They had so much fun at the Rangers home game a month ago that they ended up going to four more home games together. Eli actually talked his grandparents into coming with them to one game. Kate thought that they would never agree to it but they had and it ended up being one of the best nights of their lives. Her dad loved baseball and her parents spoiled Eli with just about every souvenir you could buy that night and Texas won!
The ER had been busy during the last month. More so than usual. There was a rise in drug overdoses and attempted suicides and the moon was nowhere near full. While most of the people made it to the morgue all of them came through the ER to be treated by Kate and her team. It was the one thing that bothers her a little bit because once they were done treating these people who decided they were better off dead that was the end of her interaction with them. Once they were in the psych unit or into drug rehab they were left to their own decisions on how to proceed with their life. Sure every once and a while the doctors that treated these patients would make a comment in passing about how they were doing but for the most part, they were not informed about their care after they left.
While she finished up the paperwork on her last patient she sees the ambulance pull up to the bay and then it backs in. This is odd because the crew never called in an emergency to the base. When she gets up from the charting desk she moves quickly towards the ambulance bay and sees both EMTs inside the rig working to get their patient ready for entry into the ER and then by the time the security guard opened up the back doors she is there to meet them. Both rush out relaying stats to her as they enter the ER.
"38-year-old male, motorcyclist versus pick up, head on, no helmet. BP 50 over 20. Respiration shallow, both pupils are blown." Says the first EMT.
"What the hell is that sticking out if his leg?" Kate asked as they rolled the man into the ER.
"As far as we can tell, it might be part of the guardrail support. It broke off when DPD responded by trying to pull him out of the blast area." The other EMT reported.
"Blast area?" Kate asked with confusion.
"Yeah, the tank on the bike split open, ignited, and blew up. But the cops got him clear of the bike right before it blew due to the quick thinking of the patrolman who had pulled him out from under the bike."
They moved the patient to the trauma room and started a work up on him. Jessie attached the leads for the heart monitor, EEG and defibrillator. Kim rechecked his pupils and came away with the same result while Kenzie wrapped the BP cuff around his arm and took his pulse.
"Kate, TBI," Jessie said sadly looking at the man on the bed.
"I know. He's just an organ donor now."
"There's nothing we can do. But the doc will need to come down and confirm what we already know. See if he has a donor card. If he does then we can notify next of kin and ask them to come down."
"Okay. Who's on call tonight?" Kenzie asks.
"It's Cohen," Kate answered.
"Well at least he's one of the good ones," Kim added.
Just as Kim finished her statement the man in question entered the trauma room.
"Ladies, good morning. What have we got?" Dr. Cohen asked.
"Hi, Dr. Cohen. It's good to see you again." Kim said.
"Male, 38, motorcycle versus car. Both pupils are blown traumatic brain injury. Right now, resting comfortably while next of kin is informed. No brain activity on the EEG and he has a donor card." Kate gave him the rundown of her patient.
"So now it's just a waiting game. I won't even bother addressing whatever that is stuck in his leg until he passes. But I'll do it before the next of kin arrive." Dr. Cohen said.
Dr. Cohen turns to the foot of the bed lifts up the chart to add his notes to it and places it back down. He gives a silent nod to Kate to make sure that the patient is kept comfortable until he dies. Then he left the room.
She has seen accidents like this happened in the past and they never end well. Most are paraplegic, and some are quadriplegics, which is sad in itself but these cases that she has to deal with are the worst. With no brain activity, she knows it's only a matter of time before everything else starts shutting down on this man. He will stop breathing, his lungs will fail to fill with oxygen, and then without oxygen to his brain, it will permanently shut down. The next to go will be his heart. But if they plan it right they will have an organ donor team in place to harvest what they can making sure that other people will benefit from what this man can give them.
20 minutes later Kate hears the flatline tone sounding. Looking up at the monitor she sees a solid line across the screen knowing that all life functions have ceased for this man. What will happen now will be quick since his next of kin did not arrive in time and he does have a donor card on the back of his driver's license, his organs will be harvested and teams will be called to retrieve them. This man will give help to 8 total strangers. His heart, lungs, eyes, kidney, liver, and even his skin that is not damaged. She turns off the alarm disconnects the leads from the heart monitor and the defibrillator and pulls the sheet over his head. The harvest team that was waiting out in the nursing station is quick to move into moving him to the OR so they can get him on heart bypass to keep his heart viable.
Xx
When her shift ends their biker is still in the OR. Teams from as far away as Las Vegas have come and gone already. When she left they were waiting for the last team to arrive from Chicago Mercy for his heart.
Her phone rings just as she pulls into the parking lot of her complex.
"Hello."
"Kate it's me and Kenzie you're on speaker with us. We wanted to know if you want to come out with us this morning for a drink?" Kjm asked.
"You do know it's almost 8 am, right?"
"Yeah but you know that they'll let us in. And honey you know that we need a drink after tonight."
She thinks back to the last time they asked her to go out. They are younger than she is and have more stamina but she could swear she hears Kim giggling along with Kenzie once they ask their question. She doesn't really want to go but if she doesn't they'll start talking about her and God forbid that should happen.
"Where?"
"Louie's"
When?
"Say in about two hours?"
"One. Drink. Only." Kate says determinedly.
"Great we'll meet you there." They say as they end the call still giggling.
What did I get myself into now? Kate thinks to herself as she enters her loft to get changed.
Xx
She has no willpower whatsoever. She never did with these two. One drink led to another and then another and still yet another until she needed to have the bartender call her an Uber to get her back home. She had had the foresight to take a cab to Louie's instead of driving and now since she only had less than eight hours to go back to work she really needed to get some sleep. After her shift, she had wanted to sleep, wake up, and go to her mom's house to see Eli. Maybe help him with his homework. She should have never agreed to go out with these two on a work night. She falls into her bed still fully clothed. Setting the alarm for 10 pm she is out in seconds.
Swatting at the alarm as it shrieks the alarm clock falls off the nightstand. She looks at her phone on the charger and sees that its 9:59 pm. Slowly getting out of the bed she has about 35 minutes to get a shower, get dressed find something to eat and get to work. She really hates the two of them right about now. She hopes that tonight is a quiet one and there is nothing to do other than restock supplies in the trauma rooms and the occasional patient transport from the ER to radiology.
When she gets to work that night it's Jessie that takes pity on her and she is so thankful for him. He gives her the option of performing the monthly inventory of the meds or cleaning the trauma rooms. But if there is a patient coming in then everything stops until the patient is taken care of. The entire shift surprisingly has no incoming traumas.
She goes home once more and her plan is to sleep for at least 10 hours. She will ask her mom and dad over for dinner tonight since she has this weekend off she thinks as she stands in the express line at the Central Market with enough food to feed an army. She can't wait to see her son. Other than a couple of minutes on Tuesday when she last saw him, she has only talked to him every morning before he left for school. She wants tonight to go well so she decided that they would all eat outside on the deck that is close to her loft. She'd grill the steaks and burgers, have a salad and maybe ice cream for dessert. Before she goes to sleep she makes a simple marinade for the streaks that will give them a robust southwestern taste and puts them back in the refrigerator. Then it's off to sleep.