If you added up all the hours of surgery, my daughter's heart has been stopped for a minimum of one whole day of her life: 24 hours of silence, a machine doing the work of heart and lungs while a surgeon worked on plumbing, connections, and pipes and we waited, watching the clock.

Last September's clock ticked loudly in a health system strained by Covid to glacial slowness.  The minute hand ticked toward an indefinable moment when heart failure would no longer be reversible; the second hand moved relentlessly toward her 25th birthday and exit from our private health cover.  At the last minute a triple reprieve was granted: a space in the private system; a surgeon willing to take the risk; a change to the rules that allowed her to be covered until age 30.  We entered the parallel universe of hospital where waiting was practiced as an Olympic sport.  We waited for feedback; for the numbers to be good; for food and a shower and a phone call; for discharge and an ambulance, triage and a doctor; for blood transfusions and drug titration; for rehabilitation and 'normal' life.

I didn't ride my bike at all. 

Nine weeks passed.  Rain poured down over eastern Australia.  I watched as my beautiful daughter rediscovered a beautiful life: a life where a flight of stairs, once an insurmountable obstacle, became an opportunity.  We faded into the background, which is where parents ought to be in the life of a 25-year-old.  

Heart

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Melbourne lay outside my door, waiting to be explored.