Nonfiction by Ethan Kahana
Sitting quietly in my small room overlooking the graveyard, I heard a sudden burst of joy from the halls that got me out of bed for the first time that day. What I saw was a young, skinny boy in the same light blue gown that I had neatly folded in my room. His bony legs, splayed open to fit into the wheelchair, were remarkably long. And, most notably, his mouth was dropped open in shock as he set the telephone down on his lap. His mom, holding the heart medication that fed into her son’s IV, was crying while laughing. His dad simply stood there in silence, his head buried into the shoulder of one of the doctors.
They had been wearing the same clothes for days and the wrinkles showed. Both had the look of people who had been under extreme stress for a great deal of time; there were shadows on their faces that I previously deemed impossible. When they started walking through the halls as a family, we all whooped and cheered at the opportunity that this child was getting at a new life. A second chance, albeit an arduous one. When he passed me, I excitedly held out my hand to give him a high five. He stopped, looked at me with his big brown eyes and smiled, holding my hand in his own.
Elated, I paced around my room until the resident came by. Expecting him to be happy after participating in the joyous occasion, I was surprised when he sat down, hunched over, with his light blue eyes looking conflicted and almost mournful as he stared at the blank TV screen. When I asked him what was wrong, he mentioned how pediatric transplant was an extremely difficult rotation for him because while you do see lives saved, you also have to understand that his new heart comes from somewhere. I just stared at him.
Recently, I was observing a heart surgery on a six month old baby with aortic valve disease and was delighted that this difficult surgery went well. Although it took more than six hours, the surgeon told me that the patient should lead a normal life. As the baby was wheeled out of the room, looking so tiny and vulnerable with the pink scar on his chest, I noticed a sheet of paper on the counter: 15 months old, death by drowning.
Ethan Kahana is an undergraduate student at the University of Michigan studying data science and pre med. He has work published in Idle Ink, Across the Margin, Potato Soup Journal, and Five Minutes.
