Diary of a Girl from Seattle

Save Me

Dear Diary,

The past few days have been very interesting. George and Izzie saw Derek leaving Meredith’s house early in the morning. Apparently they didn’t know that the two were a thing. I mean it wasn’t hard to figure out. Mer is always on his service and the two are talking all the time. I don’t know what took George and Izzie so long to catch on.

This week I shadowed Izzie, George, Alex, and Meredith so I decided to shadow Cristina today. I found her in the skills lab practicing sutures. I sat down at the table next to hers after grabbing a needle, needle holders, forceps, nylon sutures, and a cardiac practice board. I started practicing my father’s sutures used for aortic repairs. I used to watch him practice these sutures at home, I would sit in his lap and watch as his hands carefully closed the incision, perfectly lining up both sides. When I got to be a little bit older he showed my how to do them. I would practice with him every night, although at ten years old mine could never come close to my father’s perfect stitches.

I hadn’t been able to practice in a few years, since I no longer had supplies at home, so I took advantage of the opportunity I had. Dr. Yang looked over at me seemingly disgusted by the fact that I was “wasting” materials. She asked me what I thought I was doing and I told her I was practicing. The rest of our conversation went a little like this.

Cristina: “You’re like 10 years old, you can’t suture. I don’t even know how they let you in here.”

Me: “I learned how to do a bunch of stitches this one in particular. And the chief said that I can shadow here. And I’m 13 not 10.”

I was surprised that she was being so nasty to me, especially since she seems to be so interested in cardiothoracics. Usually residents interested in a certain specialty are nice to the family of the top surgeons within that specialty, but I guess not. She did however walk over to where I was sitting to see what I was doing. Our conversation continued.

Cristina: “wait what are you doing? Are those PR stitches?”

Me: “yeah why?”

She then went on to ask me how on earth I learned to do them. She herself was still learning how to do them. While very effective the stitches are not the easiest to do. I told her my dad taught me when I was younger. A sudden look of disbelief fell upon her face. I guess she had just realized that I’m the daughter of a world famous cardiothoracic surgeon. I asked her if I could shadow her and she obviously agreed. We got along much better from that point forward.

 Cristina had a really cool case that day. Her patient’s name was Mr. Duff. He was having seizures that he claimed were visions because he’s a psychic, of course. I didn’t really believe it and neither did Dr. Yang. We went into the room to check on the patient. He could tell that Cristina was skeptical of his psychic “abilities.”

While telling Mr. Duff about his seizures and how he is epileptic, he had another one of his “visions.” He said something about the mommy track and pregnancy to Cristina which really confused me but it seemed to really freak her out. I followed Dr. Yang out of the room, but I went to look at some old x-rays that were up in an empty exam room nearby.

I saw Izzie walking over toward Mr. Duff’s room so I went over to talk to her. It turned out that Izzie switched cases with Cristina. I guess that comment really got to her. I wanted to see what happened with Mr. Duff so I decided to shadow Izzie instead. Dr. Stevens entered the room and I followed one step behind her. She did a quick exam and went to leave. I began to follow her but then Mr. Duff said something that stopped me dead in my tracks. “So that anklet.”

That one simple phrase that made my heart stop for just a moment. I looked down to see if my leather anklet was showing, but no part of it could be seen from under my red skinny jeans. Then he said simply “Castaway boulevard.” I whipped my head around and stared at him in disbelief. “I’m sorry you had to lose him” he said.  I could feel the tears pricking my eyes. “I told you I was psychic” said Mr. Duff. I stared at him dumb founded. I was wracking my brain for a rational explanation for how he could know that.

How could this man I just met for the first time know that I wear my father’s leather anklet? How could he know that my father was in a crash on Castaway Boulevard? The crash that took my father away from me forever. How in the world could he have known? I guess that’s one of the many question that I’ll never have an answer to.

-          Mattie