Chapter two- Innocent eyes
Do you remember when you where seven?
And the only thing that you wanted to do
Was show your mum that you could play the piano
Ten years have passed
And the one thing that lasts
Is that same old song that we played along and made my mumma cry...
-Innocent eyes, Delta Goodrem
2 days later- February 27th
Up in labour and delivery
It was supposed to be a calm day. Alex has no surgeries scheduled and all he had asked her to do was round on his post ops. That was until she had been pulled to a labour and delivery to deliver medical assistance to a baby boy after birth. Jo wasn't 100% sure on the details of the case, however Dr Karev would be able to fill her in when she arrived. She rushes into the room and immediately observes the OB doctors delivering the baby.
"Ultrasound shows the baby has C.D.H," The nurse tells Jo as she sanitises her hands.
"I'm sorry. What?" Jo asks frazzled as a nurse slips some gloves onto her hands.
"Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia. She may not be able to oxygenate well when she's born," The nurse says.
"Well, where is Dr Karev. I'm assuming you paged him too?" Jo responds. She was clearly out of her depth. She was only an intern, Interns were never left to do things without the help of an attending.
"He's in surgery. He sent you," the nurse replies.
"What surgery? His day was clear," she mumbles.
"He scrubbed in with Dr Grey, it's going haywire," The nurse informs her. "He's waiting for somebody to tag him out, but this a baby isn't going to wait."
"Okay," Jo says trying to calm down. "Um, how old is she - The mum?" Jo asks anxiously. The mother looked quite young. If Jo had to guess she'd guess about 15 or 16.
"15," The nurse replies.
"Don't just stand around watching. Do something, My baby's in pain!" The mother of the 15 year old yells.
"Could you page Dr. Karev again, please?" Jo asks anxiously. She could feel her stress levels rising with each passing second, and having no confidence in her skill set quite yet wasn't helping.
Three minutes later 15 year old Kimmy had delivered her baby boy.
"She's so small," Jo says shaking as she is handed the newborn baby. "She's just…. What do we do? What do we do?" Jo asks panicking. She could feel the wait of the world in her hands, and that was heavy.
"You're the surgeon, hon, You tell us. Dr. Wilson, what do you want us to do?" The nurse asks calmly.
"Okay, okay. Her SATs are low, We need to intubate," Jo says, "Get me a laryngoscope and intubation tray," she instructs.
"It hurts," Kimmy says.
"It's okay, sugar. It's okay, Right? Everything is okay?" Kimmy's mother asks.
"Okay, hand me a size 4 E.T. tube," Jo instructs. The nurse hands her the tube. "No, no, no, A smaller one," she says. The nurse hands Jo another tube and she starts to intubate the baby.
"SATs are dropping," The nurse tells Jo.
"Okay, hang on," Jo says.
"Her epiglottis is floppy. There is no time to hang on," The nurse responds.
"What's happening? Somebody want to tell my baby what's happening?" The mother demands.
"If I could just get this tube to pass," Jo says still trying to intubate.
"Dr. Wilson," The nurse says urgently.
"Got it, Got it, I got it," Jo says proudly.
"You're doing just fine," the nurse encourages. "Okay, Now what's next?"
"Um, I think that, um.." Jo says stuttering.
"How about suction? And maybe you want to put in an umbilical catheter?" The nurse suggests.
"Yes, Right. Yes. And please page Dr. Karev, again." Jo says.
"I'll page him," The other nurse says.
Scene break
"Fill me in," Karev says as he meets up with Jo who was rushing the baby into the NICU.
"Baby born with a C.D.H. I intubated him but the SATs are still low," Jo says filling him in.
"Ah, it could be pulmonary hypertension. Have you ever hooked a baby up to ECMO before?" he asks.
"I never intubated a baby before five minutes ago," Jo replies honestly.
"Okay, we hook up catheters into his neck, pump his blood into the ECMO machine, which puts in oxygen, and takes out the carbon dioxide. Then it cycles it all back in," Karev says explaining the ECMO machine to Jo.
"Okay," She replies.
In the NICU
"You're doing great. You've isolated the jugular and the carotid, avoided the vagus nerve. Now you need to put in a venous drainage cannula," Karev says as he guides his intern in hooking up the newborn baby to the ECMO machine.
"I hadn't even… He's coding," Jo says.
"Switch with me," Karev instructs and they swap places. " You need to do C.P.R. while I hook the kid up to ECMO,' he says.
"At the same time? How will that work?" she asks confused.
"Start the compressions now," he says. "Stop. Go. Keep going. Stop. Okay,
Keep going. Stop. Go," Karev says and Jo follows every command he gives her.
"How long have we been going?" She asks.
"Stop," he says.
"Karev, I heard you had a crash ECMO. Do you need my help? Do you need me to take over?" Robbins asks.
"No, no, just connecting it to the circuit,' Karev says.
"Okay. Initiate bypass," he instructs. Jo turns on the machine and it begins to pump her blood.
"We did it!" Jo says happily.
"Son of a bitch," He says.
"And it seems like only yesterday that I was showing you how to do your first pulmonary hypoplasia. I hope you're taking notes, Wilson. He's one of the good ones," Robbins praises before leaving the room.
"So what's next? Well, now that he's hooked up to ECMO, the baby needs to be monitored 24/7. It's Gonna be a long day and a longer night. You might want to go grab a power nap, princess," he says.
Jo chuckles and rolls her eyes, "princess again? Really?"
The same day
"So You're saying, the baby needs that machine to stay alive?" Kimmy's mother asks Dr Karev and Dr Wilson as all four of them stand just outside the ECMO room observing the little boy.
"Well, for now. ECMO, it works a little like bypass to give your grandson's heart a rest," Karev replies.
"For how long? 'Cause my friend Nikki's having a party for me on Friday, and I'm supposed to bring the baby," Kimmy says.
"Kimmy, your baby will be here a lot longer than Friday," Jo says.
"How much longer? Weeks? Months?" Kimmy asks.
"It's hard to know at this point," Karev replies.
"I'll have to call Nikki. She ordered cupcakes and stuff. Mum, where's your phone?" Kimmy asks.
"Oh, here," her mother says as she hands Kimmy the phone.
"Kimmy, would you like to go in and see your baby now?" Jo asks.
"No, thanks," Kimmy says back.
"Are you sure? You won't hurt anything. I can wheel you right up next to the bed," Jo says encouraging the 15 year old to see her baby.
"It's not like she's gonna know who I am or anything. I'm tired," she spits back, "Can I just go back to my room?" she asks her mother.
"Sure, baby," her mother says.
In the ECMO room that night
Jo and Alex both sat in the ECMO room monitoring the baby boy for any changes in his condition. The boy was fragile, but the need for ECMO made him even more fragile and made the need for constant monitoring necessary.
"You sure you're not asleep with your eyes open? You've been staring at that kid for an hour," Alex says to Jo.
"She didn't even want to see him. She cared more about her best friend's stupid pizza party than seeing her child," Jo says sadly as she looks at the baby.
"Well, she's 15," Alex replies defending the girl.
"It doesn't matter," Jo says. She didn't care how old the girl was, age was no excuse for abandoning a child.
"You don't know her story. Not everybody lives in a perfect little world like you," Alex says.
"I never said my world was perfect. You have no idea what I've been through... you know nothing about me," Jo says.
"Oh, yeah? You graduated high school as valedictorian and Princeton University cum laude. You attended Harvard Medical School, where you graduated at the top of her class with a perfect G.P.A. Look, not all of us go to Ivy league schools or drive fancy cars or rely on our richy-rich daddies to bankroll our pretty little lives. Some of us have to overcome more than others," Alex says.
"I know that," Jo says. Jo had worked extremely hard to get to where she was and has certainly had to overcome plenty of obstacles.
"So get over it, princess. You're in no position to judge," Alex says.
"Did you also know that I blow my nose with $100 bills? And my 1-year-old birthday cake was made out of caviar,' Jo says taking the micky out of Alex.
"Gross," he says.
"Also, in one of the rooms of my obscenely big mansion, instead of paint, I just lined the walls with mink," she says smiling.
"Shut up," Karev says.
"It's true," Jo says. "Guess how many fireplaces I've got?" Jo asks.
"Four," he guesses.
"Well, 28 if you count the butler's room. But, please, he's the help," She says laughing.
"Explains a lot," he says with a scoff. Jo chuckles as Alex believes every word she was saying.
The Next Day- February 28th
"Kimmy, hey," Jo says as she spots the young girl and her mother as they were about to enter a lift.
"If you want to get up to the NICU, the south lift is actually a little bit closer. I could take you there," Jo offers kindly.
"That's okay," Kimmy says.
"Were you discharged already?" Jo questions surprised. It hadn't even been 8 hours since the young girl had given birth.
"Where's the damn elevator?" The mother mutters.
"Uh, my shift's not over for another couple of hours. What time are you coming back?" Jo asks.
"You don't have to talk to her, Kimmy," her mother says.
"I-I I'm not coming back," Kimmy says.
"Wait. What? Of course you are," Jo says. The lift dings and the doors open when Kimmy and her mother then start to enter.
"Whoa. Hey, hang on. You can't just leave. You have a baby. She has a baby upstairs. He's 1 day old," Jo says aggravated.
"Yeah, and he's all messed up," Kimmy says.
"So you're just gonna…. You can't you can't abandon him," Jo says. No, you can't. No!" Jo says pressing the lady up against the wall.
"No! Let me on," Kimmy's mother says.
"No!" Jo says.
"You don't want to mess with me," Kimmy's mother says.
"You don't want to mess with me," Jo says back angry.
"No, stop. You can't walk out on that baby! You can't do that!" Jo says.
"Get off me!" The mother says.
"No!" Jo says.
"Let her go!" Kimmy says rushing up to the confirmation.
"No!" Jo yells.
"Hey, let 'em go," Karev says again sternly.
"You're crazy!" the mother shouts.
"Let 'em go," Alex says once more. Jo lets the mother go and leaves before she did something she might regret.
Scene break
"Why aren't you in the tunnels? Interns always hang out in the tunnels.
This place smells like fish," Karev says as he walks over to Jo, who was sitting outside in an alleyway. "Look, You can't go around assaulting people," He says as he sits down next to her.
"She was abandoning her baby," Jo reminds him. "He is a defenceless newborn baby. My motherly instincts just kicked in."
"Then let the cops handle it. It's not your job, princess," Karev says.
"Why do you keep calling me princess?" Jo questions, "You know it irritates me! My life has been filled with more hardships and battles in my 26 years then a person would go through in their entire life. My mother abandoned me at a fire station when I was 2 weeks old. I lived in foster homes so bad that it was better to live in my car. I didn't have my ritchy rich family cheering me on at graduation, I had two people, my husband and Miss Schmidt, my home Ec teacher. She got me the watch when I got this job, her son works for the company," Jo defends.
"It is a nice watch," Karev admits.
"Thanks," Jo replies with a slight smile.
"And I'm sorry I'm an arse of a friend," He admits.