Code Blue • Jackson Avery

Chapter Thirty Four

My dad was just about to leave the hospital for the night when he paged me.

"You paged?" I asked rushing to the entrance of the hospital.

"I'm proposing tonight to Mer. Don't tell anyone just thought you should know" he said.

"Good luck" I responded back. He smiled as Meredith came running after him.

I headed to the on-call room to catch some sleep when a few hours into my slumber my pager began to beep.

911 Dr. Shepherd

I jumped out of bed immediately searching for the nurses station to see who paged me. As I scurried through the halls I was meet with a distressed Addison.

"Addison?" I asked fixing my bed head.

"My brother he was admitted" she cried out. I grabbed her in a hug and followed her to the room.

Addison's brother was my uncle and one I adored very much. He and Mark were the only other men in my life besides my dad.

Addison's brother Archer was a neurologist but that didn't mean we would talk about medicine and surgery. No, anytime we hung out it was quite the opposite. We talked about tv shows and school and places to travel. I loved that about him.

"Naomi my stepdaughter Isabella" Addison said introducing me to an old friend of hers.

"Wow, I remember when you were so tiny and now... you're a doctor" she said making me smile.

"How is he?" I asked Addison. She looked somber.

"He has parasites in his brain" she said in such a monotone voice.

We watched him for what felt like hours from outside the room through the glass.

"Dr. Shepherd, Addison good morning. You cut your hair. I like it" Bailey said as she walked up to us.

"Oh Bailey hi. This is Naomi, she's our fertility specialist down at Oceanside wellness and one of my oldest friends" Addison said barely able to concentrate on what to say or how to speak.

My dad exited the room and came out to talk to us.

"How is he?" Addison asked.

"He's groggy, his eyes are open but I don't think he's awake. He hasn't tried to kill me. Her brother hates me" my dad said

"People pick sides in a divorce Derek" Addison whined.

"Not everyone" I said making it clear I wasn't on either side and was for both of them.

"He picked sides in the marriage. He first seized during sex with his girlfriend. I wonder why she's not here?" My dad said allowed as he reviewed the chart.

"Oh she is" Naomi said making both my dad and I shocked.

"I'm going in" Addison said.

"Me too" I followed. Archer was beginning to stir becoming conscious.

"Is that Bella?" He asked as he slowly propped himself up in the hospital bed.

"Uncle Archer" I said giving him a hug.

"How's residency going? They treating you well here?" He asked.

"It's great" I said pulling up a chair next to his bed.

Naomi came in shortly after and we all talked for a while.

Soon the talk about the wedding song started and Naomi and Archer were singing while Meredith came in to check his vitals.

"Greatest love song of all time" Mark said coming in to say hi to Archer.

"Did you get to the part where Derek rhymes gross anatomy class with Addison's fine ass? Cause I wrote that part" Mark said making everyone laugh.

"This one use to sing that line all day long. Your dad didn't know whether to laugh or yell at you" Mark said pointing to me.

I kind of remember Addison and my dad's wedding as I was only about eight or nine. The memories I do have were mostly from the photos of me being the cutest flower girl.

"Bella can you leave the room" my dad said as he entered.

"I can handle the news. I'm not five anymore" I said noticing the sad look on his face.

"The single cyst has multipled. I can't navigate without rupturing one of them. I won't be doing surgery" my dad said.

The whole room went quiet.

"What does that mean?" Addison asked.

"Addy come on, you're in a room full of doctors who are quiet... you know what that means" Archer said.

I grabbed his hand trying to control the sobbing.

"Don't go sobbing on me Bella. I need you strong. Now tell me about what your watching on tv" he said making me laugh a little while wiping the tears up.

A few hours later my dad came back to Archer's room with some good news.

"All right, Archer. I need to create room in the ventricle so I can maneuver the scope. If I deflate each cyst, the scope can remove them not by one" my dad proposed.

"The cysts will rupture" Archer countered back not even giving a moment of thought to what my dad proposed.

"I'm gonna grab each on with forceps, pull it up to the edge of the port and suction out the fluid"

"The suction would have to be precise-" Archer began

"It will be"

"You can't do it"

"Well, I think I can" my dad cockily stated.

"Basically you can control the way the cyst ruptures?" Addison asked. It was a question we all had in mind.

"No he can't. Look I know you guys want me to go down fighting, but I-"

"Coward"

"Dad" I snapped at his choice of words.

"Excuse me?"

"I said "coward" you're a coward by trade. You're a neurologist. You guys feed off us, refer your patients to us, let us assume the responsibility, and if god forbid something happens, well...I'll tell you what, I can assume the responsibility. The question is can you?" my dad said. The tension in the room was beginning to thicken, fast.

Archer and my dad went headed with surgery. I headed to the gallery to watch the surgery.

I walked in to find the surgery had just begun.

"Did he say it?" I asked Addison who was leaned up against the glass.

"Yeah he said it" she said. She grabbed me in a hug stroking my hair.

My dad successfully removed the first cyst.

"Okay I need to be distracted" Addison said sitting down in a chair. "Someone, uh, talk about something other than what's going on with my brother right now"

"Marks good at talking" Torres said making me chuckle.

My dad was on the last cyst when a complication occurred. The cyst ruptured and the parasite escaped. The timer was running and his time was narrowing. Just around the three minutes mark my dad was able to successfully remove the last parasite.

My uncle's heart rate returned and we could all breathe a sigh of relief.
———
A few days later Archer was on a flight home recovering well and my dad was in shambles.