Some of the names coming through on reviews and alerts are total blasts from the past! I love that you have all continued to hang on to me all these years later. For those on FB, come find me. I'm working on my first published novel now (it won't be a P2P). rosedavidauthor/ (FFN allows links now... WHOA!)
A miracle was needed…I was far from a miracle.
After ten minutes of begging, I gave in. Listening to a grown man beg wasn't something that I enjoyed.
I told Carlisle to email me his son's records and I would review them before they got to Chicago.
He must have been ready and expecting of me to say that, because within five minutes of ending the call, I had the records of Edward Cullen, age twenty-six, in front of me.
An otherwise healthy adult just getting ill.
It made no sense.
The Cullens planned to come out to Chicago the following morning; to have Edward admitted tomorrow evening.
My team was tired and beat down from just losing Mrs. Jones, but someone else needed us. Hopefully someone we could help.
I paged Angela, Tyler, and Victoria back to my office. I cleaned any remnants of Mrs. Jones from my white board to make room for Edward Cullen.
As I waited for them, I got myself familiar with the file.
As my three residents walked in, they didn't look happy. In fact, they all looked a little pissed off.
"We have another case, so suck it up and let's give it our all."
The three sat down and I handed them each a section of the file.
"We have a twenty-six year old white male. No previous illness, until two weeks ago when he got ill. He fell down a flight of stairs from a bad and sudden case of vertigo. He has lost almost all color and looks gray. Any thoughts?"
My team yelled out possible ideas of what illness this could be.
Some other doctors had thought and tested for, others they had not.
"Doctor Swan, where is the patient?" Angela asked.
"He will be here tomorrow. He is flying in from New York. Once he gets here, we will rerun all of the tests that have already been run, plus an array of our own."
"Wow, I didn't think someone would come from New York just to treat here. Didn't know our team was that well known," Victoria said.
"Our patient is Edward Cullen, son of Carlisle Cullen, a doctor we all know. We will be giving him our best."
"Is that the best?" Angela asked. "You know, since you and he-"
"What? Since we have a history? It will be fine and we will figure this out."
I was stomping my foot down. I didn't care what past I had with Doctor Cullen, I would help to save his son.
I stayed in my office the whole evening; only catching a cat nap with my feet on my desk and my chair reclined back.
I was motivated to find out what was wrong with Edward to be able to test and treat as quickly as possible. I had to do this.
Unfortunately, I hadn't pulled an all-nighter since med school.
The sun peeking through the curtains startled me awake.
"Shit!" I yelled, sending my now cold cup of coffee flying to the floor.
I hadn't planned on falling asleep. Guess I was too old for all-nighters.
"Shit, shit, shit," I said as I cleaned up the coffee and poured myself some more.
I ran my hands thought my hair, pulling it back into a pony tail, as the cup of coffee warmed in the microwave.
I thought about all of the things I'd read about Edward.
He was over all very healthy until this…whatever this was had happened.
Before he collapsed, he ran five miles a day in a better time than I could probably walk a mile.
Now, he was lucky to make it up a flight of stairs, or to the bathroom and back into bed.
I hated that as I tried to wrap my head around all of his symptoms, none of them led me to a diagnosis.
None of them made sense together.
How did an otherwise healthy person one day get ill with an unexplained illness?
I knew it happened and unfortunately happened often, but all of those cases before made sense.
This one didn't.
Those other illnesses were not unexplained.
This one was.
I headed back to my desk, cup of coffee in hand. I needed to make up for lost time.
I started back at the beginning of Edward's file in hopes to find something I missed the first and second times I had been through it.
"Did you not go home?" Victoria asked.
She was always the first one in. She was an early riser like no other I had seen before.
"No, I stayed." My eyes never left Edward's file through my reply. Carlisle planned on a late afternoon arrival at O'Hare, so I had to be ready.
"Bella, I think Angie was right." She closed his file, before sitting on the edge of my desk. "You are too close to this."
"No, I'm not. Now if you will please, I need to read some more." I glared up at her. Moments like these, when she forgot that I was the attending and she was my fellow, were the moments I wondered why I kept her on my staff.
But then, I would remember that she was an extremely stilled physician as well. She brought a lot to my team.
"How many times have you been through that file?"
"Does it matter?" I snapped back.
"Yes, it does. How many times?"
"Can you go and set up the conference room? I'm sure Carlisle will want to set up a work station as well." Yes, I was dismissing her question. That's what bosses got to do.
"So are we working jointly on him with this?"
I nodded, again flipping through Edward's file.
"Bella, what happens if you can't save him?"
"That's not an option."
"But it's still a possibility. I think you need to rethink taking on this case." Victoria didn't wait for a reply as she quickly left my office, slamming the door behind her.
This was part of my orig A/N... figured I would share it again - Edward is 26. Bella is 31 and Carlisle is 47.
