My name is Dr. Alex Karev, I am a fourth year resident in the surgical program for Seattle Grace Mercy West Hospital. Just over a month ago there was a shooting at the hospital in which eleven people died. I myself was shot, though as you probably guessed already, I survived. I still have the bullet in my chest, I won't get it out yet, at least not until it gets to the surface. The hospital is making everyone who was at the hospital that day get cleared for surgery by psych, the hospital is also making some of us go to mandatory group therapy, its suppose to help, but I just think it's stupid. It's not like we don't know what happened, we were there, we had lived through it. I know I should have died that day, but I didn't even though I got shot point blank in the chest and I'm still living. So much has happened to everyone, and everyone is having issues dealing with what happened, not just me. The psych doc is saying that most of us have PTSD, but I have already had too much crazy for a lifetime so I don't care what the doctor says, I don't care what he says about my coping mechanisms, I don't care what others says about me running away, I'm just wary of everything. So much has had happened in the last seven years, to all of us. But I know how to deal with stuff that gets thrown at me. At least I thought I did. I thought my own way of dealing with my stuff would help with dealing with getting shot. But it's not.
The others don't know this, but I have nightmares, that I get flashbacks when I get near elevators, I get anxiety and panic attacks when I remember getting shot, I avoid the hallway where I got shot, where Dr. Reed was killed, I stay awake at night when everything in the house is silent. I try to stay busy, but there isn't much to do when you are not cleared for surgery, the moments in between become stiffening. The silence becomes deafening, you feel like your suffocating, that you are drowning in a sea of hopelessness and you can't reach the surface for help. But you don't ask for help as you have a reputation among your colleagues as a person who is unlikeable. It seems as if everyone else is dealing with the tragedy and no one recognizes when one of their own is falling in a pit of despair and in need of help. I realize that is what the psych doctor is for, but he doesn't know me, he doesn't know my background, he doesn't know how I usually cope when bad things happen in my life. I tend to put my emotions on the backburner and wear a mask of indifference, but for some reason I can't do that this time and I don't know why. I don't want the shooting to be stuck with me, I want to be able to get past it and get on with my life, however I can't.
As I walk around the hospital, I see nurses and doctors and surgeons, orderlies, and patients milling around the hallways or in the rooms, or behind a desk and remember the chaos that was described on the day of the shooting. I don't remember much from the actual shooting as I was one of the first to get shot, but I do remember having to drag myself to the elevator in excruciating pain, bleeding out on the floor and hoping for someone to find me. I remember being dragged out of the elevator and hearing screams of frightened people, not realizing that the shooter had just visited the area that I just got to. I remember the smells of antiseptic, and blood, and for some reason fear. I don't know how someone would smell fear, but I did. Then I remember pain erupting in my chest, I knew, just knew that I was getting help. I remember the waiting, the waiting for a rescue, the wait for the pain to disappear, the wait for something to happen. I remember believing that I wouldn't make it out of that room, that I was going to die. But to my relieve, I didn't die, that I was rescued and then waking up in a different hospital with tubes attached to my body. All I knew in that moment was that I was not in pain so that meant that I was rescued and that I was alive. Then I remembered Dr. Reed and I knew that she wasn't the only one that was killed that day, and when I found out just how many did die and how many got injured, I froze. I didn't want to believe that something like that had happened, I wanted it to be a dream. But when I woke back up, I knew it was real, that everything happened that day had happened and I just wanted to forget everything. But I couldn't do that to the victims that didn't make it.
All I can do at the moment is survive each day knowing how lucky I am to still be alive, and to go through each day helping the patients that I will have, knowing what they are going through as a patient as I was one not that long ago. I will have to wait to get the bullet out, though I might keep it in as the chicks will dig it, I will have to get cleared to do surgery, I'm sure I can put on a good enough mask to fool people and I will just have to deal with the nightmares and the flashbacks and everything else that will come with it. I'm just lucky that I survived that day in the hospital with a shooter on the loose.