No Time | Grey's Anatomy // Book 1 // COMPLETED |

9 | Welcome to Peds

"Yes, this is exploratory surgery," Alex told Brad's mother and father, his temper having dissipated into more of a passionate drive. "And, yes, Brad's scans look clean, but if we're right, if he has mesenteric ischemia and you take him home, the blood flow to his intestines will slowly stop, killing the tissue, causing Brad to become septic, forcing his body into such intense shock that by the time you realize what's happening and you call an ambulance, the chance of Brad getting back to the hospital alive is next to zero."

I nodded in agreement as I tried to read Brad's parents' faces. Were they on board? Did they think we were nuts? "You think he's faking, we get that. So the only real question is, how sure are you? How sure?"

Alex and I gave each other a look and smiled for a brief second before returning to our serious demeanours. While Brad's parents thought over the options, we patiently awaited the answer, hopeful that our planned speech had been enough to convince them to trust us.

 Brad's father looked to his wife, and then through the window at his son, and then back at us. "Yes . . . fine, okay." he agreed. "Do the surgery."

Once Brad's parents had gone back into the patient room and closed the door behind themselves, I broke out into a small celebratory dance. "Yes!" I cheered. 

"Hell yeah!" Alex turned to me and we high fived.

"Good job, guys." Arizona laughed, amused by just how excited we were. "I'll get Brad ready and book OR one. You two go scrub."

Not wanting to waste any time, we got Brad into surgery as soon as possible. Ten short minutes later, I was scrubbing down my hands and forearms and watching as the scrub nurses set up the operating room. Another ten minutes later, I was standing over Brad's body, beside Alex and across from Arizona. 

With the scalpel in her hand, Arizona looked up at Alex and me and gave a curt nod before beginning the incision. Suctioning away the blood, I watched as Arizona meticulously inspected Brad's intestines. She went over it again and again, but each time she came up empty-handed. "These loops of bowel look clean, too," she told us, disappointment evident in her tone.

"Nothing?" Alex and I asked.

Arizona hung her head and sighed. "Nothing."

"Crap," Alex grumbled. "We bullied them into a totally unnecessary surgery for their kid."

"No, it wasn't unnecessary," Arizona told us. It was obvious she was trying to keep us from being too hard on ourselves. "By not finding anything, we're one step closer to finding out what isn't wrong with Brad, which means we're one step closer to finding out what is. At least that's what your gonna tell his very angry parents."

I stifled a nervous laugh. "Oh, that's gonna be fun."

"Well, you bullied 'em into surgery, you're gonna take the heat." Arizona continued to look around inside of Brad, quadrouple-checking just to make sure. "More suction, please."

Just then, one of the monitors started to beep erratically. "BP took a dip." one of the nurses informed us.

"He's getting unstable." Arizona set her instruments aside. "Bolus him with a litre, and let's get him closed. All right. We may not have found the problem, but there's absolutely something wrong here."

Once we had Brad closed up again, we took him to a recovery room where Alex and I carefully bandaged up his incision. In the middle of working, however, Reed stormed into the room. "Do you really think Shepherd's gonna cut all of us?" she asked out of the blue, catching Alex and I off guard. 

"What?" Alex took more bandages from the nurse.

"The Mercy Westers, do you think we're all gone?" she said more clearly this time. "I mean, just tell me if you think that I need to start looking for a job."

Before Alex had a chance to answer, Brad's parents hurried into the room, their faces flushed from the sight of their son unconscious in the bed. "Is there a reason our son is in ICU?" the father asked.

"Did you figure out what's wrong?" the mother followed up.

"Uh, not exactly," Alex muttered.

Brad's mother's eyes widened as she stepped closer to her son. "Why does he have a tube in his chest? You said you were doing abdominal surgery."

"Brad became briefly unstable in surgery," I explained calmly. "So we had to put in a central line. Well, it got a little kink, so his lung, it started-"

"ALEX!" Reed yelped suddenly, startling me enough to make me lose my train of thought. 

"Hang on." Brad's father drew my attention back. "Are you saying you cut into our son for nothing and caused more damage?"