1 2 3 4

Dur­ing an oper­a­tion, the pulse is counted on a the beep­ing machine in the back­ground. 1 2 3 4. Nor­mal is 60 – 80. A mil­lion things can change the pulse. My heart quick­ens when she walks by, for instance. Dur­ing an oper­a­tion, no mat­ter what else is going on, the rhythm, the rate have to be sim­ply going one beat after another. I hear it as if it is my own. Ten things can be hap­pen­ing but if the rhythm changes I am look­ing up at the anes­the­si­ol­o­gist at the same time she is look­ing at me. We might speak or we might not. She is assur­ing me or she is telling me to stop, change, wait, let her “catch up”.

If you have a kid, you know what this kind of vig­i­lance is. Noth­ing rouses you for years before that kid comes. Then, in a weird lin­guis­tic twist, noth­ing at all is rous­ing you – the slight­est whim­per. Noth­ing becomes every­thing, in the span of a heart beat. Doing surgery is like that. We become present and aware in the pres­ence of unpro­tected need: babies, adults under anes­the­sia and under a knife. Any lit­tle change matters.

I won­der when I will become this awake to my own pulse, my own needs. When will the turn­ing of my heart a lit­tle make me drop what­ever I am doing and pay extra spe­cial atten­tion? Many peo­ple wait until the pump stops alto­gether and then starts again by some mir­a­cle or other and then he or she remem­bers, or learns that this thing, this heart, this moment, this one here, is not exactly on auto pilot.

I feel my heart rac­ing, roam­ing, look­ing for itself in the midst of the chaos of the squeeze of my life. I am look­ing up from my task, from this oper­a­tion, from what I thought was my job, impor­tant, the dishes maybe. I feel my son on my chest, he is wav­ing now when I wave to him, I am turn­ing and look­ing and he is look­ing back, assur­ing me or telling me to stop, change wait, let him catch up…