Chapter 17: Eryn

The innocence of a child, something that one it was gone was something that could never be replace. That innocence has bewildered my parents and awed them, for it is something that as adults we have lost, never to get it back again. We are formed by those hardships in which we endure, our struggles alone the path that we have chosen to take, yet it's that innocence that we always try to recapture.

County was a haven for Chicago's sickest and it's most needy, a place of refuge where those in need of medical attention could turn with out fear of being turned away because of the status that they had been resigned to, some by choice others by forces that always seemed to be just outside of their control.

Many were drunks, having learned to be dependent on alcohol, it's bitter burning sensation easing the suffering that they had seemed to be facing, chasing away demons, at least while they were under it's hard effects. Odds were if they looked drunk and they smelled drunk then they were a drunk, but what you didn't know was the reason that they were a drunk. The bad part was that working in the ER, ninety-five percent of the time you didn't have time to get to the bottom of why a drunk was a drunk.

Yet that wasn't the worst part of the job. No where in all your studying, the hours that you spend pouring over books and practicing your skills does it ever say once you are in the real world of medicine be prepared, expect the unexpected. It does not say that you will be hit, you will be puked on, that you will be sworn at, that you will have every body fluid known to the medical community at one time come flying at you either by accident or by sheer will. Mankind has never been kind to each other and that certainly held true here.

It was that part of the job that they had hid so well from me, the part that I never with all my adventures or misadventures in the ER had I ever once seen those things happen. I can't say that I led a sheltered life, yes there for a long time, I was overprotected by my parents, but hard as they tried, I still managed to find more than my fair share of trouble.

I had been here a week, felt like an eternity but in reality it had only been a week. 12 hour shifts that seemed once they started the clock stood still for as long as it could, minutes passing felt like hours and no matter how hard or fast you worked, you could never deal with everything that came walking, running or pushed through the doors.

Someone once asked my why I chose medicine for my career. I was bright that was never a doubt. I honestly believe it was because that's what I was raised around, nothing but medicine, for you see my mother was a doctor, my father was a doctor and I felt that it was my turn to continue on making yet another member of the family a physician. While I think that they would have preferred that I had taken up law or perhaps gone into some form of business rather than follow in their footsteps I know that the both could tell that this was something that I rather enjoyed. But I think that they always feared that the stress would be to much for me to handle, they were over protective from the get go.

Growing up I had spent countless hours on a couch in the lounge, being entertained or watched over by members of the staff, often a nurse who was coming off shift while I waited for one parent or the other to finish up their work. Sometimes I would sneak off from my hiding place and go into rooms that I know that I shouldn't have, all to satisfy my curiosity of what it was that they exactly did in this giant sterile place.

And I can honestly say that here I had my greatest adventures, met people, some a person of my age at the time shouldn't have been meeting but I did. There were times that I know my parents wanted to kill the desk clerk. Jerry was my favorite cause he'd plop me up on one of the giant chairs and set a book with all kinds of pictures in it for me to look at, and if it wasn't terribly busy, he'd usually end up pointing things out. Or he'd say Eryn watch the desk while I run next door quick. He'd go off to get something to eat, and I'd usually end up with some kind of gooey treat.

I had this tendency to rather wander off and explore on my own with out an adult keeping an eagle eye on my and I would usually end up being caught by a nurse, Chuny or Haleh was usually the one that would grab and scoop me up telling me that this was not the place for a youngster to be, that I was seeing things that I shouldn't be seeing. Often followed by a "your mom or dad will be done shortly, go wait in the lounge for them." Or I would be taken off to have a cookie, juice, what ever they could find in the lounge to occupy me with and of course wire me up so that my parents were miserable for a few hours until the sugar high wore off.

So why am I tell you this, well you see my name is Eryn, Eryn Elizabeth Carter. My mother is Abby Lockhart, she didn't change it when she married my dad because well by the time they got around to it she was already a doctor and she just didn't. And I am very proud of my mother for all she accomplished. She raised me and managed to finish her residency. Now I know that couldn't have been easy for her. I still have the small remnants of the scars running down the center of my chest. I know that I was really sick growing up, yet she was the one who always took care of me and I hope that I can be half the woman that she was someday.

My dad is John Carter who after I was born became an attending at the hospital where I was now beginning my medical training. I'm the second generation to work at County and that in itself was something that I was very proud of. And I know that both of them are very proud of me. You can see it in my parents eyes when the look at me, and of course right now both of them are sitting in the lounge waiting and wondering what today will have in store for me. While I might have grown up, to them I will forever and always be their innocent baby girl.

A/N: Thanks for reading this and I hoped that you enjoyed it, but alas all good things must come to an end and this is the end of this one. Thank you to everyone who took the time to review the story and that those reviews were much appreciated.