That last one was a Meredith-less chapter, but this one isn't. Here's chapter two...
Chapter 2
Mark and I were walking to the cafeteria for lunch when I heard my pager go off. It was a page to Mary's room. I walked as quickly as I could, and found the baby blanket still on her lap. Her daughter Ellen, for whom the blanket was clearly for, looked very pregnant and uncomfortable, was sitting in the chair nearest the bed.
"Is everything all right, Mary?" I asked. She leaned forward and rubbed her hand over her lower back.
"My back has been hurting." She said, softly. I helped Mary to a more comfortable position.
"You've been immobile for a longer time than usual, and that may be putting some unwanted pressure on those discs in your back. Does that feel better?" I asked. She paused for a moment, and then looked up at me.
"Yes, thank you, I think it helped." She said.
"So you don't think it's anything serious?" asked Ellen.
"No, it may just be some inflammation around those discs, but we should rule out any other possibilities. How much longer before this is done?" I asked, handing the knitting back to Mary.
I left her room and went to the nurse's station to discuss follow-up with the nurse on duty and to page one of the residents when Ellen came rushing from her mother's room.
"My mother needs help!" she shouted. A nurse ran past me and headed into Mary's room, and I followed closely on her heels. I had just stepped inside when the nurse called out for someone to page Dr. Bailey.
I stood in the hallway, right outside Mary's room, feeling helpless as Dr. Bailey wheeled Mary to the OR. I was ordered to stay behind and attend to the other patients on the floor.
I finished my responsibilities and raced up the stairs to the OR. I opened the door into the hallway, and saw Dr. Bailey standing, waiting for an elevator.
"What happened? How's Mary Copeland?" I asked, nervous.
"She died a few minutes ago." Said Dr. Bailey, softly. It couldn't be possible—Mary was knitting a few minutes ago, I thought.
"What happened?" I heard myself ask.
"She died from ascending aortic dissection." Said Dr. Bailey. The elevator doors opened in front of us, but I found myself unable to step forward—my legs to weak to move me. Dr. Bailey stepped inside the elevator and held the door for me.
"Derek?" she asked. I looked at her, but couldn't respond, with my mind racing. If Mary had died of ascending aortic dissection, it meant the pain that she had been feeling in her back was really caused by a tear in her aorta, not her cervical disc disease.
"Mary told me her back was aching, so I thought that the pain was attributed to her cervical disc disease. I had just gone to the nurse's station to—" I said, but Dr. Bailey cut me off.
"Given her medical history, I would have thought the same thing. Mary was a woman with a long history of back problems, Derek. She was much sicker than any of us knew, and sometimes as doctors there's not anything we can do. This seems to have been one of those times." Said Dr. Bailey, as I stepped onto the elevator and watched the doors close. The elevator stopped, and I followed her into the cardiology department.
I walked past the room where Mary had stayed, and a nurse was dealing with her personal items. I leaned against the wall outside her door, and found it hard to catch my breath. I bent over, resting my hands on my knees, and found my mind wandering to my first rotation—surgery.
During that two-week rotation, a twenty-seven-year-old was brought in after being involved in a car accident. His arm had been lacerated in the crash and was nearly severed. In an attempt to save the arm and avoid further nerve damage, the patient was rushed to the OR.
The surgery proceeded well for twenty-two minutes, when the patient's heart went into failure, causing the young man to die. It was the first patient death I had encountered, and it hit me harder than I had imagined it would. Intellectually, I knew it came with the territory, but my heart wasn't prepared. My heart went out to the family, when the received the phone call with the unexpected news, and while they made the call to the funeral home for final arrangements.
I stood in the OR after the moniters were turned off, and I stared into the man's face, and studied his hands, and clothing. He woke up that morning having no idea that the jeans and pullover shirt he wore would be the last clothes he'd ever pick out—he had no idea that it would be the last car ride he'd ever take. I wondered what his last words were to his wife, or what he had said to his mother or to his children—did he even have a chance to have children? Even after the curtain was pulled around his body, I went back to look at him. I found sleep a difficult to come by commodity for the next few days. To make matters much worse, I didn't see any other students suffering in the ways I did.
After Mary died, I confided my doubts in Mark during a game of one-on-one basketball.
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"It's because we work so many hours," said Mark, "We've been thrown into deep waters, and we've got to sink or swim now. You'd see things differently if you weren't so damn tired." He sank a shot over my head. I grabbed the ball and held him off with one arm.
"You take Webber too personally. He's hard on everybody, Derek, not just you." Said Mark, as I ran around him and jumped in the air, aiming for the basket. The ball dropped through the hoop, and William grabbed it, dribbling it close to the floor.
"It's not Webber. A patient died under my care." I said, lunging for the ball.
"She wasn't under your care. You were the med student on the team that was treating her." Said Mark, resting the ball on his hip while he wiped his face with the back of his arm.
"There was nothing anyone could have done. You need to stop blaming yourself." Said Mark, moving again. I charged for the ball, and snatched it away, sinking a two-pointer. Mark caught the ball, and darted past me, up the middle.
"She trusted me, Mark." I said.
"Did you go into medicine thinking that you'd save everyone? If you did, you're going to burn out faster than any of us. What's important is how you're patients feel with you. You're good with them—you know what to say to them, how to talk to them. Mary Copeland never thought for a second that she shouldn't trust you." Said Mark. I wanted to say Exactly! She felt like she should trust me—that somehow I was going to help her, but I couldn't, but I just let him continue. "I don't think my patients like me." He said, moving past me, dunking the ball again.
"That's because they're afraid of you," I said, spinning on my heels, "You walk into their room and they've never seen anyone as big as you. They're not sure if you're there to work them up, or rough them up." I darted past him and jumped in the air, but the ball only swiped the bottom of the net. Mark was ahead. He laughed and snatched the ball, dribbling it close to his body.
"You mean I'm like Shaft." He said, holding me off.
"You're badder than Shaft—you can insert a catheter." I said. He laughed as he tried to run around me.
"Do you ever have doubts?" I asked, waving my arms in his face.
"Sure I do." He said, sinking another shot over my head, but I found it hard to believe him. He was right about one thing, though—the hours were intense, the work brutal, and together that left me physically and emotionally drained. Now Dr. Webber seemed determined to turn my rotation into hell. If I was going to start swimming, I'd have to get out of the deep water with Dr. Webber before he drowned me.
Sleep didn't come to me that night. I looked at the clock at 10:30, and then at 11:45, 1:20, 3:00, and finally 4:45, when I decided I should get out of bed. I stood in the shower for thirty minutes, hoping that the water would wash away Mary's memory, but every time I saw her face, I saw my father's and I just didn't think that I could go through that over, and over, and over again.
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Meredith Grey peeked into the hospital room of twelve-year-old Charlie Bennett. When the college freshman saw that the boy was awake, she ran to his bed and sat down on top of it.
"I looked all over for you after the meet. Your dad found me and told me that you were here. What's going on?" she asked.
"Ask Mom," grumbled Charlie, eyeballing his mother, "She's the one who made me come." Leslie Bennett smiled as she stood to leave the room.
"He had trouble catching his breath, Meredith." She said.
"It didn't even last that long." Said Charlie, rolling his eyes.
"It was long enough to take a few years off of my life, that's all." Said Leslie, smiling. She grabbed her empty coffee cup of the table by Charlie's bed, and left the room.
"How do you feel?" Meredith asked.
"I feel great. I didn't need to come in." When Charlie had been born, only one of his heart ventricles worked, so after three surgeries to re-route the blood flow of his heart, Charlie was able to have a life like any other little boy his age. He knew his limits and rested when he got tired, but nothing slowed him down for long. He looked like every other kid on the playground, and preferred it that way.
It was only in the last five months that he'd begun to have any trouble.
"How'd you do today?" asked Charlie, easing himself into the sitting position.
"I came in first." Said Meredith. Charlie smiled and pumped his arm up and down enthusiastically.
"What'd you run it in?" he asked, getting down to business. Meredith looked down and smiled.
"Fifteen-thirty." The boy's eyes lit up, and he cracked his knuckles.
"Man, I wish I could have been there. When's your next race?" he asked.
"Friday."
"Good. Cut two seconds." He said, looking at her seriously.
"What, two seconds? Are you crazy? I already cut my old time! I ran the fastest I ever have today." Charlie brought his hands up under his chin and gave her a good smile.
"Run faster." Meredith sighed, and Charlie cracked his knuckles again and pointed his finger.
"Don't ever take your eyes off the finish like. If you take your eyes off the goal, you'll never make it to the end." Meredith said the words along with him.
"Never take your eyes off the goal! I know," she said, shaking her head, "You tell me the exact same thing every time." She said. Charlie turned into the stern taskmaster again.
"Remember two seconds." Meredith stood and kissed Charlie's cheek, which he quickly wiped off.
"Are you going to be there, or will you still be in here?" she asked.
"I'll be there. There's no way I'm staying in here." Said Charlie. Meredith had met Charlie her sophomore year in high school. He was fascinated with the runners he watched on the television, so his mother would take him to the local cross-country and track meets. To Leslie's embarrassment, the little boy would run alongside the runners, barking at them to run faster or to keep their eyes on the finish line. He was very quick to notice Meredith's ability.
"You're the fastest girl I've ever seen." He said to her after one meet. At each race, Meredith would look for the little boy in the stands. She introduced Charlie and Leslie to her family, and the two families had been sitting together ever since.
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Meredith slung her bag over he shoulder, and headed to the nurses station to set a clipboard on the counter.
"Olivia, would it be okay if I left my sponsor sheet here so you could as any of the doctors and nurses that I normally don't see if they'd like to sign up?" asked Meredith. Olivia smiled and took the paper from her. She was well aware of what Meredith was doing; her name was already on the sheet. Meredith was organizing a race to raise money for a pediatric heart patient fund. The money would go into a trust and be awarded each year to a patient as part of a college scholarship.
"If they don't sign up, I'll inject them with some sort of sponsor-sheet injection drug we must have around here someplace." Said Olivia, looking around in the drawers.
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I walked towards the nurse's station and was looking over my notes on my clipboard when a young woman ran into me, knocking it out of my hands.
"I'm so sorry." She said, sweeping the clipboard up before I could even bend down. She laughed, and her green eyes sparkled. Her dark blond hair fell just to the top of her shoulders, and when she smiled, her face lit up. She was lovely.
"No, no. It's my fault, " I said, "I shouldn't have been walking on the side of the hall that's clearly designated for running." She laughed, handing me the clipboard.
"Just keep that in mind for now on." She said, smiling and jogging towards the elevator.
I set my clipboard on the nurse's station, and could feel the pressure building in my forehead.
"Another rough morning with Dr. Webber?" asked Olivia, while I groaned and peeked at her through my fingers, "He's the best there is, really."
"You know, everybody keeps telling me that, but they're all people who have never actually worked under Dr. Webber." I said, folding my hands on the counter. Olivia shrugged her shoulders.
"Just telling you what I've see for years around here. People love him."
"Med students don't love him."
"Med students aren't people, " she said, straight-faced. I looked at her, and she broke out laughing. I noticed the sponsor sheet next to my clipboard.
"What's this?"
"It's for a scholarship run for the pediatric heart patients. Each year there's going to be a run to raise money for a college scholarship. Do something good in the world, sign up." She said, typing into the computer. I took the sheet, and examined it.
"Is this your idea of peer pressure?" I asked, as she handed me a pen.
"You bet! Now sign up and help those kids."
"Who's the sponsoring organization for the run?" I asked, signing my name.
"It's not an organization, it's Meredith Grey. She's one of the fastest runners in the state"
"Is she on staff here?"
"No, she's one of our heart patients."