In the big hospital of delta city, The mother of one of the prominent cardiothoracic surgeon,Eddy was coming out of her anesthesia after a successful heart transplant. It was a miracle that a heart had arrived from a donor. As her senses began to work, she was aware of doctors and nurses, and the activities around her. They appeared blurry as if she was in a dream. It was a dream, a beautiful, real one, where she received a second chance in life. Her eyeballs were moving beneath the closed lids that seemed to hang heavily on to her drugged state. The lashes moved, with gentle tremors, as if conversing with each other, agreeing and disagreeing, Is eddy ready to start a new life? So how is she going to be with someone else’s heart? The other body parts of eddy were gradually waking up; they had a new heart to pump blood for them! Eddy’s kidneys, liver, and other parts were happier, as if confident that they could pull their host with a better and longer life. After all, the old heart had been sick with a failed stent and blockages of the arteries. It was time then for Lily’s heart, X to get fully involved.

“Hello,” said the X to eddy’s other organs. “I hope to have a good life with you all and keep eddy well and alive for her son. After all, we, the body parts have to keep up with her well being to keep the soul with us.”

“Aye, aye.” Said all the other body parts of eddy. Some of them were slower to respond to the arrival of another heart in the body. There was immense harmony in all of them as they began working together. It was as if eddy, herself was getting a new job and fitting into the new workplace.

************

After a few more hours of eddy’s heart transplant, her senses cleared and the effect of the anesthesia wore off. She opened her eyes to find her handsome, selfless son, Dr Mike dressed in a plain-looking clothes with a stethoscope around the neck, staring down at her from the seat on which he was sitting. The sight of her son jolted eddy's memory like sudden thunders. Oh yes, she had prayed for this day, to wake up knowing she may live longer with a new heart, the heart she had been waiting for had arrived. She had been sick for such a long time.

Eddy held her son's hand, and her gratefulness clung on an unknown person, the original owner of the heart that was beating in her chest. Had any one of the two women any idea of how fate would bring two bodies together through a miracle for one and a tragedy for the other? Eddy’s eyes traveled around her hospital bed, the tubes that hung surrounded her, her legs were propped up at the end of the bed, plastered and her chest felt like a thousand stones. Then her eyes closed, she fell asleep, the painkillers and weariness sweeping her under huge waves. But before all that, she felt the soft lips of the Dr mike kiss her on her forehead.

***

Inside eddy body, her organs were going along with their usual functions. ‘Indeed my original host’s wishes had come true!’ Thought X, Lily’s heart, then working in eddy's body.

X had its own thoughts, and wondered if the Creator knew of this second life before sending with eddy. Do the humans challenge the Creator’s will with their science and technology? X wondered more, “Will I have a third human body to serve?..

Lol that's funny!

Just then Dr Mike was walking out of the rehabilitation hospital room lost in thoughts of the myths and fact about getting a heart transplant or having someone's else heart in you to power the organs, Brain inclusive.... He was however happy the operation was successful.

"I did it again, I'm indeed the raptor" he said smiling when he realized this was h

The eleventh heart transplant surgery he had performed successfully since he had became a cardiothoracic surgeon.

*************

His First Time Operating as an Intern Was Eye-Opening

What’s it like to be on the other side of fear? He had thought.

Dr Mike have never been ‘on the table’ in surgery. He really could not empathize, but he was endlessly curious about it. As a doctor in training in the U.S, he considered it only from a professional perspective. As much as he would like first-hand knowledge, he fear the loss of control over himself.

What is more, I’ve seen the movie ‘Awake’. Certain visuals are so hard to erase from one’s mind!

Despite all the movies featuring surgery,and knowledge he had assimilated and gained over the years in the medical school, he never imagined that anyone could be brought up to such a fragile state of being.

TV screens don’t do humanity justice. They make us seem too ‘fixable’, and downplay our risk of death. It’s almost a systematic desensitization, seeing your fellow humans bleeding out while you’re on the couch, your eyes glued onto the display. With the movies nowadays engaging in such explicit

yet unrealistic

content, it’s hard not to be fooled by the idea that sucker punches and knife-stabbings are easy from which to recover.

But is it, really, the same in real life? Has the ‘scalpel please’ line become so commonplace that we no longer associate it with the incision that can make the difference between life and death? This he thought years back

It was 7 a.m. on a morning. He was already at the hospital, attending his internship in the emergency room and cardiothoracic surgery department. He had chosen this specialty because it offers both the clinical and surgical experience, which is great for someone trying to explore their options. At that moment, he wasn’t sure if cardiology dept would be something he wanted to pursue in the future, but he was trying to keep an open mind and wait for something interesting to happen and spark his curiosity....he however remembered his father had died of myocardial perforation, and his mum was having a heart failure which was undetectable .. "maybe if I were a cardiothoracic surgeon I'd save my mum's life and most probably have given my dad a new life" he thought and this was a motivation for him to study cardiology and thoracotomy.

As an intern, what he can or cannot do depends on the doctor supervising him. If there’s enough time in their schedule, he can even talk with the patients and work on his history-taking and clinical examination skills. If not, he would usually attend consultations and surgeries.

All the surgeries were being scheduled early, which was so painful due to the lack of sleep he was suffering from.

What can you do, though? A padawan never complains!

A patient was already waiting for him in the operating room. The case was a classic ENT procedure: nasal septum deviation. He had watched enough of these cases. However, he never imagined how awfully different the perspective could become.

Usually, this type of surgery is pretty basic. Doctors in the ENT department call it ‘the bread and butter of the surgeon’ since there isn’t a day that passes by without squeezing a quick septoplasty into the already busy schedule. These cases last about an hour, and the recovery is also pretty smooth. Not that big of a deal if you think.

The procedure doesn’t require more than two people: the primary attending surgeon and the assistant surgeon

in this case, a resident

. That morning, the resident was out of the office. When this happens, a nurse can take their place. Even though there was a nurse available at the moment, still he heard:

‘Scrub in and come help me!’

DO WHAT???

His eyes, struggling to stay open at that excruciating painful hour, suddenly were wide open. His ears couldn’t guide the sound any faster to my brain for it to process those few words that weren’t making any sense.

Me? To play the role of an assistant surgeon? How is that even possible?

Interns are usually allowed to come close to the operating table if they want to. What shocked me was that he wasn’t coming close to the table. He was being asked to take part in the whole process!

This thing rarely happens, because there’s a huge amount of responsibility that falls on doctors’ shoulders if students fail. Given that, one has to be really good in order to receive such a great opportunity. At the time, he didn’t think he was worthy.

He didn’t have a lot of time to reflect on the situation. Actually, he didn’t have any at all. The next moment, he was washing his hands, putting on his mask, cap, gloves, and gown. You could say he was ready to enter the O.R.

And he did. With both fear and curiosity pounding in his chest, I’ve positioned myself strategically opposite the surgeon. She was that fearless woman, so good at her job that she made him forget there was still a world outside of the room they were in. For the moment, nothing else mattered.

It was us against a deviated septum.

He never knew that an hour could last more than 60 minutes. Or at least, that it can feel like a whole day of hard work. For him, this hour felt as though it would never end.

The level of adrenaline that was pumping through his body must have been through the roof. He constantly thought that he might do something wrong, putting the patient’s life at risk.

There were moments when he had to use a hammer in order to help the doctor shape the nasal cartilage. Those were the scariest memories since he had to use both force and precision. We didn’t want to leave the poor man without a nose.

He also helped with the sutures, aspiration, and other chores he could manage to perform with the little knowledge he possessed. Although he felt utterly overwhelmed, somehow, he managed to get himself together and take it to an end.

At the end of the surgery, his hands, and a great part of his own gown were covered in blood. Another human being’s blood.

As he was changing clothes and throwing out the surgical equipment, still trying to process the entire event he took part in, the surgeon came next to him. She confessed she forgot during the surgery that he wasn’t a resident. She expected from me what she would’ve expected from them. She apologized and asked me if he will give up surgery for good because of this incident.

He told her that it had been the most real thing he had ever managed to experience. And he truly meant it. What is more, he have learned something new.

He could see what’s it like to be on the other side of fear: there’s fear there, too, until you turn it into strength.

Since that day, ENT has become a solid option for his future as a doctor. The confidence that day has offered him and pushed him into constantly challenging himelf and never thinking I’m not worthy of something until experiencing it first.

We can never know what we’re capable of until we give it a try!

************

As Dr Mike walked through E. R he over head two kids he supposed were siblings casting out the myths of heart transplant knowledge he had earlier recalled himself off. The kids parents just had a baby boy and they were there to see their little siblings.

The eldest of them was affirming that a transplant could change a person's personality,character inclusive..

"Oh...wow...." His sister replied as Dr Mike walked towards them to clear off the misconceptions and myths.

one of the myth the eldest had said was she's too young to be an organ donor.

it was immediately after she said that that Dr Mike interrupted and explained that what she said is a myth and also corrected it with proven hypothesis that donation is possible from birth to about age 75. If the person donating is under 18, his or her parents are legally empowered to authorize organ donation.