Dr. Tony Jones opened his eyes and winced at the bright sunlight streaming through his bedroom window and then glanced at the digital clock which read 10:58. He was about to roll over and go back to sleep when he remembered that it was Dr. Kraznick's call weekend, so he still had to round on patients because whenever he let Kraznick round on them he completely changed the plan and undermined him and his surgical skills.
April 28, 1997
Dr. Tony Jones was seething when he stepped off the elevator on 5 West and made his way to the Neuro Critical Care Unit with escalating fury. Apparently, his colleague, Dr. Kraznick had opted to do an emergent craniotomy on Veronica Bowles, late Friday night or early Saturday morning. Some people just didn't know how to manage anything nonoperatively of course he doubted that Kraznick had been forthcoming about his own shortcomings with the patient or family. No, he suspected he had suggested that the surgery was imperative, because, well, Dr. Kraznick always believed surgery was imperative.
When he stepped into the unit, Tony glanced at the board and scowled more deeply when he saw that who other than Charli Ahearn Kraznick was his patient's nurse. Could it get worse?
"Good morning, Dr. Jones!" Charli Kraznick said brightly.
Tony managed to grunt as he took in the scene. Ms. Bowles had a head full of electrodes and it looked like there was a 24-hour EEG in process. The ventilator was conspicuously absent! "Good grief! I told Art my patients were not going to participate in his stupid study!" he ranted.
"Your patient has not been enrolled in the Fast Track trial, however, after the clot was fully evacuated, she met criteria for early extubation so anesthesia extubated. She only stayed in ICU yesterday because Dr. Lewis wanted to continue the continuous EEG monitoring. He has already rounded this morning and he called the tech to come unhook her. He is pretty sure that the seizure was only due to the pressure from the clot," Charli prattled on in her syrupy sweet voice.
Tony tuned out the incessant prattling. "Ok, well, I've got an OR to get to, so I guess I stop back when she is awake," he said.
"Does that mean we can convert to step down status?" Charli asked as he started to exit the room.
Tony turned back and looked her squarely in the eye. "I understand that Art likes to move them in and then move them out to make room for new business, but I never move patients out of ICU until at least seventy-two hours after craniotomy so answer your own question," he said.
"Ok, I will let Jane know, that you want the patient to remain ICU status," Charli said.
Jane Harland Dawson Pinkham was the Nurse Manager for the Neuro Critical Care Unit. She was also another nurse married to a surgeon. Her husband Henry was an otorhinolaryngologist. Sometimes he was bit too invested in his wife's happiness. He had called Tony out a few weeks ago for upsetting her which was not his place in Tony's opinion. But Alan had been less interested how Henry had overstepped than what Tony had said to Jane so he doubted he would win that battle. So, he just shook his head and kept moving.
"Oh, hey, Tony, I left a message with your secretary, I guess you managed to find Ms. Bowles," Dr. Art Kraznick said.
Tony just rolled his eyes and seethed a little more. Did King Kraznick not believe he was capable of printing a patient census. "Next time, don't operate on my patients!" he said.
Dr. Kraznick seemed a bit taken aback. "No offense man, but if I hadn't evacuated that clot, she wouldn't have been anyone's patient. She wouldn't be here!" he said.
Tony released a loud guffaw. "I think you overestimate both your abilities and importance, but that's your problem just leave my patients alone!" he said. Then, feeling all eyes in the unit on him he just opened the door and stepped out.
Apparently, someone had said something to Alan about the incident because he pretended that he wanted to reconnect with Tony as a friend. Tony blew him off. Apparently, that brought King Kraznick back to play the compassion card. He reminded Tony that he understood because his first wife and child were killed by a drunk driver. Except Tony knew he couldn't really understand because his daughter Nadia was alive and well and BJ was buried under pansies in Memorial Cemetery. So frankly, Tony resented the implication that King Kraznick could possibly understand anything.
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Maggie Carpenter yawned and then groaned when she saw that her bedside clock said eleven o'clock. How had she slept through her alarm? She was supposed to be meeting the Baldwin Family at some soccer field at quarter to eleven. Yikes!
Maggie literally hopped out of bed and shoved herself into the jeans laying on her bedroom floor while cursing a blue streak. She pawed through her dresser drawer for a clean t-shirt threw that on, liberally sprayed on some body spray, and slid her feet into a pair of shoes. Then she grabbed her bag and literally raced out her front door to the sports car her brother had gifted her. In that moment she was really regretting his other gift of a cottage in Brethen on the West Branch of the Charles River because she was at least thirty minutes outside of Port Charles and she was already late.
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Dr. Gail Baldwin sat down on the section of the grandstand in between her colleague Dr. Ryan Grabler and her son in law, Dr. Alan Quartermaine as the official blew the whistle to begin the kickoff for her granddaughters U-7 game against the U-7 team from Sutton.
"I guess the caseworker still hasn't arrived?" Alan asked as Shayla O'Connor kicked the ball to Kortni Barnes. Their fathers were both physicians at PCGH as well. Dr. Patrick O'Connor was a rheumatologist and Dr. Alex Barnes was an orthopedic surgeon.
"No, she hasn't. I'm not sure what happened, Lee even confirmed with her yesterday afternoon and made sure she had the address for Community Commons," Gail said. She hoped nothing had happened to the younger woman, but if she was just less than punctual then she was irritated. She knew how much Serena had been looking forward to having her father at her game.
"Monica is done with that atrial septostomy. She was going to go to the Health Club and pick up Emily and Katelyn. Kate's practice is over at 11:30 so I can have her stop here if you think that would help," Alan offered.
Gail considered Alan's offer. Despite their a bit auspicious beginning and lack of a true biological connection, Monica and Scott connected with each other sometimes in a way that she and Lee could never match. Sibling bonds were special. "I'm going to hope that Miss Carpenter just took a wrong turn and will be arriving shortly," said. She hoped her words weren't overly optimistic.
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Elizabeth Webber sighed as she wiped down the counter at Kelly's Diner. It was her third straight weekend of working a Friday night closing shift and Saturday morning opening shift. Ruby scheduled her like she was fulltime employee, not a high school student who was failing half her classes. When she had tried to suggest to her grandmother that she needed to cut back at Kelly's so she would have more time for schoolwork, Audrey had said that what she really needed to do was develop better time management skills. Sarah had promptly chimed in to say that she always did better in school when she was busy, and their grandmother had launched into praising Sarah and her wonderful work ethic.
Liz was still silently fuming when she realized that lunch shift waitress, Mary Katherine Patrick had already arrived. She struggled to adjust her countenance because she was sure that Mary Katherine's life sucked a lot worse than hers. She wasn't knocked up with the baby of some loser scum who had gone back to his wife before the urine was even dry on the pregnancy test. And although she was sure that if she did get pregnant out of wedlock her family would be unsupportive judgmental jerks about it, she was more than used to that. Plus, that was highly hypocritical since she might be failing math but even, she could figure out that both Steven and Sarah were conceived out of wedlock. In contrast, Anna Maria apparently truly believed that several of her siblings, nieces, and nephews were truly just 24-week gestational miracles and her family's rejection represented unimaginable pain. So, yeah, apparently, she didn't have quite the worst family on the planet. Just almost the worst family on the planet.
"You do realize that your shift doesn't start until 11:30, right?" Liz asked Mary Katherine as she waddled her way behind the counter.
"I'm only fifteen minutes early. I allow extra time because if I walk too fast from the bus stop then I start contracting. Dr. Lansing was willing to give me a note to be off work, but she doesn't understand there is no way I'll pay my rent if I don't work, forget about all the extra stuff a baby needs," Mary Katherine said.
"You're due in December?" Liz asked.
"December 4th, my parent's wedding anniversary," Mary Katherine said.
"Maybe, they'll come around?" Liz suggested.
"Yeah, maybe," Mary Katherine said but she sounded anything but convinced.
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Emily Quartermaine slid her completed Algebra II problem set back into her backpack and looked back at the pool where her younger sister was swimming just in time to also catch her father approaching from the periphery. That hadn't been the plan?
"Your mom is working on helping your Uncle Scott channel his inner calm," Dr. Alan Quartermaine said as he sat down beside her on the bleachers on the far side of the pool deck.
Emily winced a little because those words reminded her of Ned's prior wife Lois, someone she still missed. Yet somehow that seemed wrong to even think about on a morning that they had prayed for Ned's current wife who was literally fighting for her life in the ICU. "Umm, ok," she said. What else was there really to say?
"Would it be ok if your brother took you and Alli to pick up Elizabeth? Would that be too late? I'm not sure how long your mom is going to be, and I might need to go back to the hospital," her father said.
"Is Uncle Scott, ok?" Emily asked.
"Physically? He is fine. Emotionally? He hasn't seen your cousin for anything beyond very limited supervised visits for a month and the caseworker that was supposed to supervise today's visit at Serena's soccer game didn't show up, so he is terrified and frustrated," her father explained.
"I'm sorry, but yes, I'm sure it would be fine if you take us all home and then AJ brings us to pick up Liz. She said Ruby likely wouldn't let her leave before 12:30 anyway," Emily said.
"Great!" her father said with a little too much enthusiasm as one of the coaches blew the whistle that signaled the end of swim team practice.
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Maggie Carpenter's life, or at least her career, flashed before her eyes when she pulled into the parking lot around the soccer fields at Community Commons and realized that Scott Baldwin, his attorney father, and his physician sister were all standing in the parking lot talking to Sarah O'Connor. None of the four of them looked happy. As tempting as it was to turn on a dime and peel out of the lot almost as recklessly as she had entered, she forced herself to calmly downshift into park. Then with a deep breath she pulled her keys from the ignition and got out of the car.