focused on the doctor.
Help me listen, Lord. I’m ready to fight for my life. Really, I am.

“Here’s what I’d like to do.” Dr. Cohen pulled a brochure from Mary Catherine’s file. “This is a different kind of heart transplant. A mechanical one. I believe it could save your life.” Dr. Cohen handed her the brochure. “Take a look. It’s called a left ventricular assist device.”

“The LVAD!” Mary Catherine remembered now. “You wrote me an email about it, telling me to come home and get to your office to be tested. In case I was now a candidate for the LVAD.”

For a moment no one spoke.

“I never sent an email.” Dr. Cohen’s brow knit together. “I haven’t told you about it until just now. Someone must really want you to get better, because this brochure kept showing up. And even though I’ve known about the LVAD all along, you were never a good candidate because diabetics don’t do well with this device. Now, though, your blood sugar is fully normal. That’s the only reason it could work.”

“You did email me.” Mary Catherine could easily find his letter on her laptop. “You told me the LVAD could possibly work in my situation. That it could buy me eight years or ten even.”

“Mary Catherine.” The doctor looked beyond confused. “I didn’t send you an email.”

“I’ll show you later.” She didn’t want to argue. How else would she know about the device? “So you think I’m a candidate for it now?”

“I do. Now that your fever is gone, we can operate first thing in the morning. The situation is . . . dire, Mary Catherine. I can’t express that enough.”

She handed the brochure to Marcus and kept her attention on Dr. Cohen. “Can you tell me more about it? How it works?”

“Definitely.” Dr. Cohen explained that the device was like an artificial heart. It would piggyback on a person’s failing heart and take over the work of the left ventricle. Then it would continue to work until a donor heart could be found. “Some people have lived nearly normal lives for eight or ten years on an LVAD. On rare occasions we’ve even seen a heart recover completely. So that the need for a transplant is eliminated.”

Mary Catherine felt stronger just listening to the man. “What does it look like?”

“Well.” Dr. Cohen used his hands to show the size of a small apple. “It’s not very large and it runs on a battery. You’ll have a driveline from the device through your chest wall. The wire will run from the exit site on your chest to the battery pack, which you’ll have to wear all the time.” He paused. “The pack has to be charged while you sleep, so you’ll need to be near an electrical outlet for at least ten hours each day.”

Not ideal,
Mary Catherine thought.
But doable.
“What about the rest of the time?”

“Again, you can live a fairly normal life. We have LVAD patients who exercise and ride bikes. The only thing you really can’t do is get pregnant or swim. You can’t get the exit site wet. A nurse will teach you how to shower so it stays dry.”

No swimming. Mary Catherine blinked back the sting of tears.

“It’s okay.” Marcus’s whisper was only loud enough for her to hear. He gave her hand a soft squeeze. She pictured herself in the waves off Santa Monica Beach, swimming with the dolphins. “No swimming . . . ever?”

“Not until you get a transplant—or the device is removed. That could be a while.”

Mary Catherine nodded. And the other . . . she couldn’t get pregnant. That was fine. But it raised a question she hadn’t thought about before. “I shouldn’t get pregnant while I’m using the LVAD. I get that, but what about later? After I have the transplant?”

Dr. Cohen nodded. “It’s a little more complicated, but we’ve had much success with women having normal pregnancies and deliveries after a heart transplant.”

A surge of hope ran through Mary Catherine’s veins. “And I’ll stay on the list the whole time?”

“You will. Like I said, in rare cases a person is actually healed while using an LVAD. It’s something we don’t quite understand yet. It could happen—though I wouldn’t count on it.”

“Okay, then. That’s all I need to know.” She swallowed, wincing at the pain in her throat. “I’m ready.” Mary Catherine smiled at Marcus and then back at Dr. Cohen. “Let’s get this done.”

Days ago, Mary Catherine was certain she’d be in heaven in a matter of hours. She couldn’t breathe or walk or do anything to stop the way her body ached. Today she could breathe without wheezing, and she’d just been given something she hadn’t thought she’d have again.

Hope.

Francesca Battistelli’s song came to mind, the one she loved so much. The song was called “Hundred More Years” and it talked about living life to the fullest, holding on to precious moments. Even as a person longed for a hundred more years of this wonderful life. Suddenly the song didn’t just apply to regular people, people without defective hearts.

It applied to her.

MARY CATHERINE SLEPT
much of the day, but every time she woke Marcus was there, right beside her. Holding her hand or watching her, making sure she was okay. Other times her parents were in the room, one on either side of her bed.

The first time Mary Catherine saw her mother, she began to cry. Her mom was at her side immediately. “Shhh.” She kissed Mary Catherine’s cheek. “Don’t cry. We’re not upset.”

“I’m sorry.” She looked to her dad also. “I should’ve told you.”

Her dad took her hand. “Honey, we love you so much. All that matters is you’re home. And you’re getting help.”

Tears slid down Mary Catherine’s face. “Thank you.” She felt tired again, her eyes barely able to stay open. “I love you both.”

After that, she slept most of the afternoon. Before dinner, her parents, Sami, and Tyler came to visit.

It was the first time Mary Catherine had sat up in bed all day. Normally a patient in ICU could only have one visitor at a time. But because of Mary Catherine’s surgery in the morning, Dr. Cohen had made an exception. Sami’s eyes welled up the moment they saw each other.

“You crazy girl, keeping all this a secret.” Sami came to Mary Catherine’s side and hugged her, careful not to disturb the wires and IV tubes. “Thank God you’re here.”

“Because of Marcus.” She looked at him, still amazed. Then she remembered the letter to Sami. Her eyes found her friend again. “So you got my email? The one where I told you about my heart?”

“And that you wanted to come home.” Sami’s concern flashed in her eyes. “I called Marcus right away.” She looked at Marcus and back to Mary Catherine. “Three hours later, he was on a plane.”

“I was so sick. I remember writing the email.” She hesitated, thinking about that early morning. “I feel like I passed out before I sent it.”

Marcus stood at her side. He took her hand in his again. “Maybe Ember sent it. She said she got you from your bed to the main building.”

Mary Catherine tried to imagine how that was possible. Ember didn’t look strong enough to carry her. “I’ll have to call and thank her. As soon as I’m better.”

“I’m just glad you’re here. However it all happened.” Tyler stepped up. “We want you up there with us when we get married.”

Tears blurred Mary Catherine’s eyes. She hadn’t thought she’d ever see these two again. And now here they were talking about the wedding. Like she was any other normal, healthy girl.

“I have so much to tell you.” Sami ran her hand over Mary Catherine’s arm. “Lexy is living with me now.”

“What?” Mary Catherine wanted to jump from the bed. “That’s wonderful.” She hesitated. “It is wonderful, right?”

Sami gave a quick version of what happened. “I told her she could stay until she had the baby. You and I would talk about things after that.”