Stitches of Survival

Everybody's Crying Mercy

Chapter Thirty-Seven: Everybody's Crying Mercy

*~*~*~*

"Good morning," Mark greeted me as he slipped into my hospital room with a cup of coffee in hand. He walked over and pressed a light kiss to my forehead before he took a seat in the chair next to my bed. "How are you feeling?"

"I thought you were gonna bring Mellie by before you took her to daycare?" I frowned, ignoring his question with one of my own. "That was supposed to make up for not bringing them by yesterday after Joel got out of school."

"I did bring them yesterday, you were asleep." He pointed out. "Anyways, I was running late this morning. Melinda decided to burst through her diaper right after I changed her so that set me back a bit and I wanted to be here for rounds."

"Fine, but bring them here tonight." I pleaded with him. "I don't care if I'm asleep when you do, just wake me up. I wanna see my babies."

"Babe, you need your rest." He gave my hand a small squeeze. I frowned as I looked at my hand in his. My skin was no longer its usual fair tone, but instead had a yellow pigment to it, just making me look even sicker than I really was. "Your body's already working overtime because of your kidneys, you don't need to push yourself any harder than necessary."

"You should listen to him." Bailey spoke up from where she stood in the doorway. "He's not a complete idiot."

"Since when?" I cracked a small smile.

"You know, I came here to see my wife not get attacked." Mark rolled his eyes, though he still wore a smile.

"Bethany Sloan." Ross presented the case as Bailey led him and several other interns into my room. "Seven days status post craniotomy and ex lap with kidney debridement. Her latest labs showed her potassium's high at five point three. Cardio wants to do an EKG and echocardiogram to check for signs of pericarditis. In the meantime, I recommend starting permanent dialysis."

"No." I shook my head at the idea of being hooked up to yet another machine.

"Beth," Mark frowned.

"No, I'm not doing it." I refused to back down. "I'll continue with the two hemodialysis sessions a day, hell I'll even bump it up to three, but no permanent dialysis."

"Bethany, you know as well as I do that hemodialysis isn't the fix." Bailey tried to speak rationally with me.

"And neither is permanent dialysis." I countered. "It's just a bandaid. At this point, everything's a bandaid. The only chance of a fix that I have is a transplant."

"And we are trying to find you a donor." She assured me. "In the meantime though, these are your only options. I know you don't like the idea of permanent dialysis, but it'll give you more time. It'll give us more time to find you new kidneys."

"I said no," I shook my head, ignoring the feeling of Mark's eyes burning into the side of my head as I spoke. "Just keep breathing down UNOS' neck and get me those kidneys."

*~*~*~*

"I'm gonna kill Yang." Alex said when he came into my room later that day, his scrub cap still on from his last surgery.

"What'd she do this time?" I asked as I tried to push myself up into a better sitting position. Alex noticed and came over to my bedside, helping me sit upright and resting a pillow behind my neck before he sat down in the chair next to my bed.

"She keeps teasing me about the fact that Wilson and I haven't slept together yet." He informed me.

"You haven't?" I couldn't contain my surprise. While I loved Alex like a brother, it was no secret that he had trouble keeping it in his pants, especially the last few years.