The beginning of recovery
Audrey was discharged after spending a week at the hospital and Glassman forbade that she came back to work before another ten days. Emma went back to college a few days after Lim's discharge. The week Audrey spent home alone felt like hell and as soon as she could, she dived into work again. She however took the time (during that week off) to see a psychiatrist at SJ General.
When he gave her a prescription for sertraline and urged her to book regular counseling appointments, she internally freaked out and shoved the prescription deep in her pocket. There was no way she would find enough time to go to consults and deal with her job as chief of surgery. And most of all, she refused to be controlled by some drug. It couldn't be that bad. Despite a near death experience on her bike, she still clung to the belief that she had things under control.
She resumed her usual load of work and somehow, was distracted enough to get her symptoms more or less under control. She was still tense and way less patient than she used to be, but the annoying flat line sound was kept at bay most of the day. She wouldn't have gone as far as saying things were going great, but she was in control and she felt good about it. Or so she thought.
One day she decided to perform a tumor ablation in the brain of a transgender patient. The tumor was tangled in other tissues and removing it was tricky. But as the surgery progressed, complications arose and the patient suffered an air embolism. All of a sudden, the monitor was beeping frantically and Audrey found herself going through another flashback. All sounds in the OR became distant as the flat line and her voice echoing in the room were all she could hear. There she was again, helpless, pulling off the plug of another covid patient, watching them dying while their families were crying. Her heartrate increased and her breathing became shallow. It was as if the efforts she had put in to get her anxiety under control were all in vain. The OR, which had been her solace, had turned into another place where her PTSD symptoms could be triggered and overwhelm her. She hated the person she was becoming, hated losing her temper so easily and not being able to keep her nerves down anymore.
As she saw Neil in a corner of the room, she let herself being guided by his words. "Breath in and out. Slowly. Follow my lead" and as she did, she managed to reconnect with her surroundings and pull a remarkable saving. She was back on her game; but it had almost costed her patient their life. She hurried to her office as soon as the surgery was over and reached for a drawer in her desk. The prescription she had been ignoring for weeks was still laying there. Defeated by the recent events in the OR, she knew she had no other choice but to face her issue if she wanted to keep on doing the one thing she enjoyed the most. The night she took her first pill and as Andrews offered her a new bottle of whiskey to apologize for his gossip, she took the courage to open up and tell him about her diagnosis. There was no reason to be ashamed and surprisingly, he understood better than she had expected. His empathy reassured her. He didn't judge her nor did he try to undermine her authority. He simply felt sorry for her and offered his comfort.
It took a few appointments with her psychiatrist and group therapy sessions to see the first improvement. Her medication changed twice and when it seemed they had found the right cocktail for her, she found a new balance at work. She began running. Once a week at first, then twice and then up to almost every day when she could. She regretted the fact that she was no longer hallucinating sometimes, realizing how much she missed Neil. There were days when she seriously considered skipping her cocktail, just for a chance to see him again and smile at him, drink a glass of 15-year-old reserve bourbon and share a meal with him. It was unfair that he wasn't there anymore. And it was all because of her. Because she hadn't been able to resume proper blood flow to his bowels, because she hadn't even had the guts to discuss the stomach whipple option with him and had let Glassman convince her that anyways, it wouldn't have been the way he wanted to live. But what did he know? He didn't know Neil as well as she did. She had just let him talk her out of her surgical plan because she didn't want to suffer the guilt of having him dying on the table, under her own blade and because she couldn't stand the idea of trying to resuscitate him in vain.
But she held on and never skipped a day. The nightmares were still the hardest things to face. Through the hard days and the better days, she put on the bravest fight she could. At least she was fighting for the living. She was fighting so that she may be a good example for Emma. She was convinced that she too, suffered from PTSD now that she thought about it. The car crash she had been in as a kid was the first trauma and her recent hospitalization was another one she wasn't sure Emma was properly equipped to deal with. She hadn't really paid attention before starting her own treatment, but when Emma came back home for Thanksgiving, she realized that the nightmares she thought were gone, were still haunting her. Emma didn't seem to suffer from insomnia but she was so discreet that she began questioning that too. And to top it all, she did suffer from an eating disorder, which was nowhere near being under control. If anything, it was worst.
Emma didn't even try to hide her issues anymore at home, just simply heading to the bathroom anytime she had to eat something she hadn't planned on eating or asking her mother for some laxative without giving her a reason why she needed them. And when Audrey refused to enter her game, she got angry. There were fighting less now that Audrey was on medication, but their relationship was broken. It pained Audrey to see her daughter going through her third year of college and not enjoying the experience at all. She was still unable to run competitively due to her lung issues, was locking herself in this downward spiral that no one could take her out of and looked sadder than ever. Nothing or no one seemed to reach her and after Christmas, Audrey knew she had to step in if she wanted to save Emma. Not as a doctor, but as a mother.