The First Forty-Eight
First of all, please bare-with me. I am a very slow updater and only update when I feel like it or even when I am into a certain show. This is my second attempt to write my OC Grey's Anatomy fic. I lost interest in my other one, that's why I removed it. There will be a lot of changes to the show. Some favorite characters may even live Some might still stay the same.
You just have to have patience. As of right now, I'm only a few episodes away from ending the first season. I will also see what episodes will fit to my liking and to my characters. If you don't like it, then go ahead and leave, if you do then a R&R will be appreciated. If you want to be a beta-reader for me, just PM me your email and we can go from there. Thanks for this journey and sorry for any long delays in the future, ahead of time. Just for now, enjoy this wild roller coaster ride of Seattle Grace Hospital once again from a different character's P.O.V.
Let me know what you think. Now for further ado, let the story began!
Walking into an E.R, a real E.R room, I was astonished of what it looks like. I've been into an "E.R room," before in medical school. But nothing like this. The table in the middle of the room, lights and computers were all the same. There was extra equipment and just more of everything. When everyone came into the room, the older gentlemen that was already in the room, or our chief, Dr. Webber as he introduced himself earlier, started to talk.
"Each of you comes here hopeful. Wanting in on the game. A month ago, you were in med school being taught by doctors. Today, you are the doctors. The seven years you spend here as a surgical resident will be the best and worst of your life. You will be pushed to the breaking point. Look around you. Say hello to your competition. Eight of you will switch to an easier specialty. Five of you will crack under the pressure. Two of you will be asked to leave. This is your starting line. This is your arena. How well you play? That's up to you."
After the rest of our tour, it had ended in the locker rooms where the interns had their things and got ready for the day. I went into the middle of the locker room in the middle isle and had the fifth locker down on the right. I was just putting my things into the locker when, my older twin brother stepped beside.
"This is crazy. Do you think this is crazy?"
"How what is crazy?"
"How we're starting our first day, right now?"
"Yeah, it's crazy George." I laughed.
We were just putting our badges on, when two women behind us talking about a doctor called, The Nazi. Yes, there was a doctor nicknamed, The Nazi. Before I could talk however….
"You got the Nazi? So, did I. At least we'll be tortured together, right? I'm George O'Malley, uh, we met at the mixer, you had a black dress with a slit up the side, strappy sandals..."
The two exchange looks.
"Now you think I'm gay." My brother stutters.
I turned around facing my closed locker and slowly fell in front of the locker.
"Uh-huh and is she alright?"
"She's fine, she's my sister and no, I'm not gay, it's, ah, it's just that, you know, you were, I mean, you were very, unforgettable."
"George, please, just shut-up,"
"O'Malley's, Yang, Grey, Stevens." A doctor called out.
"And I'm totally forgettable." George says.
"George, give it a rest."
"What? I'm just saying."
"I'm McKenna O'Malley. I like to be called Kenna though."
I was speaking to the blond curly girl of the two women. She seemed nice.
"Nice to meet you. I'm Meredith Grey,"
We shake hands.
"Your uh, brother seems nice."
"You can just say weird, I won't be offended."
She laughs. Looking ahead though, George was giving a "what the heck look." I smiled at him.
"Bailey?" The other one of the women asks the doctor who called us out.
"End of the hall."
"That's the Nazi?" She questions.
Looking down the hall, the doctor we were assigned to wasn't who we were expecting. She was a short, black and a bit overweight. She doesn't look very threatening at all.
I thought the Nazi would be a guy." George says.
"I thought the Nazi would be...the Nazi." Meredith adds.
"Maybe it's professional jealousy. Maybe she's brilliant, and they call her Nazi because they're jealous. Maybe she's nice." A blonde says, pushing her way through.
"Let me guess. You're the model." The other woman says mockingly.
"Hi, I'm Isabel Stevens, but everyone calls me Izzie." She says, sticking her hand out.
Dr. Bailey just gave her a blank look.
"I have five rules. Memorize them. Rule number one, don't bother sucking up, I already hate you, that's not going to change,"
We quickly grab the pagers, pens and notepads that were on the counter on front of us and ran after Bailey, who was already walking away from us, not caring if we were behind.
"Trauma protocol, phone lists, pagers. Nurses will page you and you answer every page at a run. A run, that's rule number two. Your first shift starts now and lasts forty-eight hours. You're interns, grunts, nobodies, bottom of the surgical food chain, you run labs, write orders, work every second night till you drop and don't complain!"
She opens a door to a small room, which had two bunkbeds and a desk as well.
"On call rooms. Attendings hog them, sleep when you can, where you can, which brings me to rule number three, if I'm sleeping, don't wake me, unless your patient is actually dying. Rule number four, the dying patient better not be dead when I get there, not only would you have killed someone, you would have also woken me for no good reason, we clear?"
We were writing the rules down in our notebook, I realized that was only four. I raised my hand.
"Yes?"
"You said five rules. That was only four." I reminded her hesitantly.
Bailey's pager beeps.
"Rule number five. When I move, you move."
She runs down the corridor, we follow her, and she yells at a few doctors blocking the hallway.
"Get out of my way!"
Bailey is moving a stretcher over to us, we were on the roof of the hospital.
"What've we got?"
"Katie Bryce, fifteen-year-old female, new onset seizures, intermittent for the past week, ID lost en-route, started grand mal seizing as we descended." The paramedic informs us.
"All right, get her on her side, Izzie, ten milligrams Diazepam, no, no, the white lead is on the right, righty whitey, smoke over fire, a large bore I.V. don't let the blood hemolyze, let's go!"
Izzie injects her, and she stops seizing. A new doctor enters the room, he was African American, tall, young looking.
"So, I heard we got a wet fish on dry land?" He asks
"Absolutely Dr. Burke."
"Dr. Bailey, I'm going to shotgun her."
We look towards Bailey for what that means.
"That means every test in the book, CT, CBC, chem. seven, tux screen, Cristina, you're on labs, George, patient workups, Meredith, get Katie for a CT, she's your responsibility now, McKenna, you'll do sutures."
I was taken aback from my assignment.
"Wait, what about me?" Izzie asks, not retrieving an assignment.
"You - honey, you get to do rectal exams."
I feel a smirk forming. Glad I wasn't on her bad side already.
The five of us separate. I ask the nurse politely who I need to go and see first. I went to room 5346. There was a middle age man, in the room that had a gauze over his right arm.
"Hello Mr. Wellington, I'm Dr. O'Malley and I'll be stitching up your arm today."
I explain to him, he smiles at me and starts to talk about how he got the scratch from working in his workshop. I smile politely at him, while cleaning around the area and making his arm numb. After doing ten other patients, I got a page saying, meet in the cafeteria. Finally, after fifteen minutes of searching for the cafeteria. I was paying for my sandwich, bag of chips and bottle water. I spotted my brother sitting with Izzy and the other woman from the locker room talking to Meredith.
"Hey." George greeted me.
I smiled at him and looked over to the Korean woman.
"Hi, I'm McKenna O'Malley. Call me Kenna."
"Cristina Yang. Call me Cristina."
I notice that Izzie has food in front of her but isn't eating.
"This shift is a marathon, not a sprint, eat." George tells her.
"I can't."
"You should eat something." I told her.
"You try eating after performing seventeen rectal exams. The Nazi hates me."
"I feel like my fingers ae going to fall off if I do any more sutures." I tell them.
"The Nazi's a resident. I have attendings hating me." George explains.
I looked over at him confused.
"What did you do."
"Nothing."
"You know Meredith is inbred?" Cristina pipes up.
"Like it's uncommon around here to be a doctor's…" George starts to say.
"No, I mean royally inbred. Her mother is Ellis Grey." Cristina explains.
"Shut up, the Ellis Grey?" Izzy questions.
"Uh-huh."
"Who's Ellis Grey?" George and I say in unison
Izzie and Cristina laugh.
"The Grey method? Where'd you two go to med school, Mexico?"
"She was one of the first big chick surgeons, she practically invented the abdominal." Izzie starts.
"She's a living legend, she won the Harper Avery. Twice." Cristina continues.
"So, we didn't know one thing." I said, being offended.
"Talk about parental pressure." Izzie mumbles.
"I would kill to have Ellis Grey as a mother. I would kill to be Ellis Grey. All I need is one good case." Cristina says, stabbing her salad.
Meredith then comes over and sits down with her tray.
"Katie Bryce is a pain in the ass. If I hadn't taken the Hippocratic oath, I'd Kevorkian her with my bare hands."
We just stare at her.
"What?" She asks, we just shrug.
"Good afternoon interns," Dr. Burke greeted our table. "It's posted, but I thought I'd share the good news personally. As you know, the honor of performing the first surgery is reserved for the intern that shows the most promise. As I'm running the OR today, I get to make that choice."
We all sat up straighter in our chairs. He claps George on the back
"George O'Malley. You'll scrub in for an adipectomy this afternoon. Congratulations." He says with no hesitation.
"Me?" George asks, surprised.
"Enjoy."
Burke leaves, no one speaks.
"Did he say me?"
"What did you do?" I ask again, speaking when he said that attendings were pissed at him.
No one spoke after that. George couldn't eat anymore, I couldn't really either. Nervous for my older brother. Being one of the first of our class on the first day to do a solo surgery. Even though they say adipectomy surgeries are plan and simple, it's still going to be his first solo surgery. An hour later, all of the interns were in the sitting gallery looking down into the surgery room below. George was standing in front of the table where the patient was laying asleep. I could tell he was nervous to all hell. I helped him memorize the procedure before he scrubbed in.
"He's going to faint. He's a fainter." One of the other interns said.
"Naaah, code brown. Right in his pants." Another says.
"He's all about the flops, he's going to sweat himself unsterile."
"Ten bucks says he messes up the McBird."
"Twenty says he cries." Cristina says.
"Cristina!" I snapped at her, getting tired of everybody's judgements.
"I'll put twenty on a total meltdown. "
"Fifty says he pulls the whole thing off." Meredith says.
I look at her relieved that at least someone believes in my brother. Everybody looks at her, silent.
"That's one of us, down there. The first one of us. Where's your loyalty?" She snaps in questioning.
"Seventy-five says he can't even ID the appendix." Cristina bets again.
"I'll take that action." Izzie agrees.
The others do too. I groan in protest. I do mumble a thanks to Meredith.
"Okay, O'Malley, let's see what you can do." I heard Dr. Burke say through the intercom.
"Here it comes." I say nervously.
"Scalpel." George says confidently.
The nurse hands him the scalpel.
George takes it, we interns cheer from the gallery. Burke looks up at us to shut up.
"That Burke, he's trouble." Cristina mumbles.
We laugh. George gets ready to cut.
"More pressure. Human flesh is a tough shell, dig in." Burke tells him.
"Pick-ups," George says. "Clamp. Met some bone. I'm there."
"Damn, he got the peritoneum and he opened him up." The first intern said.
"I told you, he's going to pull it off." Meredith says, proving herself right.
"Scalpel," George continues. Appendix is out."
He tosses that into the bin next to him. We cheer once again.
"Not bad." Burke complements.
"Thank you."
"Now all you have to do is invert the stump into the cecum and simultaneously pull up on the purse-strings but be careful not to rip them," Burke groans as George rips the cecum. "He ripped the cecum. Got a bleeder. You're filling with stool, what do you do now?"
"Uh...uh..." George starts to panic.
"Think. You start the suction, and you start digging for those purse-strings before she bleeds to death. Bulky, give him a clamp"
"BP's dropping." The nurse say.
"He's choking." Cristina says.
"Come on, George." I mumble.
"Today. Pull your balls out of your back pocket, let's go. What are you waiting for, suction?"
George is still frozen. The monitors are starting to blare.
"Getting too low folks... Dr Burke..." A nurse calls out.
"Get out of the way. Pansy-ass idiot. Get him out of here. Suction. Clamp." Burke shoves him out of the way.
"007." One says.
"007, yep, that's a total 007." Another agrees.
"What's 007 mean?" I ask Meredith.
"Licensed to kill."
After the surgery we all met up in a dimly lit hallway where they store the extra beds and monitors. We were either just studying or snacking.
"007. They're calling me 007, aren't they?" George ask, panicking.
"No one's calling you 007." Meredith and I say.
"I was on the elevator and Murphy whispered 007."
"Oh, how many times do we have gone through this, George, five, ten? Give me a number or else I'm going to hit you." Cristina says, getting annoyed.
"Murphy whispered 007 and everyone laughed."
"He wasn't talking about you." Izzie says.
"You sure?"
"Would we lie to you?" I ask.
"Yes."
I look at him confused but shrugged. He isn't wrong though about me lying to him.
"007 is a state of mind." Cristina explains.
"So, says the girl who finished top of her class at Stanford." George defends.
Someone pagers beep.
"Oh man. It's 911 for Katie Bryce. I gotta go."
Meredith runs off down the hall.
"Maybe I should've gone into geriatrics. No one minds when you kill an old person." George says.
"Surgery is hot, it's the Marines, it's the macho, it's hostile, it's hardcore." Cristina said.
"Geriatrics is for freaks who live with their mothers and never have." I tell him.
"I've got to get my own place." George grunts, getting up and leaving.
"Is he always like this?" Izzy asks.
"Unfortunately." I sighed.
I was coming out of another room from doing yet, more sutures. This one was a child, who didn't listen to his mother about running around with scissors. He was fine, just had a deep cut on his hand. I go up to the nurse's station and handed the nurse the boy's chart.
"4B's got post-op pneumonia. Let's start antibiotics." A young man said.
I look around my shoulder and see a young man talking down to another nurse. He was about my age and in the same scrubs as I am. Standing at about 6'0" tall, short light brown.
"Are you sure that's the right diagnosis?" A nurse asks him.
"Well I don't know, I'm only an intern. Here's an idea, why don't you go spend four years in med school and let me know if it's the right diagnosis. She's short of breath, she's got fever, she's post-op. Start the antibiotics,"
After he instructs her, he starts to walk over to the nurse's station.
"God, I hate nurses. I'm Alex. I'm with Jeremy, you're with the Nazi, right?"
"She may not have pneumonia, you know. She could be splinting or have a PE." I tell him bluntly.
"Like I said, I hate nurses."
"What did you just say? Did you just call me a nurse?" I ask annoyed.
"Well, if the white cap fits..."
I take the chart that the nurse was handing to me and went to that room.
"What are you doing?" Meredith asks.
I walk into a conference room where the interns were paged to go to. I sat down behind them and seen that Cristina was suturing a banana.
"I'm suturing a banana, with the vain hope that it wakes up my brain." She explains.
"Once again, I don't think I can do anymore sutures." I tell him.
George was laughing while I was talking.
"What're you smiling at, 007?" Cristina asks, calling him his new nickname.
"I'm sorry, I get mean when I'm tired."
"You know what? I don't care. I comforted a family, and I get to hang out in the OR today. All is well." He explains.
"Does anybody know why we're here?" I ask.
"Well good morning, I'm Dr. Derek Shepherd for those of you don't know. I'm going to do something pretty rare for a surgeon, I'm going to ask interns for help," He explains, and we start whispering. "I've got this kid, Katie Bryce. Right now, she's a mystery. She doesn't respond to her meds. Labs are clean, scans are pure, but she's having seizures. Grand mal seizures with no visible cause. She's a ticking clock. She's going to die, if I don't make a diagnosis. Which is where you come in. I can't do it alone. I need your extra minds, extra eyes, I need you to play detective, I need you to find out why Katie is having seizures. I know you're tired, you're busy, you've got more work than you could possibly handle. I understand. So, I'm going to give you an incentive. Whoever finds the answer rides with me. Katie needs surgery. You get to do what no interns get to do. Scrub in to assist on an advanced procedure. Dr Bailey's going to hand you Katie's chart. The clock is ticking fast, people. If we're going to save Katie's life, we have to do it soon."
We all grab copies of her chart. I go back to the third-floor nurse's station. I smiled at the nurse and she smiled back, handing me a new chart.
"Look, give the antibiotics time to work." Alex yells at the nurse from before.
"The antibiotics should've worked by now." The nurse explains.
"She's old, she's freaking ancient. She's lucky she's still breathing. Now, I got a shot to scrub in downstairs and a patient who wasn't alive during the civil war. Don't page me again." He snaps.
I roll my eyes and go to the next room. Walking into this room, was an elderly lady who said that her cat scratched her hand. Removing the gauze from her hand, it was a good deep gash. Smiling at her, I numb her hand. Can these hours go faster please, before my fingers fall off? Sighing mentally, I began stitching her hand.
"No, screw you. I don't get picked for surgeries because I slept with my boss, and I didn't get into med school because I have a famous mother. You know, some of us have to earn what we get." I hear Cristina yelling from down the hall.
Meredith comes around the corner before I could. Coming around, I look at Izzy and Cristina confused.
"Did I miss something?"
"Oh yeah. Meredith and Cristina solved the problem of the Katie Bryce girl. But Dr. Shepheard picked just Meredith instead of picking them both."
"Izzy." Cristina complains.
"What, it's true."
I smiled shaking my head. This day just keeps getting weirder and weirder. It was already the first night. I woken up to my pager going off. Everyone was gone. I must've fallen asleep earlier. I look at my watch and seen it was a little after ten pm. I looked at my pager which beeped again. Unfortunately, I had to go do more sutures. I sighed, sliding off the bed and going back to the third-floor nurse's station.
"I got a page, I'm Dr. O'Malley."
"Here you go doctor."
"Thanks."
I was just looking over the chart, when I looked up and seen the chief yelling at Alex about his patient. At some point, Meredith came onto the floor as well.
"She's still short of breath. Did you get an ABG or a chest film?" The chief yells.
"Oh, yes sir, I did." Alex tells him.
"And what did you see?"
"Oh, well, I had a lot of patients last…"
"Name the common causes of post-op fever."
"Uh...yes, sir."
Alex pulls his notebook out of his pocket.
"From your head. Not from a book. Don't look it up, learn it, it should be in your head. Name the common causes of post-op fever." The chief yells.
"Uh...the common causes of post-op..." Alex stutters.
"Can anybody name the common causes of post-op fever?!"
Everybody stops, one girl pulls out her notebook.
"Wind, water, wound, walking, wonder drugs. The five W's. Most of the time it's wind, splinting or pneumonia. Pneumonia's easy to assume, especially if you're too busy to do the tests." I tell him, with no hesitation.
The chief gives Alex a pointed look then looks to me, for a split second he does do a double take look to Meredith.
"What do you think's wrong with 4B?"
"The fourth W, walking. I think she's a prime candidate for a pulmonary embolus." I explain.
"How would you diagnose?"
"Spiral CT, VQ scan, provide O2, dose with Heparin, and consult for an IVC filter."
"Do exactly as she says, then tell your resident that I want you off this case. Good work Dr…." He says to Alex and I follow him to the patient's bed.
"Dr. McKenna O'Malley, sir." That was a little strange coming out of my mouth.
He smiles at me and walks over to Meredith. After I helped Alex, which he wasn't happy with whatsoever. I helped the patient that I was originally paged for.
Finally, our first forty-eight hours were up. George and I met up in the locker rooms, I took no time in taking a seat on the bench in front of our lockers. George opens his locker and changes into his street clothes. The others walk in as soon as I start to change too. As I was just pulling my shirt over my head and slipping it on, I seen that Alex was making his way in. He seen me huffed and rolled his eyes.
"What's his deal." George asks me.
"Oh nothing, I corrected him in front of the chief and is embarrassed by it." I explain.
We walk out and into my car. I hopped into the driver seat and he the passenger.
"I am so tired." He grumbles.
"You can say that again"
"I just know that we aren't going to be getting much sleep at home."
"Well, at least we can get a good cooked breakfast before going to bed."
He sighs and plops his head against the seat. We drove back home for a well-rested day off.
