I'm Not Dead... Yet! (29 page)

All the broken bones, the ‘stunts gone bad’—a car once driving over my legs in a get away scene—I never knew pain. Until now.

The ‘Pulling of the Tubes’
(like its counterpart, ‘The Running of the Bulls’) may still go on at some archaic hospitals, but I doubt the procedure is the same. Now they have made it
easier
on the patient. But just in case,
you should know and be ready for it
. Ask the doctors and nurses to explain exactly what they are going to do when they take out your drainage tubes and make sure you tell them you do not want to feel excruciating pain—ask for pain medication.

Hour after hour, I got stronger and stronger. I even walked the stairs. I needed to convince my doctors I was ready to go home: I wanted ‘out! I wanted to begin anew—immediately.’

But before I left the hospital, I went back to the ICU to check on ‘Amy.’

Amy had died.

I wanted to go home,
but the reality of leaving the safety net of UCLA hospital four days post open-heart surgery was scary. I would be free of hospital 24/7 fluorescent lights, endless noise, and professional caretakers—no matter how well meaning—poking me every two hours day and night. Yet going home meant being on our own. Would we know how to handle a real problem? What might go wrong, and what is normal?

First I had to put on my street clothes. They had been in a plastic bag for only a few days but they seemed foreign, as if they were from another lifetime. I didn’t want any help; Karla understood with just quick eye contact. Completing each simple task, pulling up my pants, tying my shoes, getting into my T-shirt, was painful, but became a personal triumph.

At 28 I didn’t look like the typical open-heart patient: there was color in my face and I gave the impression of being spry and limber. So when a volunteer came with the wheelchair asking if Robby was ready to leave the hospital, I turned to Karla and said, “Robby, no matter how good you feel, you have to get into the wheelchair. Really... It’s a hospital rule—don’t be stubborn!” The volunteer agreed with me, and after a few beats (just long enough to get a laugh but short enough so that no one felt stupid or manipulated) I finally gave in, sat in the wheelchair holding a pillow against my chest, and off we went. We were leaving the cocoon of safety and rolling back into the real world.

The drive home was awkward. I wasn’t used to being out of control. I wasn’t used to being a passenger in my own car. After open-heart surgery you’re not allowed to drive for six weeks. This was the beginning of a learning curve: ‘How to give up control and trust others—especially the woman you love.’ That didn’t mean I wasn’t the most obnoxious GPS ever invented: “Slow down, turn right, prepare to merge, you’re driving too fast…” (It took me three more surgeries to accept Karla doing the driving.)

I kept the pillow against my chest to protect my newly-wired sternum and fresh wound from the pressure of the seatbelt. Using a pillow to support the chest is something all open-heart patients need. A laugh is painful, and a sneeze without a pillow is excruciating—so a pillow went with me everywhere for the first few weeks.

On November 23, 1984, I was watching the Boston College game when Doug Flutie threw his famous Hail Mary pass for a touchdown in the end zone. I jumped up and down cheering him on at the top of my lungs and almost opened my incision. I grabbed a pillow, held it tightly against my chest, and continued to celebrate for Flutie. I was watching a
Saturday Night Live
parody of the massively successful Jane Fonda Workout. (Even tiny Lyric would exercise along with Karla, crying “More Jane Fonda!” when the tape ended.) The skit was the ‘Henry Fonda Workout.’ In the poorest taste, they had a coffin opening and closing, with a voice sounding like Ms. Fonda saying, “Yes! Make it burn!” Maybe it was the drugs, or maybe it was just funny—but thank goodness for the pillow…

During the first two weeks at home I would I get night sweats so badly Karla had to change the soaking wet sheets as I shook from the chills like a bobble-head doll. As soon as I’d changed, and Karla brought extra blankets, the cycle started all over again. Maybe it was my body working overtime trying to deal with my healing heart and sternum. I found out later many open-heart patients have night sweats. Research has shown it may be an after-effect of the Heart Lung machine. Night sweats can be a symptom of an infection, which is serious for any open-heart patient, particularly one with valve replacement. My temperature was normal—no fever, no infection. But all I had to do was lean down to rest and it was as if I had an altimeter that triggered water to pour from my pores—and the next thing I knew I was completely soaked and shivering, trying to understand (like a five year-old) ‘when is this going to stop?’

I remember, as will many of the readers, the first time I went into the bathroom and stared—truly just stared—at my scar. Many open-heart patients remember the moment when we come face-to-torso with reality. It can come at any time, but for me, this was my moment when I just stared blankly at my scar in our bathroom mirror. This was the bathroom I wrote
Modern Love
in because we made a beautiful little bedroom for Lyric in the only other room in the house. As scars go, it was definitely not a ‘cool’ scar. I had plenty of those, with great stories from each stunt in a film that sent me to the E.R. But this scar was very different. It was a thick vertical ropey line of crusted blood. There were two more smaller scars, each a slit about an inch long. These were horizontal and were almost symmetrically placed above my belly-button. These scars were from the drainage tubes. Unfortunately, instead of making peace with the fact that someone had saved my life and now I was facing a different phase in my life, I looked at my scars and too many questions began swirling around as if someone had done a CGI moment and you could actually see hundreds of questions with question marks that were luminous in bright orange colors—the type of orange I learned to hate from medicine I took as a kid. These questions were whizzing around and around my head and my gut. Am I going to scare children? Will Karla be grossed out when we’re together and pretend that everything is actually alright? Why am I not proud of this scar? I’m a guy, scars are cool. This scar was a sign of weakness. Was I really that backward? Do little children know to be scared of these wounds or will Lyric accept me as I am?

Whoa, I needed to get past this self-inflicted, indulgent vulnerability at once. Now, I thought. as I looked at myself in the mirror—it must go away—whoa—holy cow—my nipples are… askew. Askew? Nipples? Is it possible? Was one higher than the other? This can’t be. I think they put me back together again worse than Humpty-Dumpty. My right nipple was higher than my left. Or was it the opposite? Whose opinion could I get? I thought… No one! If it were true, what could I do about it? Nothing. I would never have any kind of plastic surgery for narcissistic reasons. And who would I ask? Karla? We were just married a couple of years ago. Now we had a baby. What am I going to do, come out of the bathroom and ask her if my right nipple is higher than my left nipple? Who would do such a thing?

“Karla,” I shouted. She was my wife but she was also my best friend. She was the only person to ask and to trust.

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“My right nipple is higher than my left nipple, isn’t it?”

She never made me feel foolish. It was as if she understood immediately and wanted to be honest and at the same time put me at ease. We stared at my torso for about five minutes.

Finally she said, “I don’t know, but it’s kind of sexy.”

She kissed me and we talked, but I tried to stay away from anything that was winey or indulgent. Then I told her I was going to take a shower and I would put plastic over my wound so it didn’t get wet, per my hospital orders. She asked if I needed help but I explained that this is the kind of thing that must become second nature and I needed to deal with it on my own. So, with the kind of kiss I remember to this day, she left me to my own devices. (Bad call…)

Now my scar became an enemy—another hurdle to clear and my next thoughts came from my show business side of the brain. Which side of the brain is that? The one that begins in your ass: How would I ever hide this scar from the cameras? Was there a make-up artist on the planet who could take the scar away? I was so ashamed of my real feelings.

When Karla left the house to run a quick errand, I grabbed the keys to our other car and even though I wasn’t supposed to drive for another five weeks, I drove to a make-up store in the San Fernando Valley called ‘Frends Beauty Supply’. Every make-up artist that I knew had always used Frends so I went to the store to see if they had make-up to cover scars. I was given about six different bases and cremes and pastes and I bought them all. I didn’t have time to waste—I had to get back home before Karla got back from her errand. And I did. I went into the bathroom as if I were going to shower and then locked the door. Secretly, I tried to come up with the best solution to hide the scar. Hide it not only physically, but mentally—this never happened. But what
did
happen was that out of every combination of make-ups only one worked: ‘mellow-yellow.’ This seemed to blend in with my skin tone and somewhat hide the scar.

Water was not supposed to touch the still slightly open and scabby ‘scar,’ yet now I had to remove every drop of make-up given to me by experts, on a wound that was still oozing and healing. I gently used make-up remover but that didn’t work. So, I got out the peroxide and poured half the bottle on my chest. I let the bubbles foam up and finally I wiped away most of the make-up. But even that didn’t work. I grabbed the bottle of rubbing alcohol from under the sink, took a deep breath and put a towel in my mouth to bite down on and then proceeded to splash the bottle of rubbing alcohol, on the oozing wound. The sting, the pain was almost laughable compared to what I had been through. The only thing I was worried about was infection. So, I emptied the alcohol bottle on my open wound, and with the help of some gauze, I got all of the mellow-yellow out of my scar.

I finally showered (ironically, with plastic covering my scar). But washing my hair was
orgasmic
. What a luxury, I thought—and then laughed at all of the things we do on a daily basis that were now heavenly to me: being with Karla; going to the fridge to get a snack; walking outside and feeling the sun on my face…

One of the highs of show business
is when the phone rings unexpectedly with good news. I was still in pain and self conscious about my wound bleeding through my shirt when we received a phone call from Karla’s producer, David Anderle. Karla’s album for A&M Records,
Wake ’Em Up In Tokyo,
had not yet been completed and David asked if we’d be interested in writing a spec song for the soundtrack of the new John Hughes film.
This was just what I needed; a chance for us to focus on a fun musical assignment. Keith Forsey was overseeing the soundtrack and invited us to the editing room to meet the iconic Mr. Hughes and watch an early cut of a dance montage, shot to an electronic click track. Suddenly, I felt that I had purpose. Life in the arts was not over for me; I had hope.

When we got home I couldn’t sleep. Lyrics and music literally poured out of me (even with the night sweats!). By the time we got into the studio, Karla had a blast blasting it out vocally, and it did what a song
should
do in a film: it energized the moment and moved the narrative forward. Mr. Hughes loved it. Karla sings “We Are Not Alone,” the moment in
The Breakfast Club
when the kids finally connect and dance in the library.

My music ‘got out there.’ Karla DeVito sang our song. What more could any songwriter want?

We were the first in our peer group
to have a baby; fortunately, Karla’s mom Vivienne flew to L.A. and was ready, willing, and able to help us fill in the blanks. But, when it came to open-heart surgery, there were no family members or friends to call on to discuss the feeling of inadequacy; no one to talk to; no one to reason with; no mentor or expert to help get me through a topic even the doctors didn’t like discussing: What happens after open-heart surgery?