The Accident

Part 7

Carina stood there, frozen, for a while until Jo and a resident walked out of the doors, Jo stopping immediately when she saw her friend.

"James, go update Mr. Anderson on his wife's condition," Wilson said, making sure he didn't have any questions before going to Carina.

"What happened?" Jo asked gently.

"Maya's back in surgery," Carina said so quietly Jo almost didn't hear her before bursting into tears.

"Oh, Carina," the other OB said, pulling her into a hug, "What happened?"

Carina was sobbing so much she couldn't answer, Jo deciding they needed to go somewhere and sit down. She took Carina to the attendings breakroom, which was close by, just sitting her down on the couch.

Carina cried for a long time, Jo just rubbing her back. She texted her resident while they were sitting there, asking for him to have the nurses page whoever was on call because she wasn't going to be working for the rest of the day. She only had about four hours left on her shift anyway. She still had no idea what was going on with Maya, but she knew whatever it was, it was breaking Carina and she was not about to leave her.

"Hey," Amelia said, coming into the longue not long after Carina's tears had tapered off, "I heard what happened. Carina, what do you need?"

The Italian was just lying on the couch, her head in Jo's lap, staring off.

"She had a complete breakdown," Jo said as Amelia sat down, "What the hell happened?"

"Maya is septic," Amelia said, "It all happened really fast, but Mer's in the OR doing an abdominal washout. She also ripped her stitches."

Jo nodded, looking down at Carina, seeing she was still lost in her own head.

Both Jo and Amelia just sat there with Carina, the Italian not moving at all. Her brain was going so fast though. She shouldn't have let herself fall asleep. She should have been keeping a better eye on Maya's temperature and blood pressure. Had her wife felt warm earlier in the day? She should have caught the signs of sepsis.

If her wife died... Carina let out a whimper as she thought about it, hearing distant voices asking something, but she couldn't hear them. She felt hands on her back, flinching because every nerve in her body felt overstimulated and painful.

Pain, Maya must be in so much pain. She should have caught it. Her wife was in surgery because she hadn't been keeping a close enough eye on her. Her wife might not ever come back to her because she wasn't there, wasn't paying enough attention, just like her brother. She hadn't done what she needed to then and he died. People she loved kept getting hurt and she wasn't doing what she needed to to make sure they were alright.

She pulled her knees up to her chest, wanting nothing more than to disappear from reality right now. She knew her friends were there, but she couldn't get out of her head enough to even hear them. All she wanted was her wife to be ok.

"What should we do?" Jo asked Amelia as Carina just laid there, shaking and crying.

"Right now, we just need to be here," Amelia said, sighing, "Hopefully, she'll come out of this soon. She had a really bad sensory overload day yesterday so that could be happening again. I can sit with her if you need to get back to work."

"I told them to page the on-call," Jo said, shaking her head, "The floor only has one laboring mom right now, and I finished my surgeries for the day."

"Ok," Amelia said, "I am going to run back to Maya's room and grab something that I am hoping will help."

Jo nodded as Amelia got up.