Chapter 4
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The Sydney she found in the clinic was subdued and deferential.
"You're off your game, Dr. Heron," she remarked between patients.
"No. Just…Dr. Torres told me you had a friend."
She arched an eyebrow. "That surprises you?"
"No! Of course not! Just…look, we talked, and the thing is, I wanted you to know…"
"It's not me she was talking about," Miranda clarified. "There really is a friend."
"I know! And it sounds like you're right to be worried about her. But Dr. Torres got paged before I could finish explaining. The breakdown, whatever it is…that's just the starting point. The cry for help, it's not really helping until you answer it."
"What are you suggesting?"
"Well, it sounds like you're off to a good start, spending time with her, just being with her, letting her know you're there. But there will come a point where she's going to need professional aid---medication to help her stabilize her mood, maybe, and definitely some therapy if what we're dealing with is really a mood disorder."
"How do we know if it is?"
"That's why she'll need therapy. Professional therapy. It might surprise a mighty surgeon like you to know that there is a branch of medicine which specializes in this very thing…"
"Spare me."
"Look, I'm only saying that it might not be as straightforward as you think. Dr. Torres didn't tell me who it is, but I gather it's someone who works here?"
Slowly, she nodded.
"A fellow surgeon?"
She couldn't give that much away. But it didn't seem she needed to. Sydney was on a roll.
"Doctors make especially terrible patients, you know that. And when mental health is involved…well, it's so easy to think oh, it's not that bad. Nothing bleeding or broken or anything like that, so I can just work through it. Everybody has stress, in this line of work. I've been through worse."
Unwittingly, she found herself nodding. "Yeah. Something like that."
"And a difficult case comes in, and you throw yourself into it, and while it's happening, it keeps your mind off the pain. So you find another, and another, and you're spending all of your time at work, but it's okay because the adrenalin high is blocking out the inner demons. Or you go shoot some baskets or lift at the gym…do you know how many psych patients we get who come in with a broken bone? They over-do it on the court or at the ice rink or something like that, and it's what finally gets them into a hospital, where an alert intern just senses that something is very wrong…"
"Huh."
"Or you decide hey, I just need to de-stress a little. So I'll go out and have a few drinks…"
She perked up at that one.
"And you start thinking wow, I can't be much fun right now. So you push your friends away, or, you go looking for validation in all the wrong places, to convince yourself that people haven't seen through you yet, that everything is fine…"
Miranda sat down, the words hitting her hard. Sydney was touching every point, exactly. "You're right," she said. "On all of it, you're right."
"You know, there is an old joke from AA, about 'fine.' They say that what it really means is Fucked up, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional."
"You're right. All of it. Dr. Heron…Sydney…is she a danger to her patients right now?"
"Ironically, she's not. She's probably at the top of her game right now, because it's one of her few distractions from everything else. If it goes wrong though…"
"If the patient dies, you mean?"
"Yeah. I would expect a really strong reaction."
"You'll get one. She's close to bottom, Sydney. I feel it."
"Dr. Bailey?"
"Hmmm?"
"She's not alone. There's help for her out there. If she does hit bottom? Be sure you make her understand that. There's help, and it works."
--
Addison, Derek and Mark were deep into a highly complicated c-section when Bailey finally found her way up there. She took a seat beside Callie and George.
"So?"
"So," Callie said. "It turns out that the neuro case? It's the baby, not the mom. It has a congenital something, and it was going to be born with problems, car accident or not."
"Oh."
"Shepherd keeps trying to butt in to have a look, but Addison's having trouble getting the baby out. The mom has some internal injuries…"
When the baby finally was out, they could see at once that something was very wrong. The head seemed unusually large, the colour had a grayish tint, and when Addison tickled the bottoms of the baby boy's feet, he didn't so much as quiver. Derek tried to jostle closer, but Addison pushed him aside.
"He's still under my jurisdiction," she snapped. "Neuro issues notwithstanding. He has diminished breath sounds, and erratic cardiac function. I need a full work-up on his heart and lungs. Yang!"
"I need my neuro work-up," Shepherd said. "Baby issues notwithstanding."
"If I don't get this baby an airway a.s.a.p, he won't live long enough for the neuro issue to be a problem. Move out of my way. Help Mark with the mother."
"I don't want to help Mark," he said, clearly losing patience. "The mother isn't my patient. The baby is. And I can hook him up to a ventilator just as well as you can."
"Derek. I will say this one more time. Stay out of my way right now. You'll get your hands on this baby when I say you will, and not a moment sooner. Yang! Get me a monitor, a tray and a ventilator. He's turning blue."
There was silence in the gallery for a moment. "Well," George finally said.
Callie shook her head. "If that wasn't the smackdown to end all smackdowns…"
"I'll be back," Miranda said.
"Where are you going?"
"She has to tell the baby's father. I want to hear what the prognosis is."
--
She held back, but saw everything clearly. The father was young, handsome and hunched over a prayer book. When Addison walked over, he put the book down and stood up. He had removed a dark suit jacket. A fringe hung out the bottom of his shirt.
"Mr. Scheir?" Addison said.
He nodded. "How's Hanna? And the baby?"
"Hanna is still in surgery, but we think she's going to be fine. She had some burns…some internal injuries…those, we took care of during the c-section. We have a plastic surgeon in there right now, looking at the rest of it.
"The…the baby?"
"Congratulations. You have a son."
She motioned to him to sit down, then sat down herself, beside him. "I wish I could give you better news about him. He was born with a condition called Hydrocephalus. Do you know what that is?"
"Hanna's doctor said…we knew there might be something, but I didn't really understand…"
"It's a build-up of fluid in the brain. The buildup causes pressure in his head which can lead to complications."
"Can you treat it?"
"Standard treatment would be the surgical implantation of a shunt, to drain the fluid. But in your son's case…Mr. Scheir, your son is almost two months premature. He's very small, and his lungs are under-developed. His heart is not very strong. There may be a congenital abnormality in that area. Or, he may have sustained injuries in the accident. It's hard to tell at this point. We're bringing in a cardiothoracic consult, which should tell us more. But right now, I don't think he'll withstand a surgery. We've given him some medication to help his lungs develop, and he's on a ventilator. If his lungs get stronger and his heart rhythm stabilizes, we can try to get the shunt in there in a couple days…"
"But what about his brain? Will it…will it be okay if we wait?"
"We don't know."
He looked at her helplessly. "So what do we do?"
"We wait and see. He's stable for now. Your wife should be out of surgery soon. Would you like to go see him?"
He was shaking his head. "This can't be happening. This just doesn't seem real…"
Addison tried to give him an encouraging smile. "One step at a time, Mr. Scheir. Have you got a name picked out?"
"We can't give him a name until he's official. When he's circumcised, at the bris, when he's eight days old."
Addison's eyes went blank, and Miranda could read it in her face, right then. She didn't think the baby would live that long.
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