CHAPTER 46: NURSES CAME IN EVERY HOUR TO CHECK HER ୧⁠(⁠ ⁠˵⁠ ⁠°⁠ ⁠~⁠ ⁠°⁠ ⁠˵⁠ ⁠)⁠୨

The following morning...

Leo didn’t sleep. He sat in the uncomfortable armchair all night... Every twenty minutes, the blood pressure cuff on Sarah’s arm would automatically inflate...

Nurses came in every hour to check her vitals and the IV drip; their gestures were efficient, Leo would nod to them, his eyes filled with exhaustion, before his attention returned to Sarah...

He spent the dark, early hours of the morning on his iPhone. He read everything he could find about dilated cardiomyopathy, about the tests she would undergo, about the realities of the transplant list. He learned about ejection fraction, the measurement of how much blood the left ventricle pumps out with each contraction. A normal heart was 55% or higher. He wondered, with a knot of dread in his stomach, what Sarah’s numbers would be...

He read stories from other patients, their experiences a mixture of fear and hope...

He learned about the strict regimen of post-transplant life...the dozens of pills a day, the frequent biopsies, the constant risk of rejection...

The more he read, the heavier the weight in his chest became, but he didn’t stop. Knowledge was the only weapon he had against the overwhelming sense of helplessness towards Sarah’s case...

When the first orange and red light of dawn filtered through the window, Sarah moved around slowly. She opened her eyes and looked at him, her expression cute and sleepy...

"Babe, you’re still here," she whispered, looking at him.

"Told you I wasn’t going anywhere," he said, his voice rough from lack of sleep. He stood up and stretched, his back aching from the night spent in the chair...

"Did you sleep at all?" she asked.

"A little," he lied though...

Shortly after, her parents arrived too. They looked tired but more composed than yesterday...

Her mother carried a bag filled with Sarah’s toiletries and a few books. Her father carried a tray with three cups of coffee from the hospital cafeteria. He walked over to Leo and held one out to him...

"Here, son," he said, his voice low. "You look like you need it."

"Thank you, sir," Leo said, taking the cup. It was a small gesture, but it felt like much, an acknowledgment of the new role he had taken...

Their morning passed with a new kind of routine...

A nurse came in to help Sarah to the restroom, carefully managing the IV pole. A food service worker brought a breakfast tray with a low-sodium meal that Sarah barely touched...

Around 9:30 a.m., a transporter arrived with a gurney. "Time for your echocardiogram, Mrs Sarah."

Sarah’s anxiety increased immediately. "Can my boyfriend come with me?" she asked, her voice trembling slightly...

The transporter, a friendly older man with a kind smile, nodded. "Of course. Family can come."

Leo stood by her side as they helped her move from the bed to the gurney. Her parents stayed behind, promising to wait in the room. As they wheeled her down the hallway, Leo walked alongside, his hand resting on her arm...

The echocardiogram room was small and dark. A large machine with a complex array of buttons and a monitor stood in the corner...

A female technician with a calm, friendly, and professional demeanor introduced herself and explained the procedure...

"I’m just going to use this probe with some gel to take some pictures of your heart," she said, her voice soothing. "You’ll need to lie on your left side for me. It shouldn’t hurt at all."

Leo helped Sarah get positioned on the narrow bed. The technician dimmed the lights and applied a cold gel to Sarah’s breast...

Then, she pressed the probe against her skin and began to move it around...

On the monitor next to the bed, an image appeared. It was a grainy, black-and-white, moving picture. It took Leo a moment to realize what he was looking at. It was Sarah’s heart...

He saw the chambers contracting and relaxing, the valves opening and closing.

It was hypnotic, but even to his untrained eye, something looked wrong. One of the chambers, the left ventricle he’d read so much about, looked large and ballooned out...

Its contractions seemed weak, sluggish. It wasn’t the strong, forceful beat he imagined a heart should have. It looked weak and tired...

The technician was silent as she worked, her eyes focused on the screen, her fingers typing across the keyboard as she took measurements and saved images...

Leo held Sarah’s hand, his grip tightened. He could see her watching the screen too. She was seeing the physical evidence of her own body’s betrayal, the reason for all her fear and uncertainty...

He saw a single tear trace a path down her temple and into her hair. He reached over and gently wiped it away with his thumb...

The test took about thirty minutes. When it was over, the technician wiped the gel from Sarah’s chest and helped her sit up...

"Dr. Aoki will get the results this afternoon and will come by to discuss them with you," she said with a small smile before the transporter returned to take them back to the room...

The walk back was a little bit quiet. The image of her heart was burned into Leo’s mind.

It made everything real. This wasn’t just a diagnosis or a set of symptoms anymore. It was a physical and visible problem, beating weakly in the chest of the girl he loved and cherished...

Back in the room, Sarah was quiet and withdrawn. Her parents tried to ask about the test, but she just shook her head, not wanting to talk about it...

Leo understood her. He helped her get back into bed and pulled the armchair close again...

"Babe, do you want to watch a movie or something?" he asked, trying to find a distraction.

She shook her head. "Can you just... stay here?"

"Sure, babe," he said.

He sat with her, holding her hand. Her parents, sensing the need for a quiet time, eventually said they were going down to the cafeteria to give them some space...

When they were alone, Sarah finally turned to him, her eyes filled with a deep, painful and weary sadness...

"It looked bad, didn’t it?" she whispered, laughing a little...

Leo didn’t lie. "Yes, Babe, it looked bad," he exclaimed...

She nodded, accepting his answer. "I’m glad you were there with me."

" Babe, I promise, I’m not going anywhere," he repeated, his promise again...

"I know," she said. She squeezed his hand. "Leo... whatever happens... whatever that doctor says... I don’t want you to put your life on hold for me. Your job... You can’t just stop everything."

"Sarah, don’t," he started...

"No, listen," she insisted, her voice gaining a bit of strength. "We have to be realistic. This is going to be... a lot. And I don’t want you to resent me later. I don’t want to be the reason you didn’t finish your projects or build the life you wanted."

He looked at her, at her cute, worried face, and felt a surge of love so powerful it almost took his breath away... (Cringe 😂) Even now, in the midst of her own pain, she was thinking about him...

"The life I want is with you," he added, his voice filled with hope... "Whatever that looks like. If it’s here, in this hospital, for the next few months, then that’s where my life is. If it’s traveling the world after you’re better, then that’s where my life is. My life is wherever you are. That’s the only thing that matters. Everything else is just details we can figure out later."

Tears welled in her eyes again, but this time, a small, genuine smile formed on her lips. "Okay, Babe," she whispered...

He leaned in and kissed her, their saliva mixing together...

Then he pulled away...