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plein air landscape by James D. Southerland

"I think I can do it," he tells her.

Buni waits, two steps below him.  "Take your time," she says.  "Whenever you're ready."

"No, really.  I can do it."  Gripping the rail, his knuckles go a shade paler.  Jim Southerland is descending the stairs.  The stairs of his own house.  Of course, going down is measurably easier than going up.  Thank you, Merciful Gravity.  Getting from the main floor to the driveway taxes Jim's skeletal limbs.  He's lost a lot of weight since November.  Hasn't exercised much.  And -- oh, yeah -- he's had a heart transplant.

After only four days at home, his wife drives him back to Durham.  Even without her hand on the wheel, the truck probably knows the way.  It's been up and down Old Fort mountain more than a few times in the last three months.  They spend Tuesday night in a hotel.  Up for tests Wednesday morning.

"You're going to feel a little pressure," the doctor says.  Turns out he's not lying.  A tube crawls into a faint blue blood vessel on the side of Jim's throat.  It snakes down into his chest.  A tiny claw at its tip snatches a sample of Jim's new heart.  Duke labs will test its tissue for any sign of rejection.  They've performed two such biopsies already.  Neither has given the slightest cause for concern.

The only red flag since the surgery was a small pocket of fluid that collected just under and behind Jim's sternum.  Some folks fretted that it might signal infection.  But that turned out not to be the case.  Nevertheless, it postponed Jim's parole until the 24th of January.

Now, his B.P. is normal.  Likewise, his blood sugar level.  His incisions are healing.  His pulse is a little fast, but that's not atypical for the newly transplanted.  Since his discharge, Jim and his family have been meticulous.  A daily regimen of 30 pills.  A PICC line for preventive antibiotics.  Meals cut into childishly small pieces.  Visits from a corps of home care nurses and therapists.  "Don't want to violate the warranty," he jokes by phone.  The check-up concluded, they're following I-40 west to Black Mountain.  Until next week when they'll do all over again.

Everything is going as it should.  The odd caregiver goes so far as to describe his recovery as "miraculous."  Still, everyone is cautious.  Like people quietly circling a game of Jenga.  Impressed by resilience.  Aware of frailties.  Yet above the necessary tiptoe of careful prudence, one truth shouts loudly:  Jim Southerland is home.

Things We Simply Don't Discuss

After two foodless months, an unspeakable delicacy.

“The dashboard ‘check engine’ light turned itself off.  We can probably go another couple of months without a new muffler.”  This is a prime example of things we do not ever, ever say aloud at my house.  

We do not say “Sixty percent of the election returns are in; it looks like our candidate is going to win!”  If we say these things, if we form the air in our mouths into the shapes of these particular consonants and vowels, there’s a chance the heavens will hear our optimism.  There’s a chance that — just to swat at our hubris — the second shoe will drop.

So here are some things we’re definitely not saying this week about Jim:

• We’re not talking about the man’s “swallow test.”  We’re not saying that he passed it.  We’re not saying that even hospital lasagna tastes in-freaking-credible after two months of gruel through a feeding tube.

• We’re not saying that after two biopsies, his heart shows no sign of rejection.

• We’re not saying that the last of the drainage tubes has been removed.

• We’re not talking about the laps he’s walking around the hospital floor, relying a little less each day on a walker.

• And under no circumstances are we claiming — I mean, we are definitely, absolutely not repeating the doctors’ prediction that Jim will be home in the next couple of days.

painting by Jim Southerland

If we were going to say anything it all, we might remind folks that Jim has an exhibit at the Seven Sisters Gallery in Black Mountain until January 25.  We might say that, had events in Durham gone another way, few people reading could afford the artwork that can now be had at astonishingly reasonable rates.  Get down to Cherry Street, folks, and take home a piece of Jim.  Your living room wall will thank you.