CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER FIVEMELONIE'S POV

   I was in the residents' lounge, braiding my hair to the side. I just changed into my scrubs and then Lexie walked in and put her stuff in her locker.

   "Hey," I said shyly, walking over to her.

   "Oh, hi," she replied. 

   "You still hate me?" I asked. 

   "What?" she asked, looking at me. "I could never hate you," she chuckled.

   "Well, you seemed pretty mad yesterday when I brought up our dad," I sighed. "I'm pretty sure Mer's mad at me too. I never should have talked to him."

   "I wasn't really mad at you. I just needed to rant. I understand what you were trying to say, but our dad is a sensitive topic for me," she shrugged. 

   "It's a sensitive topic for me too, but I guess we handle it in different ways," I laughed. 

   Meredith, Cristina, Alex, George, and Dr. Bailey walked in. 

   "Okay two things..." Bailey started. "You all have a skills lab this morning. It is mandatory. Don't even think about trying to get out of it. Second, one of you will not have to go to the mandatory skills lab because you will be assisting me in my efforts to remove an inoperable tumor from a ten-year-old girl."

   Unsurprisingly, we all raised our hands instantly.

   "I'll do it," George spoke up.

   "No, you won't. You have a hundred delinquent charts. You will do those after the lab," Bailey smirked.

   "Slacker," Cristina laughed at George.

   "How can you operate on an inoperable tumor?" Alex asked.

   "Karev is also out," Bailey said, not answering his question. 

   "What did I say?" Alex questioned.

   "You doubted me," Bailey answered.

   "I don't doubt you, Dr. Bailey!" Cristina chirped.

   "Yang is out too."

   "Why?" Cristina whined.

   "You weren't supportive of a fellow resident who couldn't get his paperwork under control," she answered.

   "Dr. Bailey, you're a fabulous surgeon and-" Meredith tried, but was cut off.

   "Sucking up isn't going to get you anywhere, Grey. You're out too." Bailey playfully rolled her eyes.

   I just continued putting my things into my locker, knowing I wasn't going to be picked because I never was.

   "Grey, you want in?" Bailey asked, but I didn't look up because I thought she was talking to Meredith. "Grey."

   I looked up to see everyone looking at me. 

   "Wait, are you serious?!" Cristina whined. 

   "She's not as annoying as you four," Bailey responded, which made me giggle. 

   "I'd love to get in on it," I smiled.

   I followed Bailey out of the residents' lounge and we went into a room where a little girl was laying in a bed. I gave her a friendly smile as two residents came in, and Webber.

   "Grey, present." Bailey handed me the chart.

   "Tori Begler, age ten. Tori has an abdominal leiomyosarcoma. The tumor is wrapped around her celiac artery, her splenic artery and her left gastric artery. It is considered unresectable," I informed. 

   "Did you understand a word of that, Tori?" Dr. Bailey chuckled.

   "Not really," Tori answered.

   "Grey," Bailey laughed.

   I sat next to her on her bed to demonstrate so she would understand me better.

   "So, the tumor is way down here in your belly." I pointed to her stomach. "It's hard to get at because it's underneath a lot of organs."

   "Hard, but not impossible, right?" Tori's dad asked.

   "We're gonna try everything we can," Webber answered.

   "'Everything you can' should include your cardiothoracic gal," a woman, who I assume was Tori's grandmother, said. "Dr. Stewart at Seattle Pres said the vasculature is the big problem, and you stole the best cardiovascular surgeon he's ever had. If she's not on Tori's team, we're leaving and going to San Francisco." She then pulled out a container filled with fudge. "Fudge? It's homemade."

~

   Once we got Tori into the C.T. area, we were starting to put the catheter into her to get x-rays.

   "Okay, let's guide the catheter into the celiac axis," Bailey instructed, so I did as she said.

   "Turning on the fluoro," I informed.

   I turned on the fluoro and then Bailey and I looked up to see a woman and man standing outside of the window. 

   "What the...?" Bailey trailed off. "Uh, excuse me for a second." Bailey walked over and hit the button so they could hear her. "Uh, hello. You can't be in here."

   "That's my uncle Pat and aunt Jean," Tori said tiredly. "They like to make sure I don't get lonely."

   "She's not lonely. Dr. Grey and I are very entertaining," Bailey told them, which made me chuckle. Tori coughed once and Bailey sighed. "Uh, okay, fine." She then turned to face Tori and me. "Um, they have to stay in there though. There's radiation in here." She walked back over to us, snapping on her gloves. "Alright, let's inject dye."

   I did as she said and the image started to clear on the screen. Bailey and I froze for a second.

   "Is everything okay?" Tori asked.

   "Uh, it's-it's fine," I stuttered, not sure what to say.

   After we had Tori back in her room, Bailey and I paged Dr. Hahn and hung up the x-rays to show her.

   "You paged me?" Hahn asked, walking into the room.

   "We've got a ten-year-old girl with a tumor wrapped around her aorta," I said.

   "I'm putting together a team," Bailey added.

   "This is her angio?" Hahn asked, looking at the x-rays.

   "She just-" Bailey tried.

   "This thing is wrapped around five major arteries," Hahn pointed out.

   "It's bad, but we've got a couple of ideas," I replied. 

   "Good for you." Hahn rolled her eyes. "Try them on someone who might actually live."

   She tried to walk away, but I wasn't giving up on this ten-year-old girl, so I pulled Hahn back over to us. 

   "This little girl deserves to live," I protested. "I-I admit, it doesn't look great, but her family mentioned you by name, so I thought-"

   "That's nice, but I really don't care," Hahn argued.

   "Well, I do," I fought.

   "Don't get emotional, Grey. No one likes a girl who gets emotional," Hahn said calmly.

   "Still... I'd like you on my team," Bailey chimed in.

~

   "Three other hospitals have already sent them away, and if we were smart, we would do the same thing," Hahn said as we sat in the conference room. 

   "What is the matter with you?" Bailey snapped at Hahn.

   "We can try and cut around the stomach," Webber suggested.

   "No, the only way to do that is to actually take it out," Hahn replied.

   "They've done ex vivo autotransplants," I told her.

   "Yeah, with livers and kidneys," Hahn argued.

   "So, why don't we take out the stomach and the kidneys?" I suggested.

   "Oh, yeah, that'd be great if you wanted to kill her," Hahn sarcastically said. "We're talking about two completely different blood supplies here. So, no, not a good idea, Grey." She looked out of the window to see Tori's whole family staring at us. "Who are those people?"

   "Um, that's Tori's dad, Randy, and his brother, Pat, and Pat's wife, Jean, and Tori's brother, David, and-" Bailey started to list.

   "Why are they staring at us, Dr. Bailey?" Webber asked.

   "I don't think they're staring at us, Chief," I answered for Bailey. "I think they're just waiting, seeing if we have any news."

   Webber's pager beeped and he stood up.

   "Look, try and come up with something before I get back," Webber demanded, walking out.

   "Close the blinds, Grey," Hahn instructed.

   I sighed and got up, closing the blinds and sitting back down. 

   For the next hour or so, we thought of ways to get the tumor out without killing the little girl, and we weren't coming up with anything.

   "Any luck?" Webber asked, opening the door and taking his seat next to Bailey.

   "What do you think?" Erica, Dr. Hahn, rolled her eyes. "Look, I know you want to be number one, Richard, but we can't take in every charity case that comes along. It is a huge waste of resources."

   "It's your call, Dr. Bailey." Webber looked at Miranda, Dr. Bailey.

   "What if we just took out each of the organs where the tumor interferes with the blood supply?" I suggested.

   "By the time you clamp off the aorta, you run the risk of damaging the other organs," Erica shut down the idea.

   "Even if you take them out one by one?" I asked. 

   "You don't have the time, Grey," Erica argued.

   "What about if we made the time?" Webber said, finally starting to see things my way. "Dr. Bailey, let's throw some stuff up on the board."

   We drew out conclusions, until we finally had the answer, and we let Tori's family into the conference room so we could talk it over with them.

   "You want to take out all of her abdominal organs-intestines, stomach, everything?" Tori's mother asked.

   "All at once?" Randy questioned.

   "That's right," Webber answered, crossing his arms. 

   "We'll put the organs on ice while we dissect out the tumor, then reconnect the vessels using synthetic grafts and put the organs back in," Miranda explained.

   "Why didn't Graham or Fleisher over at Lake Washington suggest this?" Tori's grandma asked. "They're a couple of smarties."

   "Probably because it's never been done before," Webber answered.

   All of the family members looked at each other with worried expressions.

   "It is extremely risky. There are any number of things that could go wrong," I sighed. I had to tell them the truth, because I didn't want them to think everything was under control when we were really doing a very risky procedure.

   "I-I don't know, Randy, maybe we should try more chemo," the mother shrugged.

   "Um, with all due respect, Mrs. Begler, I don't think there's time for that," I told her.

   "Is it gonna save her life?" Mr. Begler asked.

   "It's your best shot," Webber nodded. "Your only shot."

   "Then do it," Mr. Begler sighed.

   "Okay," Webber agreed.

   I walked out of the room and down to the cafeteria, where I met up with Meredith, Lexie, Izzie, George, and Cristina. I plopped down into the chair in between Lexie and Izzie. 

   "How's your inoperable tumor going?" Meredith asked with a hint of angriness in her voice. 

   "Trust me. Your skills lab can not be any worse than this. This little girl's family is driving me nuts. Like, I understand that they're concerned about their daughter and want answers, but they won't leave us alone for five minutes," I rambled. 

   "Hunt's a monster! He literally stabbed pigs for us to save and luckily, we saved them all, but what if we hadn't? I would have never been able to live with myself," Lexie complained, stuffing a burger into her mouth. 

   "Are you... stress eating?" I asked, looking at her with astonishment.

   "She does that a lot," Izzie responded, taking a bite out of her sandwich. 

   "Seriously, though, Hunt put me in charge of four wounded pigs and ten interns. He really is a monster." Cristina rolled her eyes. 

   "Well, I guess we're all having bad days then," I sighed. Then, my pager beeped, telling me to go to O.R. two for Tori. "I have to go."

   "Have fun," Meredith sarcastically. 

   "Look, I didn't ask for this. And, I know you're mad at me for getting this over you, but you can't stay mad at me forever," I smirked, running off before she could say anything.

   "Yes, I can!" she screamed after me. 

   I went up to the O.R. floor and entered O.R. two, where I saw Webber scrubbing in. I grabbed gloves and started to scrub in. 

   "I have a question," I said. "Why aren't we taking out the kidney since the left renal artery is involved?"

   "Because we can remove the tumor without doing that, so why bother?" he responded, walking into the O.R.

   I watched as he left. Did I do something to piss him off? Apparently, I've been doing that a lot lately.

   I finished scrubbing in and headed into the O.R.

   Once we had Tori opened up and looking inside, we got to work on finding the tumor.

   "Uh, Grey, why do we dissect down in quadrants?" Miranda asked.

   "So we can get a good look at the vessels to make sure we have enough for reconstruction," I answered.

   "Very good," Miranda complimented.

   "A little suction right in here, please," Webber requested.

   "Tori's dad is on the phone," a nurse informed us. "O.R. desk wants to know if they can put him through."

   "No," Webber responded.

   "He's pretty insistent," the nurse pushed.

   "And I'm pretty busy." Webber rolled his eyes.

   "If you could hold this up a little bit higher, Dr. Grey..." Miranda requested, and I listened. "I want to make sure to avoid-" Suddenly, blood started sprouting from Tori's intestine and the monitor beeped rapidly. "That!"

   "Okay, let's get some clamps," Webber said, trying to stay calm. 

   "Another clamp, please," Miranda said. "Let's hang another bag of blood."

   "You better hope the aorta is not that friable," Hahn said to me in a threatening tone. "Otherwise, all the blood in the world won't save this girl."

   We all put our hands in to grab the organs, since we had to take them out to get to the tumor. The monitor was still beeping rapidly.

   "Dr. Bailey," Webber said.

   "Removing the organs on three," Miranda demanded. "Ready? One... two... three."

   We all moved the organs into some ice water to keep them clean and fresh. Webber took it and moved it out of our way. 

   "Wow," Bailey said, looking into Tori's organless body.

   "I'll need medium and large vessel loops to dissect out the tumor," Webber requested.

    "It's Dr. Begler again," the same nurse from before told us. "He wants to talk to you about his daughter."

   "Well, I'm pretty busy right now," Webber responded.

   "I already told him that," the nurse said.

   "Well, tell him again."

   "I've told him eighteen times."

   "Chief, you need to go talk to them," Miranda chimed in. Webber turned around to look at her. "Hey, you did put me in charge."

   Webber sighed, setting down the medical instruments. "I'll be back," he gave in, walking out of the O.R.

   Once Webber came back in, we got right back to work. 

   "Dr. Bailey, can you dissect down anymore?" Webber asked.

   "There's nothing to dissect. There's barely any artery left," she answered.

   "What about if we extend the Gore-Tex graft?" Webber suggested.

   "No, what's left is too friable," Hahn chimed in.

   "So, we can't reconnect the organs to the vessels?" I asked.

   "Not at this moment, no," Miranda sighed.

   "But if we can't reconnect the organs, they won't reperfuse and they'll just die," I pointed out.

   "Yes, they will," Hahn replied.

   "Is it too late for a transplant?" I questioned.

   "Well, we'd have to find six good organs in about eight hours," Hahn sighed.

   "It's too late for a transplant," I realized. 

   "And a gold star for Grey," Hahn mocked me.

   "We could try to put in more Gore-Tex," Miranda suggested.

   "Oh, put even more synthetic material in her?" Hahn sarcastically asked.

   "What about a saphenous vein graft?" I added.

   "No, she's already getting acidotic," Hahn sighed again. "That sort of thing has to be pre-planned."

   "Yeah, so what's your idea?" I asked.

   "Excuse me?"

   "I mean, you're so good at shooting down every idea we come up with. What's your idea?" I snapped at her.

   "It was my idea not to do this in the first place, Dr. Grey," she argued.

   "Yeah, you made that very clear every chance you got," I fought.

   "Shut up," Webber scolded us. "I don't care who had what idea when. Get over yourselves. Shut up and talk to each other."

   The monitor had finally started to beep rhythmically and we all calmed down a little.

   "What about... using human umbilical vein?" Miranda suggested. "I mean, ready to go, already heparinized."

   "Okay, I like it," Webber agreed. "Erica, what do you think?"

   "It could work," Erica Hahn shrugged. "It's Dr. Bailey's call. If she wants to do it..."

   "I do," Miranda answered.

   "In that case, let's do it," Webber replied.

   After the surgery, Erica, Miranda, Webber, and I were all in the scrub room. Miranda walked out to go check up on the clinic, while the rest of us stayed.

   "Again, both of you, great job," he smirked.

   "Thank you," Erica replied, and I just smiled. 

   I walked out of the scrub room with Webber, leaving Erica behind. I really don't like her. She thinks that she's better than everyone else and tries to shut down our ideas for no good reason.

   I walked into the residents' lounge to pack my stuff and I saw that Meredith was the only one in there. 

   "Hey," I greeted her. She didn't answer. "Okay, what's really going on? You can't even look at me."

   "Look, I know that you didn't know our dad that well, but he was a horrible person. I don't know if he still is, but he definitely was. He left me for another family," she told me. 

   "You think I don't know that feeling? Mom left me with grandma when we were both babies. Dad didn't choose me either, and neither did Mom," I responded, starting to walk away to my cubby. "You're not the only victim here, Meredith."

   I heard her sigh as I opened my cubby and started to change. 

   "I'm sorry," she sighed. 

   "It's fine. I'm over it," I replied, keeping my back turned to her.

   I took my stuff and left the lounge without saying another word. I heard footsteps running toward me and I turned around, only to be engulfed in a hug from my sister. 

   "I'm really sorry, Mel," Meredith sighed. 

   A few tears escaped my eyes and I tightened my grip onto Meredith.

~

Word Count: 2977

This chapter's kinda stupid, oops