Chapter 1
As surgeons we are trained to fix what's broken. The breaking point is our starting line... at work. But in our lives the breaking point is a sign of weakness and we'll do everything we can to avoid it. Bones break. Organs burst. Flesh tears. We can sew the flesh, repair the damage, ease the pain. But when life breaks down...when we break down...there's no science. No hard and fast rules. We just have to feel our way through. And to a surgeon there's nothing worse, and there's nothing better. Meredith Grey; Here Comes the Flood
"Derek? We have to go. I have the ultrasound today. "Meredith called up the stairs. She and Derek were late and they had to drop off Zola and Bailey at daycare. "I'm coming. You must not work anyway. Derek called back." Ultrasound." Meredith replied. Sometimes he was a little brainless for a neurosurgeon. A few minutes later he came down the stairs and was ready to go. "Well, now we have to leave." Meredith said slightly annoyed. "Calm down, it is not good for our little baby. We won't be late, Mer, relax." Derek appeased her.
They headed to Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital for Derek's shift and their appointment for the ultrasound.
"I'll drop the kids off at daycare." Derek offered. "Oh, right. Sure." Meredith relented. She gave Zola a small kiss on the cheek and ruffled Bailey briefly through his Derekhair.
In the parking lot Meredith met Cristina. "You're still working?" She asked surprised. "I thought you were on maternity leave." "I am, but I am tired of sitting at home and not doing anything. I am a surgeon. We cut." Meredith said, her person looked at her skeptically, then she exclaimed laughing: "Surgical junkie. you are a surgical junkie and won't admit it."
"I am not." Meredith protested half-heartedly.
"Admit it, Mere." Then she asked.. "Did not the ultrasound today" Meredith nodded and turned around.
"Who is that?" She asked in surprise, pointing to a known person.
"Burke?" Exclaimed a scared Cristina. "What the heck is he doing here?" She asked Meredith in a horrified voice.
It had been seven years since she saw him, and that was on the non wedding, where he left her and Seattle until now. Meredith turned to go." I'll go. I'll see you inside." "Oh, no, Meredith." Cristina said frantically. "Do not go away."
"It's all right. I'll stay here for moral support." Meredith reassured Cristina.
That was a relief for Cristina. "Good." She replied. Preston Burke walked towards Cristina. "What are you doing here?" Cristina asked angrily. "What are you doing here?" She repeated. "I just here for..." Preston replied to Cristina's question.
Without saying a word, Cristina turned away and ran to the hospital. Meredith threw Burke an apologetic look before she ran after Cristina.
"Cristina, wait." Meredith called aloud. But Cristina did not turn around.
"Cristina, damn it, wait for me." She finally found Cristina alone in the locker room, where she sat on the bench and motionless staring straight ahead.
"Cristina?" She asked softly.
"Talk to me." "He's back." She said in a choked voice. She nods understandingly. "If you want to talk about it ..." "I'm fine." "Really fine or Meredith-fine? I mean, I could ..."" It's nothing, it does not bother me that Burke is back. Didn't you schedule the ultrasound appointment today with your gynecologist?" Recalled Cristina Meredith' memory.
God, today's ultrasound appointment.
I totally forgot.
"Oh." She was terrified. "I forgot. Shit, I gotta go."
Derek was already there, waiting for his wife.
"Where have you been?" He asked his wife. Meredith replied out of breath: "Burke is back." "Back? What do you mean?""He is here." " "What about Cristina?" Derek asked. "She said it would not matter, but I think she's too proud to admit, she's being Cristina." Meredith conjectured. Then the gynecologist entered the examination room.
"Good morning, Dr. ..." "Grey." Meredith helped her. "Well, Dr. Grey, you must make your free time, so can make the ultrasound?" Asked the friendly gynecologist. Meredith followed her statement. Derek held Meredith' hand as the two watched transfixed on the monitor. "The but everything looks pretty good ... ", but then she stopped at the heart of their daughter. She enlarged and reduced image and stared hardly at the screen.
Meredith and Derek were getting nervous.
"What is it?" Meredith broke the tense silence. Only the clicking of the monitor could be heard. "There is, unfortunately, the suspicion that your daughter has a serious heart defect."The gynecologist told Meredith and Derek.
"A heart defect?" Derek asked, shocked. He and Meredith had to digest that fact for now.
A heart defect ?! That could be anything.
It can be small holes in the septum to highly complex malformations of cardiac chambers and the surrounding vessels.
Heart defects were the most common congenital abnormalities in infants.
"I'm about to page someone from cardiology and then ..."
"No." interrupted Meredith, who was awakened from her stupor, the gynecologist. "Page Cristina Yang and Arizona Robbins. Tell them it's high urgent." "Okay." The gynecologist took her pager and paged Cristina Yang and Arizona Robbins for a consult.
Cristina was still in the locker room, when she got the pager call from Meredith. She stood up and sprinted. On the way she spoke to Jo Wilson still, they wanted to ask something. "Dr. Yang, I need you for a consultation ..."
"Not now." Cristina interrupted the assistant doctor and ran on.
Arizona just checked the values of a baby in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and was writing something down in the medical record, as her pager started beeping. She glanced at it: 911 for Meredith. She started to run past nurses and sisters who scared a set aside did when Arizona came running around the corner. Finally, she reached her destination and pushed the door open, panting.
After a few minutes Cristina entered the exam room.
"Meredith?" She asked in surprise when she saw Meredith on the examination table.
"What's wrong?" She asked.
Derek replied quietly: "There is the suspicion of a serious heart defect. Our daughter, she may have a heart defect ... "
"Okay. " She tried to get a hold of herself and put her person a hand on her shoulder. She looked even more fragile than ever before. Cristina said: "Mer, it will be all right. The diagnosis of heart failure does not mean that your baby dies. Today, there are ways and means to save the lives of these babies. Even highly complex heart defects can be treated well today. Listen, Meredith, it's not hopeless. "
Meredith nodded and wiped tears from the eye. Derek stroked his wife gently on the cheek. "Come on, Meredith, we can do that. Whether our daughter has a heart defect or not." "Yeah. Okay. Cristina ..."
"Meredith, I can help your baby. I can do this.", Now also reassured Cristina their person before they set about to sound the heart of the little ones. It expresses the slimy gel on the transducer and started.
First four-chamber view, then five-chamber view and then the heart valves ... They also looked focuses on the monitor, clicked again and again to other views. "What is it?" Derek asked tense, trying also to take a look at the monitor. Then the door was opened carefully. Arizona, pediatric surgeon, came in.
"Dr. Grey? Dr. Shepherd?" She asked in surprise. "I was paged."
Cristina said, without taking your eyes off the monitor ". Dr. Robbins, look at this one please," Cristina asked the pediatric surgeon.
"Oh, shit." She said softly. "That can not be true ..." Meredith thought only after looking at the monitor. Cristina Arizona and talked for a while. Derek and Meredith were increasingly nervous.
What persuaded the then only for so long.
That could only mean that it was really a heart defect.
Meredith sat there tense, Derek sat in a chair next to it and held Meredith' hand. "It's definitely a heart defect." Meredith said resignedly. "Do not lose courage." Derek gave her encouragement. He tried it at least ...
"I do not lose anything." Meredith hissed irritably. "But that here proves that my babies ... that it is my fault, me and my crappy genes. One comes amidst the storm to the world and I almost bled to death if Bailey would not have saved me and now our little girl has a life-threatening heart defect."
Derek knew that was just the pregnancy hormones and the situation. As Arizona Robbins and Cristina Yang behaved, it seemed to be a bad heart defect.
There are very many dangerous, sometimes life-threatening heart defects.
Double Inlet Left Ventricle Double outlet right ventricle, pulmonary atresia with ventricular septal defect, Left Ventricle Outflow Tract Obstruction, Hypoplastic left heart syndrome, Interrupted aortic arch, transposition of the great vessels, tetralogy of Fallot, unbalanced atrioventricular septal defect ...
Then Cristina and Arizona with serious faces turned to the expectant parents.
"Well, we ..." Arizona began. She was interrupted by Dr. Cristina Yang. "Meredith and Derek, I'm sorry, but we have a large anomaly (anomaly) of the left ventricle can find." "What ?!" Derek was horrified. He looked at Meredith. She seemed to have not registered, what her person had just said.
Derek ran his hand gently Meredith' cheek.
"Hey, Mer. You've heard Cristina. Many heart defects can now routinely by one or more operations treat." "I know." Meredith said. Yet another reaction she did not show.
Derek sighed and turned to Arizona and Cristina, who stood with serious faces before them. "And that's not all. Also, your little girl has a congenital coarctation of the aorta, which adversely affect the flow of blood to the aorta ascendes (ascending aorta) and may lead to a deterioration of coronary and cerebral blood flow." Which was Arizona.
"How do we proceed?" Derek asked, his arm wrapped around Meredith. "As soon as the baby is born, we are doing an echocardiography, an electrocardiogram and a pulse oximetry to find out how big is the extent of cyanosis and can give indirect information about the perfusion." Cristina said, fully in doctor mode.
"This is the normal procedure in babies with or suspected Left Heart Hypoplasia."
"Meredith?" Derek tried to get his wife's attention. "Yes?" She responded without looking at him. "Is everything okay with you?" Derek asked anxiously.
Now she looked at him. Angry. "Are you serious? How could you dare to ask something like that after they just explained to us that our baby has a life-threatening heart defect, with whom she would not even survive the first week of life without open heart surgery ?!" Meredith screamed so loud that they even heard in the corridor.
Arizona came up to Meredith.
She said empathetically... "I know you're feeling angry and helpless ... And you wonder why it has to be you, that feel all parents whose children are born with heart defects. This is normal, but the important thing is children are strong, especially those who are born with a heart defect." Meredith calmed down a bit after Arizona had spoken to her.
However, the diagnosis of congenital heart disease was still like a slap in the face.
"And what happens now?" Meredith asked.
"We will perform more frequent ultrasound examinations to term and once you've given birth, your girl is brought to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and treated there with medication to hold open the patent ductus arteriosus. The infant needs it to be open, otherwise she'll go into cardiogenic shock. Towards the end of the first week, the first heart surgery is going to be performed. It's called the Norwood Procedure I."
"How does the surgery work?" Derek asked to Cristina.
"You can choose between two different kind of surgical procedures." She began, but was stopped by the neurosurgeon asking a question. "What would that be?" Derek prodded. "It even stand the Norwood procedure with modified Blalock- Taussig- shunt and there is a variant that is the Norwood procedure with Sano- shunt." Cristina replied to Derek's questions.
So the carousel never stops turning and you can´t get off even if you want to...
A/N: I know, this story has been posted before. And let´s face it: my grammar and vocabulary wasn´t very good back then. But I´d appreciate it if you could give this story a second try... maybe... Reviews are greatly appreciated.