Motherhood Lessons²

Queen of Hell

Ivy carries a box through the hospital on her way to the attendings lounge, where Jackson is changing into fresh scrubs after his latest surgery, "Hey, what are those?"

She smiles before setting the box down, "Costumes for the kids. Their school doesn't allow kids to wear costumes during the day, so Melissa will bring them here later, change them into these and then we go trick or treating on Peds."

"Oh, okay. What did they decide on?" Jackson starts pulling out the costumes.

"Doctors. They each have little scrub caps to. Chris is wearing Derek's old ferry boat one, Allie is wearing my old one, Aurora was hoping that daddy will let her wear his scrub cap and the twins are gonna be nurses," Ivy says, smiling as she holds Dereks scrub cap.

He laughs, "Of course she can. My little princess. Glad one of my kids wants to wear mine."

Ivy rolls her eyes, shoving him lightly, "Yours is plain purple, Aurora loves purple and Allie and Chris love their little sister so much that they didn't even argue with her. So-"

Her pager starts going off, "Incoming trauma, I will see you later?"

"Yeah. I have our costumes in the car."

○○○○

Standing with Bailey and Koracick, Ivy snacks on some chocolate. Bailey shakes her head, "They call these fun size but they'd be more fun of they were bigger."

Ivy holds her small bag out to Tom, "Want one?"

He shakes his head, "I'd prefer not to lose my teeth."

"Forget the candy not being fun, you're no fun," Ivy says, moving forward as the rig pulls up.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's get you back on that gurney," Bailey tells the man who stumbles out of the rig.

"No. My legs just a little scraped up. This is all fake. It's my friend."

The paramedic starts, looking to Ivy, "Austin Goodrich, 18, auto versus pedestrian. He's got visible head trauma. Left pupils blown. Hypotensive and tachy despite 500 cc of LR, likely due to abdominal bleeding."

Bailey points at the ax sticking out of his abdomen, "Oh. You mean where that giant ax is?"

"That is not real, but also difficult to remove," the paramedic says.

"We were walking to school when this car plowed into him. Driver said he just didn't see him. Austin always wins our costume contest. He's, like, a master of fake blood and guts and organs. Is he gonna be okay?" His friend asks.

Ivy gives him a calm smile as they start moving, "We'll know more when we can take a closer look at his real organs. Trauma one, let's go!"

○○○○

Starting an ultrasound, Ivy listens as Tom starts looking at Austin's head and Baileg tries to remove the ax, "Man, I don't want to tear his skin, but this is really stuck. I think it's spirit gum. Um, I-I need more alcohol wipes."

Ivy chuckles, "I used to love doing stuff like this. Pranking Derek and Mark was my favorite pastime as a kid. Uh, Ginger, behind the nurses station in the top drawer, there's spirit gum remover. Can you grab it for Dr. Bailey please?"

Ginger nods, quickly grabbing it as Bailey gives her a questioning look, "You have spirit gum remover on hand?"

"This isn't my first Halloween in the ER. This happens more often than you think. Mostly college kids, some older."