After hours

Chapter 32

After Justin and Alyssa leave our home phone starts to ring.

"Hello, we need Dr. Jacob West and Dr. Evangelina Stevens West to report to the hospital immediately."

"Jacob! They need us at the hospital. Call Justin and tell him to come back here to watch the kids!" I yell, scrambling to put on my scrubs.

"You can't go to work, your sick."

"I can still help! I just won't do any surgery."

"Ugh, fine." He says putting on his scrubs as well.

I let Justin in and instruct him to watch the twins.

"You'll be fine. Your at natural."

And we're off.

It's hard to get to the hospital because some of the roads are blocked off.

There's trees, debris, trash, anything you could possibly imagine on the roads, in people's yards, everywhere.

Once we arrive at the hospital I put on a surgical mask, to make sure I won't get anybody sick.

"West!" The head of trauma yells. Both of us answer "Yes?"

"Um, I mean Stevens West. I need you outside waiting for ambulance 43, there is a newborn that was thrown away from his parents house in the winds, don't know if he will survive. Parents still unidentified."

I flash a look to Jacob, and swallow bile gang has been rising in my throat. I haven't seen a newborn since mine.

"You'll be fine." Jacob reassures me kisses the top of my head.

I nod and his name was called into a trauma room.

I walk outside and wait for the ambulance.

It comes in under a minute.

"Age unidentified. Male newborn. Caught in the winds. Not sure how many blocks or how far away. Possible broken bones. We have him intubated." The EMT tells me.

I take the baby up to the NICU floor and begin running tests. I give him an EKG and full body CT. It shows that he has four broken ribs and his heart is starting to fail.

I page Jacob, not knowing why his heart is failing.

"What's wrong?" He says out of breath.

"His heart is failing."

"Okay I need you to get an OR ready. I'm going to put an LVad that will pump his heart for him. Hopefully it will buy us more time. He might need a transplant. Heck he might be on the list. We can't know until the parents arrive." He says wheeling the incubator out of the room.

I do what he says and watch from the gallery him preform the baby's heart surgery.

I notice Jacob looks panicky.

The monitor starts to beep faster. He goes into V fib. They shock him. Twice. He's gone.

I burst into tears.

This is all too familiar.

Jacob I think starts to cry too, but I can't tell.

"Dr. The parents have arrived." A nurse informs me.

Jacob and I walk to the lobby together, dreading this talk.

"Hi, I'm Dr. West and this is my wife. We have information about your son." Jacob croaks out.

"He came in with four broken ribs and signs of heart failure. I took him into surgery and his condition worsened. His organs started to shut down. I'm so sorry, there was nothing else we could do."

The couple burst into tears.

"I'm so very sorry for your loss." I tell them trying not to cry myself.

I quickly walk to the nearest on call room, hearing the thickness in my voice.

I immediately start to cry. Jacob comes into the room in less than a minute.

He wraps his arms around me as I cry into his chest. We stay like that for a while.

"Are you okay?" He asks.

"Yeah, I'm good. We should go back, I'm sure they need us." I say standing to wipe my face.

"Yeah," he says giving me a weak smile.

This is going to be a long day.