#91 Heart

Janne and I had our backpacks. She bought hers in red. Every time we’d take a trip, we would cram everything into them so we didn’t need a suitcase. Janne and I were minimal for everything.

I still have her backpack with me. It’s still full with her stuff as she packed it the last time. When coming to stay at the hospital, it contained everything that she needed to spend the night, to entertain herself, to survive in that harsh environment.

When she went into the hospital for the last time, she was supposed to be there only one or two weeks. She was getting some complications. After the second week, Janne asked me to bring her Birkenstocks as she was going to get out on Friday July 28th. Her feet were swollen. Normal shoes wouldn’t do.

On the day before, they ran additional tests. They didn’t tell her the reason then, but later we learned that doctors had figured out that the symptoms were due to a possible heart infection. Her oncologist had been asking to different specialists about her swollen feet.

On Friday, she packed all her stuff and was ready to go. Around 9 a.m., Janne sent me a message with a simple “change of plans here” and that they had identified an infection on the left side of her heart. With this and what I had seen, I searched myself. I realized that it was called “endocarditis”. This is a rare disease affecting only about 7 people in 100,000 (her cancer affected 1 or 2 people in 100,000).

When I came to the hospital, I told Janne what I had learned. There is a chance that she got it at the dentist as she had gotten them clean recently. Usually, this is not a risk for a healthy person, but at that stage, her body didn’t have a good defenses anymore. At least, the endocarditis was not advanced. She would need to stay for intravenous antibiotics for six weeks.

The backpack stayed as Janne left it. I have tried to see what she had there, but it’s still too much for me. I have the fantasy that she left me a note. I know that she didn’t, but grief is not rational. She wouldn’t talk too much about emotions. She laughed when I told her that finally I had evidence that she had a heart.

This backpack means Janne’s heart to me now.