The Body Shoppe

The night after I found out the horrible news, was a restless night. This is the first heart transplant of my father’s that I was actually old enough to understand. He had gotten his first heart transplant when I was five.

After a night of tossing and turning in my King sized four poster bed, I went downstairs still tired from the night before. I can only remember a few nights that I woke up from my bed still tired from the night before, and it is insane because most people in the town of Cottage Lake feel that way all the time. For the first time in a long time I needed a bit of liquid courage to make it through the day without passing out. I took the coffee beans down from the cupboard, made my own coffee, and brewed a pot of the fresh concoction. As the coffee was brewing I went to check on my dad.

“How are you feeling?” I asked, looking over his entire body, checking for signals about his health.

“I’m okay,” he squeaked, “Just a little tired.”

“You too?” I asked, letting out a small nervous laugh.

“I don’t remember being sick taking this much energy away from you,” he laughed softly, trying to lighten the mood.

“Just rest Dad, today I will call around, and see if anyone has any leads for a donor,” I said.

“Don’t tucker yourself out looking for someone, remember to let yourself rest. I have lived my life, I don’t want yours going to waste too,” he said through a small smile.

“Dad, I could never give up on you. I would do anything for you. You have given me my life thus far, and I couldn’t imagine living that life without you,” I said, “I love you.”

“And I love you,” he returned, “Dr. Lampton is coming over again today to give us more information about my condition. He will be in around noon.”

“Okay dad, is there anything you need from me today?” I asked.

“Just what you normally do. I have been sick for a while now, I don’t need any special treatment now,” he said closing his eyes for more rest.

“Okay, I will be up with breakfast soon,” I said, getting up to leave.

“Thank you,” he said, briefly opening his tired eyes.

“It’s no problem at all,” I said closing the door softly behind me.

Getting work done around the house while waiting on important news is hard to do. As you go about your normal daily duties you can’t help but look over at the clock and wonder will time go by any faster. If I had something more exciting to do to fill my time maybe it wouldn’t be so hard. The only distraction that I have though is cooking breakfast for my dad, cleaning up the house, doing laundry, and making lunch for the doctor, dad, and myself. I really just want to know what the doctor found. Eventually, after torturous hours that felt like years, the doorbell rang. I shot up quickly to open the door.

“Dr. Lampton, you are here,” I said with relief in my voice, “Come in please, go upstairs with my father. I will be up soon with lunch.”

As he went past me and up the stairs, I rushed to grab the lunch I had set on a tray, and headed upstairs to greet Dr. Lampton and my father. I quietly slipped in the open door and sat lunch down at a table in my father’s room. His bedroom was quite spacious. It had a nice, large, four poster bed; a nice sitting area complete with a table and chairs; and it even had a couch set in front of a television so he could watch it. When it wasn’t dim in the room, it was actually quite large and airy.

“Annalisa,” spoke Dr. Lampton, “Sit down; I have a lot to speak with you about.”

“Oh, yes of course,” I said snapping out of my trance and sitting down next to my dad.

“I made a few phone calls to other towns nearby,” he started, “I was able to locate a small list of transplant shops. They were hard to find, but I think that some of these might work for you. I haven’t had the time to call them, but the people I talked to have nothing but good things to say about all of them.”

He handed me the slip of paper. It had a small list of three transplant shops that were all quite a distance away. The nearest one was 200 miles away. I didn’t really know how to take that news, considering up until a few years ago there was a transplant shop just a few miles from where I lived. It made me wonder why he had to get sick at this moment. Why couldn’t he have needed a transplant a few years earlier?

“Thank you, Dr. Lampton, I will look into these,” I said quietly.

“Okay,” he spoke quickly, “Now we have to talk about the big elephant in the room. I ran some test at my office with the information I gathered from you yesterday. I got them back this morning, and to the best of our lab teams ability we think you have about a year to live without the transplant. With a transplant, we aren’t really sure how long you will live—as there are a variety of outside and inside forces that can make anyone die.”

“Well, that will give us plenty of time to possibly find a right transplant,” my dad said.

“Well, we hope so. Like I said, we won’t know for sure until Annalisa calls the shops. I hope they have the right parts in stock, but in these times you never know,” Dr. Lampton explained, “So I will be back here next week—and I hope that by then you have called those numbers Annalisa.”

“I will call them as soon as possible,” I began, “Is there anything I should ask specifically?”

“Just ask them if they have the right heart in stock. Here is a file that contains the exact kind of heart that your father needs. If they do have it, ask the price and write it down. I will go over what you find next week, and we will come up with the best deal.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. I nodded my head more so with disbelief than anything else. It was hard to know that I was going to bargaining for a new heart for my dad like it was just a car part. I obviously didn’t want to pay a ridiculous amount of money for it, but couldn’t there have been a better way to describe the situation.

“Okay Dr. Lampton,” my dad muttered, “Thank you for the visit. You offered us a lot of helpful information today. I thank you and your family for your continued support of me.”

“No problem Mr. Paulson,” Dr. Lampton affirmed, “My family and I have loved working with you. During this next week don’t forget to get lots of rest. It really does make you feel better.”

When the lunch was over, I thanked the doctor again, and saw him to the door. I could already tell that this next year was going to be one of the hardest I’d ever faced. As unsheltered as I was as a child, I still felt like nothing could prepare me for this moment right now. Having to make calls about a heart transplant for my father is really just the tip of the iceberg. The real problem is that I am not sure if I am ready for the rest of the iceberg.