In her understandable optimism, Mum thought, “Our funny, pretty, kind, brave, and smart girl must be done. Let’s head on up and make fun of her while she comes out of the anesthesia.” Instead, she and Api were summoned to have a talk with the doctors.
As they walked up the stairs and rounded the corner, they were met by five surgeons—I like to call them the Boy Band of Doctors—standing in scrubs. “Mrs. Barber, there has been a complication with the surgery. We need to talk to you in a quiet room.”
Well, talk about going from zero to BATSHIT CRAZY in 0.4 seconds.
The following is a direct transcript of how the conversation that followed played out.
Mum: A quiet room? Why do I need to go to a quiet room?
Doctor 1: Well, the stupid, failing, stubborn piece of shit stent —
Doctor 2: Piece of shit.
Doctor 1: —has malfunctioned.
Api: Fuck.
Doctor 1: It’s broken off in her heart. She needs emergency open-heart surgery so we can get it out.
Mum: Malfunctioned? Emergency open-heart surgery?
Doctor 1: Yep, it’s snapped off in there. We need to wake her up to get consent to cut her open, but if we do that one of three things could happen.
Mum: OK.
Api: Fuck.
Doctor 1: When we wake her up and take the tube out of her throat, she will cough, and the stupid failing stubborn piece of shit stent—
Doctor 2: Such a piece of shit.
Doctor 1: —will lodge in her heart and (A) she could have a stroke—
Mum: What!
Api: Fuck.
Doctor 1: —(B) she could have a heart attack—
Mum: Please stop talking.
Api: Oh fuck.
Doctor 1: —or (C) it could be fatal.
Mum: STOP TALKING!
Api: FUCK! What should we do?
Doctor 1: Well, you are down as next of kin, so you could sign the consent—
Mum: GIVE ME THE GODDAMNED PEN!!
Api isn’t a man of many words. This is one of the things I love about him—well, that and his ability to hold his breath for five minutes. That’s amazing; I’m flat out breathing while I eat.
In our relationship, I’m more of the talker and he’s the listener. He’s hot and I talk; we are very clear about our roles. I believe that talking at someone with great urgency at all times, whether it be about the children missing their vaccine appointment or putting the toilet paper roll on UPSIDE DOWN, is a good and healthy form of communication.
Turns out it’s not. I know—I’m as shocked as you are, ladies! I spoke to the great Noni Hazlehurst about this when we were shooting The Letdown. (To my fabulous non-Australian readers, google Noni Hazlehurst; once you have seen her incredible body of work, pour a glass of wine and then google Noni reading Go the Fuck to Sleep. You will thank me later.)
We were at a pub drinking after a day of filming, and Noni, being excellent and interested, asked me about me and my life. Well, bloody hell, Noni, let me show you some photos. I pulled out my phone—ha, who am I kidding? I was filming the entire conversation, because Noni!
I was showing her photos of my sons, and at the time I had been working away a bit and missing all of them, and Api wasn’t sending me texts every ten minutes as I had expected. So I confided in My Noni (that’s not a typo, she’s mine): “He’s amazing, and I love him so much; it’s just a bit tricky sometimes because he doesn’t talk much.”
After which she looked at a photo of him, eyed me over the brim of her sunglasses, and responded, “Well, he doesn’t bloody need to when he looks like that, does he, love?”
You’re right, Noni, he doesn’t, thank you. Ah, reverse sexism is the best!
So when I was told about the hole in my heart we had a conversation about what it might be like. What if for some reason I had to have heart surgery? I was twenty-five and looking down the barrel of an invite to the Logies, so a massive zipper scar running from my throat to my sternum wasn’t part of my pre-Logie prep. We like to think the Logies are the Australian Oscars, but it’s more like the Razzies. We never discussed this further. It was all hypothetical, because only morbidly obese eighty-year-old men have emergency open-heart surgery, right?
Here is where Api was swiftly upgraded to #hothusband. After Mum had signed the papers and the Boy Band of Doctors was walking away to slice and dice me, Api stepped up, and he stepped up in a big way.
He stopped them and asked, “Is there any other way you can cut her rather than straight down her chest?”
Holy shitballs, Batman! This is the most important question anyone has ever asked on my behalf in my life—well, this and once when my dance teacher asked if I really needed that extra cookie.
The head of the Boy Band of Doctors, Dr. Justin Timberlake, said that aside from the standard Zipper Cut they could perform the “Clam Cut.” Mmmm, sexy. The Clam Cut is a massive fuck-off cut that’s made underneath your breasts in the same shape as the underwire of your bra. (For those of you who don’t wear bras, imagine a cut that goes straight across your chest where your itsy-bitsy string bikini goes, or where your nipple tassels skim your rib cage.)
This was such a massive request. Api knew it was important to me, but he also was worried, because the Clam Cut is a lot more involved and the recovery is more intense. But that’s what they went with.
It’s been ten years since the operation, and I’m all about the deep V neckline thanks to Api.
The Gross Part
If this was in an issue of Playboy magazine, the following would be in the sealed section—so if you get queasy and/or are scared of words like “saw,” “drilling,” and “severed,” then you, my friend, need to skip this bit and come back and find me when I tell y’all about getting totally fucked up on morphine.
As the original surgery was supposed to be routine and only take 1.5 hours, I was given a light Lindsay Lohan circa 2007 type of general anesthetic, just enough of a buzz to knock me out so I wouldn’t feel any of the bad stuff and would remember only select details the day after.
But because the Failing Stubborn Piece of Shit stent (such a piece of shit) decided to rear its ugly head, it was time to play with the big boys of operations, and I needed to be sedated a heap, like, a whole lot more. I was now in the territory of Charlie Sheen and his playboy model wives type of sedation.
I was sedated to the extent that my body temperature was lowered significantly and my heart was slowed right down. Slowed down, then stopped, but I was still alive—now, if that isn’t proof enough that I had the idea of The OA before Brit Marling, I don’t know what else you want from me. While slowing me down, they also cooled me down; they needed to slow the beating of my heart so they could put a clamp on it to stop it from beating and then slice it up real nice.
I was essentially turned off and pumping on a machine next to me; how very Bionic Woman of me.
Now it gets really full-on. After the hit of good stuff, they cut me open. A lovely, clean, clam-like cut was made right across my chest. Looking at my scar, I think it was one long slice, which in itself was no mean feat. They then peeled my skin up and over my rib cage, breasts, and right up over my sternum.
So from here, I believe the doctors requested “The Final Countdown” to be blared across the operating room as they pulled out the Saw, another movie I thought of first. Dr. JT proceeded to saw my sternum in half, from top to the bottom. This is nothing new in the open-heart surgery game; this is why the zipper has the scar it does, because Dr. JT usually saws straight through the skin and sternum all at once. I’m certain that this is done to cut down on time so he can get back to the doctors’ lounge and count his number one hits.
After the saw had been put away, thank God, it was on to the ribs. I’ve never really thought much about my ribs. The only other time in my life I worried about the well-being of my ribs was when I was dancing and we had to do back bends and I couldn’t do them for as long as some of the other spectacular bendy gi
rls. Oh, and I often wondered in my younger years if that rumor that Marilyn Manson had his rib cage removed so he could perform fellatio on himself was in fact a rumor. But aside from that I never really gave the old ribs a second thought. Kind of like my ears—I knew they were there to serve a purpose, but they weren’t a focus, like my legs or eyelashes. But now my ribs are on my mind constantly. When I hug my kids I can feel them; when I lie down, I can feel them. My kids even know to say to one another, “Don’t hug Mum too hard; it will hurt her chest” (sad face emoji).
My lovely ribs were cracked—I like to say “popped open,” because the word “pop” makes me think of the popcorn song, and that song makes me happy, so I won’t think of the horribly invasive surgery that changed my life forever.
They had to crack open my rib cage to access my heart. (I’m pretty sure that’s the title of Taylor Swift’s new album: Crack Open My Rib Cage to Access My Heart, ft. Billy Ray Cyrus.)
Once they could access my heart, this was when the cooling-down and heart-stopping stuff happened. You see, they needed to get the Failing Stubborn Piece of Shit out.
Once I was chilled and put on ice, they placed a clamp on the valve to stop the flow of blood to my heart and stop it from beating/moving. They cut open my big, juicy, all-loving heart, retrieved the Failing Stubborn Piece of Shit, and threw that bitch in the bin.
They then cut out a piece of my heart that wasn’t being used and used it to sew up the hole. And, voilà, I’m a real girl.
Then comes the “let’s put this talented puzzle back together” game. First, I was warmed up, then sped up; then all the crap that had been pulled out and moved around had to be shoved back in. Five holes were drilled through my sternum, and wire was fed through to keep it all in place; then they pulled my skin back over my chest and stitched me up nice and proper.
Then I was off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Morphine.
Welcome back, queasy friends, I trust you had a nice break and are feeling fully refreshed and hydrated. Spare a thought for your not so “soft” mates who stuck around through the tough bit and will remain by my side forever and always.
So it turns out the intensive care unit is the most horrible place in the history of the world, which was a shock to me, considering I once worked as the only female writer and cast member on a football show, so I’m familiar with horrible places. Coming out of the Charlie Sheen haze was not only horrible but also frightening.
I felt as though I were underground, in a massive dark tunnel. I was so deep underground that I could feel the density of the earth around me. It was cold, dark, and wet, and I had an overwhelming sense of being alone and terrified.
I was cold, so cold. I started to hallucinate, and not in the good way. I could hear Mum and Api in the distance, but I couldn’t reach or connect with them. There was so much going on where they were, and I was alone listening to the chaos from what felt like a million miles away.
I was in so much pain that I couldn’t move, and I was desperate to get to them. I was screaming out to them, and they wouldn’t listen to me.
Turns out the screaming I was doing was actually silent shrieks that Mum and Api had to sit and watch for a couple of hours until my body had heated up enough for the tube down my throat to be removed. I was cold and alone screaming for my mum and had a terrifying feeling that I was being chased and couldn’t escape.
Although the pain was overwhelming, I think the shock of the whole ordeal had made me numb. I was in shock—shock because I was supposed to be having routine surgery and instead was woken up seven hours later in recovery from emergency open-heart surgery.
I have never felt so alone in my life. It was truly horrible. I have told this story so many times, and I’ve got it down to a fine art, but sitting here writing it (over poached eggs and a latte #blessed), it still shakes me up, and I’m still sad for little brokenhearted Celeste.
Finally, as I was coming out of the anesthesia, I remember I could hear my mum and Api faintly in the background, while the nurse was screaming in my ear: “CELESTE! CELESTE, CAN YOU HEAR ME?!”
Jesus, did she think I’d had a cochlear implant fitted and felt the need to test it out?
Dr. Timberlake was right: the recovery from this surgery was a big old turd. Those of you who have had emergency open-heart surgery at twenty-five due to a Failing Stubborn Piece of Shit will know that the nursing staff thinks it is a genius idea to get you up and walking the day after the slice-and-dice. Of course they do. But why stop there? Why not get me training for the pole-vault tournament that the Failing Stubborn Little Fucker couldn’t achieve?
Oh, but the silver lining, the sweet, sweet silver lining of this monumental medical fuckup was the plethora of hospital-grade drugs that were pumped directly into my broken body. I’m sure the total street worth of the shit I had pumping through my veins would have made Pablo Escobar reassess his alliances.
I was originally on morphine, but it wasn’t agreeing with me. I mean it was knocking me the fuck out and I couldn’t really feel anything, but I was operating in two states of consciousness. I either felt dizzy and nauseous, or I would hallucinate that terrorists were plotting to kidnap me. We decided to take me off morphine, and by “we” I mean “everyone else in the world other than me” because I was flat out trying to stay upright on a chair and not pass out, let alone make any big decisions. I had chest tubes that were sewn into my chest to drain the twelve kilograms of fluid I had gained in twenty-four hours post-surgery. I had a central line inserted in my neck that fed directly into a large vein. This is where the nurses would administer my drugs and fluids. I also had a catheter, which is a tube that is shoved through your bits into your bladder.
The doctor spoke with the pain management team about taking me off morphine and putting me on a high dose of Endone. They discussed my chest tubes and what they should do regarding extra pain relief when they were removed. I distinctly remember overhearing the doctor talking to my mum, saying, “Let’s give her some wall greens and a flower before her boobs pop out, because that ship is faithful.”
Turns out he actually said, “Let’s give her some morphine an hour before the tubes come out, because that shit be painful.”
Whatever, I was high.
Three days after this exchange, I was acclimatizing to my new drug program (i.e., not shitting at all when it came time to have the tubes removed). Nurse Ratched came in announcing that “today is the day,” which I was excited and nervous about. Happy to be rid of the tubes but also a bit worried about the pain. Both my mum and dad were at the hospital, and in classic Dad style he stood outside, out of the way, but still giving his love and support. And Mum stayed there, solid as a rock, with my sister on the phone checking in every five minutes.
As Nurse Ratched was gloving up for the tube pulling, I stopped her, saying, “Um, the pain management team have ordered some morphine for me to have before the tubes come out.”
She said to me, “You don’t need it, love; it’s not that painful.”
If I had been my normal witty self and wasn’t out of my face on Keith Richards’s stash, I would have said to her, “OK, so you were fine not to have any morphine when you had your chest tubes ripped out after emergency open-heart surgery?” But I wasn’t myself. I was fragile, in pain, and under the “care” of medical professionals. With that she snipped the stitch that was keeping the right tube in place and slowly pulled that tube out of me. I have never experienced anything like it. It hurt so much that I couldn’t scream, I couldn’t breathe. All I could do was moan in pain and arch my back in the hope that my chest would explode and I would die. When she was done with the right tube, she walked around the foot of the bed while I sobbed into my mum’s arms, begging her not to let the nurse do it again. Before Mum could say anything, the left stitch had been snipped and the tube tugging began. I can’t believe I didn’t die of pain that day.
Remember where you were when Princess Diana died? I was on a bus on my way back fr
om dancing at the local shopping center in Brisbane. The bus was about to pull out, and I was sitting in the back with Julie East and Sally Parker, counting the number of sequins on our homemade costumes, when we heard on the radio that she had died. I was thirteen, and like any dramatic teenager I began to tell stories about how much more affected I was by her death than anyone else in the world. For the next twelve months I prayed for my future husband, Will and/or Harry; I wasn’t picky. What about Michael Jackson? I was on the set of All Saints, and the whole crew was watching it on the news as I was walking past and was being told about it by my sister over the phone. I, like any other dramatic twenty-five-year-old, began to tell stories about how much more affected I was by his death than anyone else in the world.
Yep, we all have stories.
As full-on as having emergency open-heart surgery was for me, it seemed just as, if not more, traumatizing for my family and friends. They all have a story.
My sister, Olivia:
It was pouring with rain . . . like completely pissing down, and I was in New Farm (Brisbane) driving with my son, Harry, who was maybe ten weeks old. Mum called me and I had to pull over. I was in complete shock but didn’t feel anything—I didn’t know what to feel. I called my husband, Ben, and he was beside himself and left work early.
Marika (best friend):
I was in a rehearsal room. You and I had spoken that morning, early, before you went in. The phone rang around midday, and I saw your name on caller ID, so I thought you were in recovery and calling for a chat. So I answered the phone and said, “So you’re alive, then?” It was Buela calling me on your phone, telling me you almost weren’t alive.9 I was horrified. Panicked. Stayed in the rehearsal but told the director my phone would be on and I would be checking it throughout—something I’ve never done before or since.
Thomas (best gay):
Fuck, shit, really? Fuck!
Challenge Accepted! Page 12