A/N-Thanks so much for the reviews and follows and favourites! Mama Shep is coming soon I promise! I just need the next few chapters to lay down some ground for future chapters. Enjoy :)
Disclaimer: I wish I owned TV shows!
Meredith had agreed to be on call on Monday night, as well as her usual Tuesday night, in return for the late notice of her needing the weekend off. She'd hoped to get something resembling a decent night's sleep, but she was interrupted after just an hour with an incoming child with severe abdominal pain. She rushed to meet the ambulance as it reached the doors, the rig opening to reveal her patient for the night.
"7-year old Mia Engles, has acute abdominal pain, a high fever and has vomited a few times. Symptoms started at around eight, her parents gave her Tylenol to try to ease the pain, but it hasn't had an effect so they called us."
"Okay, curtain five." Meredith instructed leading the paramedics to the relevant area. "on my count, one, two three." They lifted the little girl onto the bed, she whimpered, clutching a worn teddy bear over her sore stomach. Her parents stood helplessly by her side not knowing what to do to make their little girl feel better. "hi Mia, my name is dr. Grey can you tell me where it hurts sweetie?"
"Here." The little girl groaned gesturing towards Mcburney's point.
"Okay, I need to touch it just to check, so I need you to be really brave and tell me if it hurts more when I touch it or when I take my hands away, okay?" The girl nodded, then screamed when Meredith touched her and took her hands away. Wwas it more painful when I took my hands away Mia?" Mia nodded tears rolling down her face. Meredith looked towards Mia's parents "I'm fairly certain that mia has an appendicitis." She told them, "I have to get a blood test to confirm it, but if I'm right, it means a small surgery, a little over an hour, to take it out, and then she can rest up for a few days and she should be fine. I'm going to order her some pain relief, and talk to my superior about getting her into an OR as soon as we have the results."
She looked back at her patient. "I'm gonna make it all better mia, but to do that I have to put this in your arm so we can draw some blood and then give you some magic medicine." Mia's eyes went wide as Meredith pulled a needle from its sterile wrapping. "If you shut your eyes, it won't hurt so much." she promised, causing the little girl to squeeze her eyes tight flinching when she felt the sting of the needle. "Briliant job," Meredith praised as she passed the blood sample to her intern and reached for the pain releif that had been brought over. Sit tight, I'll stop it hurting soon." She said when she was finished, giving Mia's tiny hand a squeeze and walking out of the curtain. She paged dr. bailey 911 as well as a paeds consult to confirm her suspicions, hoping that the lab wasn't too backed up.
"What d'you have dr. Grey?" Bailey asked when she got down to the ER.
"7 year old with suspected appendicitis." Meredith said as her intern came running over with the lab results. "Make that a definite appendicitis. She's in a lot of pain, I thought it might be better to get in there sooner rather than later"
"Okay," her resident agreed "make sure the OR know we're coming, you can assist."
"Wait, you don't want to check yourself?" Meredith asked, confused by her lack of discussion about the treatment of her patient.
"nah, I trust you, and the lab results don't show anything else. Get the ok from paeds and then prep the patient. Nice catch dr. grey" Meredith smiled as dr. bailey walked away, she was still so low down the surgical food chain that it was strange when you were trusted with something like this. It made Meredith feel good, almost proud of her diagnosis. She waited a while until the paeds fellow came down and confirmed what she'd done and agreed to the surgery plan, and she took Mia down to the OR where Bailey was waiting for her.
"Hi Mia, I'm dr. Bailey, I'm gonna help dr. Grey here fix that tummy ache of yours. Grey go scrub in, we'll help Mia here get off to sleep. I need you to count backwards from ten sweetie and the doctor here is gonna give you some magic medicine tohelp you sleep. Ready?" The little girl nodded nervously, looking over to where Meredith was standing, furiously scrubbing her hands so that she could get back to Mia.
"Ten, nine, eight, seven…" the little girl whispered, looking smaller and smaller as she lost consciousness. Meredith walked in, her breath catching when she saw how dwarfed the patient looked on the table.
"She looks so small," she thought out loud, not realising she'd said it until Bailey spoke back.
"She does," Bailey agreed "but we're here to make her better, be grateful it's just a simple procedure. You start treating children for worse, horrible terrible things, then you see how small children really are. They're fighters though, they don't give up until every little bit of fight goes out of them. You ready for this?" Meredith took a breath, it was a routine procedure, and this was bailey, she could get through it.
"I'm ready," she said.
"Okay ten blade please Bokey." Bailey requested.
The surgery was as Bailey said simple, routine and they were in and out in an hour with a much more comfortable Mia. She scrubbed out with dr. Bailey.
"First one?" Bailey asked knowingly.
"Not the first," Meredith defended "but the first one I've diagnosed solo that's been this little."
"It's hard, seeing them so defenceless, seeing parents terrified for the life of their child, knowing that they'll hold you responsible, that you'll hold yourself responsible for anything that goes wrong. But you get used to it. The next one you wont want to spend tomorrow with making sure they're ok." She continued to scrub quietly, leaving Meredith to wonder why Mia had made her think so much. "You'd be good in paeds, the little girl was reassured by you. She was calm knowing you were there with her. Though your skills in general are coming along nicely. You've got a few years before you have to decide, but don't go to brains just because the hair and the smile are there waiting to breathe down your neck and peck your earlobes during surgeries. Don't throw your options away just because something else is a bit shinier." She smiled at Meredith before leaving the scrub room. Meredith watched her leave. Had bailey really just praised her skills in two different departments? She left the scrub room and after reassuring Mia's parents that she was fine, and settling them in her room, she went back to the on call room to grab a few hours before the next day began. She had another night on call waiting for her tomorrow, so maybe spending some time with Mia would be enough to get her through the day.
Try as she might, she couldn't forget the little girl, or her parents faces when they realised that they weren't about to lose their child. She thought of Derek and how he'd almost lost her, totally unable to comprehend how that hurt, let alone how awful it would be to see a child in pain or close to death. She thought of Carolyn bringing up five young people all by herself, soothing their broken hearts, fixing up their scratches and scrapes, cheering them up when they were sick. She thought about the scar on Derek's forehead, from his short lived rebellious motorcycle days, Carolyn by his bedside when he woke up from having his foot fixed. She wondered how it felt for Carolyn to watch Derek move across the country while he was in pain, and go from seeing him a few times a week to a single phone call if Derek could fit it in on a Sunday afternoon. The more she thought, the less daunting it was meeting her. She wanted to see her son, to kiss him and hug him and do all the things good moms did. For the first time, she was actually looking forward to seeing her, with her only son and with his friends. At the end of the day, Carolyn was much the same as the Engles', she wanted the best for her son, and although Meredith didn't feel like the best girlfriend much of the time, she'd try to at least show Carolyn that she was trying to be the best even if she had a long way to go.
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