Sara shifted queasily in bed and twitched her blankets in irritation. Gil stirred from his light nap and looked over at her, sighing internally. It had been three days since she woke properly and visited their daughter for the first time. Since then they had talked extensively about Rowen's medical complications, and their own injuries. Sara was irritable and in constant pain. She slept for hours at a time, exhausted by a simple meal, or a trip to the NICU. Candy had visited for an hour that morning, to say goodbye before heading off to university, and Sara had been asleep since.
She had a fever that came and went, and had developed an infection in the arm punctured by the glass shard. So far, her body was resisting antibiotics and her breathing was still labored. The nausea that had plagued him for days after waking had finally abated, but seemed to have moved straight over to Sara. Carefully he maneuvered himself out of bed and into the chair next to Sara; two days ago now Jenni had made him stand with a cane for support, something he found amusing, and difficult.
After a week in bed, standing again was much more difficult than it should have been. They repeated the exercise a couple of times a day, and yesterday she had taught him to transfer himself between the bed and chair. He still needed help to reach the bathroom, but at least he could sit with his wife whenever he wanted. Settling himself in a cocoon of blankets with pillows propping up his bad arm, he took her hand in his and stroked her fingers, soothing her back into sleep.
Victoria, the nurse who covered Jenni's days off, found him there that evening as she came in on her last trip around before signing out for the night.
"Grissom, wake up," she said gently, pulling him out of his dozing state.
"Hmm?" he asked, yawning and opening his eyes.
"It's time to get back in bed," she said, helping him up. "It's late, and I'm going home soon."
"I'm tired of being so tired," he grumbled as she tucked blankets around him and lowered the head of his bed.
"I know, but you're doing much better already. It just takes time I'm afraid. Try and think about all the progress you've made."
"It's not my progress that I'm most concerned with," he replied, shifting his pillow.
"That reminds me," she reached into a pocket and pulled out a Polaroid, handing it to him with a smile. "Rachel took that earlier and asked me to give it to you." He thanked her, and stared at the latest picture of baby Rowen as Victoria settled Sara for the night. He was etching the image of his child into his memory when he heard the nurse muttered something under her breath.
"What is it?" he asked, looking up.
"Her fever is back up again, and she's been much quieter today that yesterday. I'll page Doctor Watkins to come and look at her. It could be nothing, but I'd like to get her checked out anyway."
"Who's Doctor Watkins?" asked Gil, who felt that by this point he surely knew every member of staff on the hospital's payroll.
"Heidi Watkins, she's the department supervising physician tonight. You haven't met her before because she just came home from a six month mission in India helping develop an emergency program in rural areas." Victoria picked up the phone and made the page.
"She'll be here in ten minutes. And I will see you in a couple of days, try and get plenty of sleep, ok?"
Gil smiled and nodded, then turned his gaze to Sara, watching the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. Was it his imagination, or was she taking shallower and more rapid breaths? He looked at her respiration readings and felt his heart sink; the change wasn't much, but it was still there.
…
By morning it was clear, the infection was gaining ground. Sara was restless, feverish and confused. Her heart rate was rapid, her breathing worse. Doctor Watkins had changed the antibiotics for a stronger course, hoping to beat the fever back and help Sara breathe easier, a difficult task when her lungs were still bruised and operating at less than their normal function. She explained to Gil, kindly but openly, that she was very concerned about the possibility of Sara developing pneumonia. She ordered more blood tests, wanting to identify the bacterial strain causing the infection, and requested another chest x-ray.
Jenni arrived an hour later and helped him out of bed and into the bathroom. He managed a shower, sitting on a plastic stool, and almost fifteen minutes on his feet, as well as several dozen steps with a cane. Exhausted, he settled in his chair, once again taking Sara's hand and talking softly to her, waiting for her fever to cool and her eyes to open.
By evening, the situation had gone from bad to worse. Sara's body temperature was at 104.5°F and still climbing and she was back on oxygen because her blood saturation levels were falling. She was barely hanging on to consciousness, waking only briefly, but delirious and barely responsive then. By midnight her blood sugar levels were climbing and Doctor Watkins, back on the nightshift, decided it was time to move her back to ICU. Gil watched, frozen and terrified, as they wheeled her out while Joan tried to keep him in his own bed.
An hour later, after Sara was settled, Joan went to talk to the head nurse of the ICU and then returned to Gil's room carrying a small box. As she expected, the man was fidgeting in bed, stressing about his wife and child.
"I have a gift for you," she said gently, looking at his monitors with resignation. His previously much improved and settled vitals were all over the place with anxiety. "It should help you relax a little." Opening the box, she lifted out a monitor and set it up on his bedside table, plugging in various leads and then fiddling with a remote. When she stepped back, Gil's jaw dropped open.
"I went to talk to the head nurse," she explained kindly, "she let me set up a web cam with a live feed so hopefully you would calm down a little. The sooner you regain your strength, the sooner you'll be able to get out of here and take care of your ladies."
"I…" he stuttered, blown away at her gesture. "I… but… thank you," he choked, tears in his eyes. Joan smiled at him and gently patted his good arm.
"Get some rest Doctor Grissom, you need to keep your strength up."
…
When shift change rolled around midmorning, Gil was sitting in bed watching the screen feeling exhausted both mentally and physically. He had napped on and off, but true sleep had evaded him all night.
"You look terrible," said Jenni bluntly as walked in. Wordlessly he pointed to the monitor. "I know," she sighed, reaching for his empty IV bag and replacing it. "I just spoke with Joan, she said the doctors in ICU say they're keeping her blood sugar down with insulin and they've identified the specific bacteria. It's found in bird droppings, which sounds consistent considering it was windshield glass that was embedded in her arm."
"Doctor Watkins came in a couple of hours ago; the wound is septic, and Sara's back on the ventilator. She has pulmonary edema; her lungs are already compromised, and now there's fluid buildup that is essentially drowning her." With every word, Gil felt his throat tighten a notch, until he thought he was going to choke in despair.
"Sara's not going to give up Grissom, she's fought too hard to get this far," Jenni was firm, trying to keep him positive as she took the breakfast tray from the orderly in the doorway. "Cereal and toast with orange juice; eat up and we'll go and see how Rowen is today."
Jenni went to fetch his morning medication, feeling her heart sinking; this family just could not catch a break. She wasn't sure how much more Grissom could take before he cracked, but she knew she was not going to let him lose the ground he had gained in the last few days, not when his wife and daughter needed him. If she had to get tough and pushy, then so be it.
Back in the room, she helped him through the morning bathroom routine, pleased he need much less support than before, and then helped him into some fresh sweat pants and an athletics sweater.
"How far can you walk?" she asked, fastening his sling.
"I don't know," he replied, with a shrug. "I haven't been farther than the nurse's station and back."
"Do you want to try walking to the NICU? The sooner you get yourself mobile, the sooner they're going to let you out of here."
"Ok," he agreed, reaching for his cane. "Let's go." Their progress was slow, he was stiff from inactivity, and exhausted, but they eventually made it to Rowen's incubator. His legs shaky with exertion, he slithered into a chair, taking deep breaths as he leant forward and stared through the plastic. Shawna walked over to speak to him, smiling slightly as Rowen twitched her toes.
"How's she doing doc?" he asked. "I could really use some good news right now." Shawna's face fell, her smile fading.
"I'm sorry, but I can't oblige. She's getting worse; Alice is going to want to operate sooner rather than later."
His chest ached sharply as he listened, as though he'd abruptly plummeted to the bottom of a frozen lake. The room was suddenly far away, and he could hear only a blur of faint noise. Jenni and Shawna were talking to him, but they may as well have been a million miles away for all he knew.
He watched Rowen flex her tiny fingers, entranced. She was still intubated, with her eyes taped shut to prevent them drying out, and a plethora of tubes and wires blanketing her body like a web, but her fingers and toes moved. She had a new hat today; this one was pale green with caterpillars printed in a variety of colors. The image made him smile, despite the wretched despair gripping him.
"Tell me I'm dreaming," he murmured, finding his voice at last. Shawna sighed and pulled a chair up next to him.
"I wish I could," she replied sadly. "The backward flow of blood into the left ventricle is increasing. If Alice doesn't do something soon, the ventricle will be permanently damaged and the risks of heart failure increase substantially."
"What about her breathing? Is it improving?"
"No, the worsening of the regurgitation is making her blood oxygen level drop. The less efficient the heart becomes, the harder it is for the other systems to compensate." He dropped his head into his hands, taking deep steadying breaths. Shawna put a comforting hand on his shoulder.
"I heard about Sara," she said quietly. "I'm sorry this has all happened at once. Alice told me she would come and talk to you as soon as she's reviewed the latest test results. That should be soon, it's been a couple of hours since I spoke to her."
"Did she say when she wants to operate?" he asked wearily, running his fingers through his hair, causing it to stand on end. It gave him the appearance of an electrocuted porcupine, which had he realized and thought about, he would have said was rather an accurate description for how stressed, frazzled and worried he felt.
"No, but I would imagine within the next few days."
"Actually, I was thinking tomorrow morning would be best." Alice walked up behind them, notes tucked under her arm and a pen behind her ear. "I'm sorry Grissom, but we have no choice, it needs to be soon. I wanted to wait, but I believe that's just not a viable option anymore."
"It's ok," he said, pressing his lips together tightly, trying to keep his emotions in check. Alice fetched another chair and sat with Grissom and Shawna. Normally she would have taken him to a conference room, but because he was also a patient and had limited visitation time with Rowen, she decided right there and then was fine.
"I have a surgery slot at nine am tomorrow, if that's alright with you," she said, flipping open her chart.
"Yes," he agreed, resigned to the idea.
"Ok, let's talk about what's going to happen. How much do you know about the surgery itself?" asked Alice.
"I know it involves opening the chest cavity and putting her on a cardiopulmonary bypass machine."
"Yes, the heart has to be stopped while the repair takes place. I'm reasonably certain that a repair will be possible, but I can't be absolutely certain until I see the valve. The repair itself should be pretty straight forward, it's the anesthetic and bypass that I'm most concerned about." She went on to detail the exact process, providing him with as much information as she could. The bottom line, as she explained gently, was that the surgery was incredibly dangerous, but so was putting it off any longer.
"She's definitely the smallest patient I've ever performed this operation on," she concluded, "but she's not the most critical and my team is the best."
"She'll be in the best hands possible," said Shawna, speaking for the first time in a while. "Alice will take great care of her."
"I promise," nodded the surgeon.
"Thank you," he murmured. "I just don't like making decisions without being able to talk to my wife."
"Is she sedated?" asked Alice.
"Since yesterday, but she's been confused for a while before that. We did talk a few days ago when she woke up, but not since."
"It's the fever," said Shawna. Gil nodded.
"Yes; they've figured out what the bacteria is now, but her lungs were already weak and now she has pulmonary edema."
"Have they got a respiratory therapist with her?" asked Alice.
"Yes, he came to speak with me yesterday. She's as stable as they can get her; he said it's a waiting game while the new antibiotics kick in." He paused, watching Rowen breathe steadily through the tube in her throat.
"It makes me so angry," he said softly. "Nicholas Lockheed walked out of here without a stitch, and my wife and daughter are both so ill. He was so drunk he doesn't even remember the accident, but Sara and I haven't even had a chance to hold Rowen yet and she needs major surgery. After all the drunks Sara and I sent to jail, we get this as her birthday present. And my mother wonders why I walked away from religion."
…
By the time Jenni and Grissom made it back to his room, Gil was gray with pain, exhaustion and distress, and staggering very unsteadily on his feet, having insisted he walk back. They had taken a side trip to x-ray because Thistle had ordered another set of images on his shoulder, arm and ribs to check his progress, but had he been asked about the excursion he wouldn't have remembered it, as preoccupied as he was with his family and the days' crushing news.
He hobbled inside, heading straight for the bed but stopped short in surprise. Sitting in the chair beside his bed, head resting in one hand and his clothes rumpled from a post shift cross country journey was none other than Greg Sanders.
"Grissom," he gasped, leaping to his feet.
"Greg." Gil blinked, wondering if he was in fact now dreaming. He rubbed a hand over his eyes and stifled a yawn; he was so fatigued that his entire body hurt in a way that he thought had finally left him days ago. "What are you doing here?" he asked wearily as Jenni helped him back into bed.
"I've been calling for days. No answer. No replies to my emails, texts or voicemails. So I called the university and they said you were on leave from teaching. Since you're supposed to be here because someone else is on leave, I figured something was wrong."
Grissom tugged at his blankets, frowning as he tried to think things through. He stifled a yawn, irritated with his mind for failing him under the onslaught of information and emotions the morning had borne.
"My phone," he said at last, looking around. "It's here somewhere."
"Right here," said Jenni, fishing the device out of the cabinet and handing it to him. Her pager beeped just as she placed it in his hand. "Oh, I've got to go. Are you ok for a while? Do you need anything?" she asked him, slipping an extra pillow behind his back.
"I'm fine thank you." He forced back another yawn as she left and swiped his thumb over the touch screen of the phone. Nothing happened. "It's dead," he muttered, thinking. "I haven't charged it since the day before Sara's birthday," he realized.
"That was twelve days ago," Greg said.
"So we've been here eleven days," concluded Gil. "I had no idea, I've totally lost track of time."
"We?" asked Greg. "Where's Sara?"
"In ICU," he yawned, losing his fight to stay awake. "I'm sorry," he mumbled, trying to force his eyes to stay open, "I need a nap, and I ca…" he trailed off, emitting a soft snore.
Feeling barely more at ease than he had earlier, Greg leaned back in the chair waiting for the nurse to return so he could ask her what was going on. After a long shift, and even longer journey across country though, his body had other ideas, and even with the best will in the world he too drifted off to sleep.
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