Endless Fights-3

Don't Take Your Hand Out

Sorry for the long wait in between updates. Season 14 of Grey's is a hit or miss for me on som episodes so it can take longer for me to update. I hope you all enjoy this new chapter.

3rd Person's POV

"Good job, Kimmie." Alex compliments his patient, who just serenaded the whole peds floor with her singing.

"Thanks." Kimmie is all smiles as Lexie, Alex, and their intern, Sam Bello, enter the room. "This is my year. I can feel it. For four years, I've missed out on auditions because of stupid cancer. And every year, Suzie Oppenheimer gets the lead. Girl cannot hit those high notes. Hi, Suzie. Your diaphragm is there for a reason." 

"And so are your doctors. So why don't we let them talk a minute, huh?" Kimmie's grandmother suggests.

"Kimmie Park, 12 years old, one-year status post resection of a recurrent low-grade glioma." Sam Bello recites for her attendings. "She's here for her follow-up head CT."

"Poke me, scan me, whatever. Just tell me I can make it to auditions." Kimmie exclaims.

"Well, let's get started then." Lexie says. Sam prepped Kimmie for her CT. Kimmie is ready for the test to be done so she can receive her good news.

"You ready?" Alex asks her.

"I know the drill."

"Break a leg." Lexie encourages her.

"Places everybody. In 5,4,3,2,1." Alex and Lexie head back into the radiology room so they can wait for the scans.

"Maybe..." Lexie gives Alex a look. "What? A catchy song." He defends himself, singing where Kimmie left off. The scans come back, and it's their worst news.

"Damn it. Alex, it's back." Lexie says.

"Is that right?" Alex looks at it, and Lexie nods.

"It's encroaching on Wernicke's area." Lexie confirms.

"Son of a bitch."

"We're gonna have to operate. And we're gonna have to do it while she's awake." Alex looks at Lexie in disbelief.

"Um, hello?" Kimmie calls out nervously. "I got to the second verse in my head, so that's your cue to take me out now." Their silence is all Kimmie needs. "It's back, huh?"

"Hey!" Lexie rushes back into the lab where DeLuca and Bello are looking through research. "I have an awake brain surgery on a kid tomorrow. I need to get prepped, which means I need you two to narrow down these studies to two options by tomorrow. There was articles about glioma recurrence in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2002. It's red with strips on the spine."

"You remembered the article." Sam Bello asks, shocked, but Lexie is busy remembering other articles.

"There is another one that had to do with a clinical trial at Cleveland Clinic from 2009 that showed improvement with different uses of radiation and laser. So start there and do a feasibility evaluation, including a timeline. And don't forget to evaluate likely subject availability and do a cost projection." Lexie instructs them.

"Yes, ma'am." Sam says.

"On it."

"More on it than him."

"Everybody loves a winner." Kimmie sings during her awake surgery. "So nobody loves me. Lady peaceful. Lady happy. That's what I long to be."

"Kimmie, we're gonna try something else now." Lexie informs her. "The singing and speech functions work in different paths of the brain, so we test them separately using a cortical stimulator." Lexie explains.