Make it or break it

"Always here for you, babe."

Season 1 Episode 4, 30:01

"There, it's a tumor." Derek showed Meredith an I Cruz's tumor on the screen as he lay patiently in the machine. "It's midline near the hypothalamus."

"Damn." Meredith muttered as I sighed feeling the weight come back onto my shoulders.

After a few moments of silence not knowing how to tell her, we made our way to his room and Dr. Shepherd took the lead.

"Best practice, probably to remove the tumor, 'probably' because I can't get it all- 99% but not all of it." Derek said as I watched the couple look at each other feeling a wave of worry. "Radiation and chemo you're looking at maybe 5 to 10 good years."

Jorge turned to his wife then back to doctor Shepherd. "Let's do it." 

"You haven't heard the downside. See, the tumor is located in a part of your brain where your memory and your personality resides." Derek said as he walked closer to the bed. "And because of the fuzzy edges of this type of tumor I have to cut out a lot. Jorge, you stand good chance of losing your memories, of losing who you are."

"Is there any other way." His wife asked feeling the pressure on herself as well.

"The alternative is a gamma or cyberknife treatment with focus radiation. It's less evasive there's little chance of memory loss or him losing himself, but it would only give Jorge maybe three to five years."

Sona grabbed onto Jorge's hand as tears began to drop from her eyes. "Three to five years?"

Derek took a big inhale trying to finish what he needed to say, as Meredith and I both stood there with tears in our eyes. "This is an incredibly difficult decision. If you have any more questions or you need to talk to me, I'm here, okay?"

Once Derek was finished talking, I let Meredith grab the chart as I rushed out not being able to stay there much longer without crying, which would do no good for the patients. 

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Meredith and I decided to take a walk outside after what we had just witnessed. Once got out we saw Christina laying on a bench and Izzie leaning against a post so we decided to join them.

"Who are we talking about?" Meredith asked.

"Miss Fallon. They brought her here to die." Christina rolled her eyes.

Izzie sat down on the ground. "Wouldn't you want them to do the same for you?"

"No," She answered sitting up. "I'd want the doctors to do everything they could. I want them to cut me open until the minute I die."

I point at Christina. "I agree. I'd want to know that I died trying every different way to survive and not just give up."

"Sometimes doing everything can be worse than doing nothing." Meredith said while she focused on the book she started to read.

"You are 8 feet tall. Your boobs are perfect. Your hair is down to there." Christina started as she brought up the whole patient doesn't want Izzie because she's a model thing. "If I were you, I would walk around naked all the time. I wouldn't- I wouldn't have a job. I wouldn't have skills. I wouldn't even know how to read. I'd just be... naked."

I grabbed a hold of the magazine Christina was holding to see the picture of Izzie and laughed at her comment.

"It's makeup. It's retouching." Izzie rolled her eyes sarcastically.

"You get that we hate you, right?" Christina said jokingly and Izzie got paged so she rushed back into the hospital. 

"And you." Christina laid down and pointed at me while she looked at the ceiling. "Who cares what Alex says. Look at you, you got out of a toxic house plus you're debt free."