The Accident

Part 8

Meredith came back about three hours after finishing Maya's surgery, around 8 pm.

"Hey," the general surgeon said, coming into the quiet, dark room, seeing her sister sitting in the chair, "How are things going?"

"She's been stable," Amelia said, not bothering to whisper, knowing full well that Carina was wide awake, "Her pressure is holding, and her temperature is down another .2 degrees as of 10 minutes ago."

"Good," Meredith said, going over to the bed, lifting up the sheet to check Maya's incision, "Carina, are you alright?"

The OB just shrugged, rubbing at her tired eyes.

"Her drain output is looking good," Meredith said, "It's putting out a lot which as you know is good and her surgical site is still looking good too. I want to see how her labs are, but she is stable which is a good sign. Now, Carina, you need to get some rest."

"I'm ok," Carina said, shaking her head.

"Car, you are going to make yourself sick if you don't sleep," Amelia said, getting up and going over to her friend, "Maya is out right now. I am here. There's not much you can do to help her right now, but when she wakes up, in a day or two, then she is going to need you. If you wear yourself out now while she is sedated, you are going to be no use to her when she wakes up and needs you."

"I fell asleep, and she went septic," Carina said, bottom lip wobbling, "I need to be awake if she needs me."

"Oh Carina," Amelia said, going to her friend's side, putting an arm around her, "There was nothing you could have done to prevent this. She has an infection. You know how unpredictable these things are. And with her injuries, we were anticipating an infection from the get. You are not her doctor. You are not responsible her getting sick."

"I should have been paying better attention to her temperature," Carina said as she cried, "Or watched her BP closer. Or asked for extra blood draws or something. I am a doctor. I know what the risks were, and I just let myself fall asleep and now she is fighting for her life again so I can't sleep because what if that happens again."

"Carina," Meredith said, "We were keeping an eye on all those things. Her temp was 99.5 two hours before all of this happened, and her BP was low but still normal too. She wasn't showing many signs until she was really sick, and that happens. There was nothing you or any of us could have done to catch this earlier."

Carina just cried, allowing herself to lean into Amelia a little bit.

"Right now, Carina, you need to take care of yourself," Amelia said softly as Meredith got a page, leaving the room, "Let me take care of you and Maya, just for the next twelve hours. Let yourself rest and sleep."

"I just need her to be better," Carina said as she tried to wipe the tears away.

"I know," Amelia said, "And I wish I could tell you with 100% certainty that that will happen, but you know I would be lying if I did. But I can tell you that she would want you to take care of yourself right now too, not just her, and I know this as a fact because the amount of times I have seen that woman come into this hospital with food or coffee or just herself to make sure you were ok are more than I can count. And I have seen her do it when she had had terrible days because there was one time she couldn't find you because I think you had been sent to Seattle Pres for something and I saw her kick a trash can out front so I went to talk to her. She told me she had been working a double shift and that one of her colleagues was in the hospital from an injury, and she had maybe 15 stitches in her forehead, and I could tell by how she was walking that she injured her leg, and she was in some kind of hot water at work. I told her that was a good reason to kick a trash can, and she said she hadn't kicked it because of that, but because you had had a long week and that she was worried you were tired and needed a break and you were gone so she couldn't get you to rest. She still had dried blood on her face and all she was worried about was you."