I keep blowing up buildings
Last night I dreamed I kept blowing up the library on some random college campus. I just couldn't stop myself. It was so fun to watch the building blow up from a distance, even though I felt terrible that people were dying inside. "I've become some kind of serial killer," I mumbled to myself. "Nobody will be surprised."
Meanwhile, in real life, my mom is still in critical condition in the Intensive Cardiac Care unit at UCSF. She's sedated all the time because the docs have her sternum broken open for quick access. If she's dreaming about blowing up libraries, she can do it a thousand times over and never wake up to discover that she's not a serial killer, just a retired English teacher. Her heart isn't beating. Instead, a machine is pumping her blood for her. Fat tubes full of dark red fluid stick out from under the covers on her bed and connect to this large newspaper-rack-sized box that substitutes the sound of a piston for a heartbeat. Her endocrine system is regulated by a half-dozen digitally-controlled drips; her lungs are controlled by a ventilator. Her body is nested in tubes, wires, IV hookups. The cardiac specialists say her heart may "bounce back" after a rest. Otherwise she'll need a heart transplant.
"If only we could look at what her DNA was doing, we'd be able to predict the outcome," one of the transplant geeks told me. "We'd throw her DNA onto an array, check the transcriptions, and see if she was repairing herself." I keep feeling like I'm researching some biotech story instead of listening to people talk about my mom. When I can pull myself back from the facts, look at her instead of my mental image of her DNA or her fibrotic right ventricle, I remember what's going on. And then I think the same thoughts humans have for millenia.
Meanwhile, in real life, my mom is still in critical condition in the Intensive Cardiac Care unit at UCSF. She's sedated all the time because the docs have her sternum broken open for quick access. If she's dreaming about blowing up libraries, she can do it a thousand times over and never wake up to discover that she's not a serial killer, just a retired English teacher. Her heart isn't beating. Instead, a machine is pumping her blood for her. Fat tubes full of dark red fluid stick out from under the covers on her bed and connect to this large newspaper-rack-sized box that substitutes the sound of a piston for a heartbeat. Her endocrine system is regulated by a half-dozen digitally-controlled drips; her lungs are controlled by a ventilator. Her body is nested in tubes, wires, IV hookups. The cardiac specialists say her heart may "bounce back" after a rest. Otherwise she'll need a heart transplant.
"If only we could look at what her DNA was doing, we'd be able to predict the outcome," one of the transplant geeks told me. "We'd throw her DNA onto an array, check the transcriptions, and see if she was repairing herself." I keep feeling like I'm researching some biotech story instead of listening to people talk about my mom. When I can pull myself back from the facts, look at her instead of my mental image of her DNA or her fibrotic right ventricle, I remember what's going on. And then I think the same thoughts humans have for millenia.