Elixir of Life

Chapter 4: Take Us Back

Faryal Hamed

June 2016

Hamed Residence, Halb, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Faryal stood in the kitchen on the phone with Mr. Aden. He had just given her updates on having met with some of the victim patients and if she could meet them in-person to deliver their medical records. She had a hand on kitchen marble counter, dressed in a silk blouse, trousers, and heels. She picked up a small teacup and sipped it as she listened.

That morning, her transplant team had done a CAT scan on her lungs. And her team included Nancy, Amalia, her pulmonary specialists, psychiatrist, nutritionist, and her social worker. Faryal had also been back-and-forth with hospital billing and her health insurance. Her heart transplant could very well cost a million dollars. It was all too overwhelming.

Faryal and Mr. Aden bid farewells and she hung up the phone. Footsteps sounded down the living room stairs and Naseem walked into the kitchen. It was nighttime and the kitchen lights were spotlights surrounding them.

He asked, "Was that your mom? Have you told her?"

Faryal's jaw pointed outward. "No. I haven't. Stop asking, I'll get to it."

"It's been two weeks, you keep putting it off."

She brought her hands up. "I don't want to talk about this, Nas. I have a lot on my mind, obviously." Her heart began to race and felt the initial sweat starting to bead on her brow. "Don't stress me out, Nas."

He spoke calmly, "I think that although you are doing a wonderful job following your team's directions, but somewhere in your mind—you haven't really accepted all of this yet."

Faryal snapped, "What haven't I accepted?"

"You haven't limited your hours despite the director allowing you to and you haven't transferred your patients to the other doctors yet. Why haven't you?"

She pointed to herself. "My patients need me. I have appointments booked for the next month, I can't be gone yet, I have to be there for them. I can't just leave them. And obviously, with this case, not every doctor there is as competent as we'd hope for them to be."

Naseem presented an open palm, "I remember you telling me earlier that you were happy. Happy because your parents seemed to be doing better than ever. They had just went on an anniversary trip with your sisters to Paris."

Faryal interrupted him with irritation, "What does this have to do with anything?"

He continued regardless, "And I think that you keeping yourself busy like this..." He took a step closer to her. "...is just an excuse because you don't want to tell your parents that you're sick and in treatment."

Faryal picked up her teacup but her grasp slipped along the handle—it fell and broke on the floor. Large pieces shattered into small crumbles that were washed out and ricocheted beneath her heels. She squatted down with a towel and Naseem stopped her.

The two met with level eyes as she explained, "I'm not just ill, Nas. You know what else I have to wait for. I have to wait for." Her eyes went back and forth over the mess of spilled tea. "People who are suddenly brain dead, and on life support, and who, who don't have cancer... That they have a heart attack while inside the hospital. You know how rare that is. People that die and can become donors is just... tiny..."

No one else had told her this, but she learned online that twenty-two people died every day on average while waiting for an organ donation. And could I be one of them? Why wait and hope just to never make it? Her eyes became lost in the cracked edges of the pieces of the cup.