one hundred and three - "are you drunk? she is, we are" - one hundred and three

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"The day you discharge a patient who nearly died is a very good day. You say your goodbyes, you wish them luck, and you hope like hell you never see them again. Because when a patient does return, there's a very good chance you screwed up. And then you'll be looking back to find what you missed, replaying every moment to find the one thing you could have done differently. And if you're like me, you'll obsess over finding that mistake. Until it drives you out of your mind. There's a problem with trying to understand every mistake you've made. You can't. And trying to robs you of your life, your plans, your future. Plus, you can't really learn from your mistakes if you stop moving forward. It's scary. It's uncertain. But you'll find something pretty special there. Hope."
-Meredith Grey, S17E9, "In My Life"

"Until pretty recently, doctors would slap a newborn on the back immediately after birth. It's not that they wanted to make the baby cry. They needed the baby to cry. It meant the baby could breathe on her own. Thankfully, we don't do that anymore. But we still hold our own breath until we hear that cry. And it doesn't matter if you're the baby's doctor or mother. It's the most beautiful sound in the world. The first time, anyway. The first minute in a baby's life is the most terrifying. In that minute, a million tiny air sacks have to perfectly open and fill with air. It's a pretty traumatizing way of entering the real world. In that minute, your whole world stops. It's as if time stands still. And if I'm being honest, that minute is pure hell. But fortunately, most of the time, crying starts, the baby's okay, and the rest of us in the room can finally breathe again."
-Meredith Grey, S17E10, "Breathe"

"During our ER rotation in med school, my roommate fell in love with emergency medicine. She loved being on the front line. She felt that's where she had the most impact. But I knew three days in emergency medicine was not for me. Most treatments were meant to just to tide patients over until they could see their own physician, a specialist or a surgeon. And I thought, "What's the point of starting something you won't get to finish?" One way or the other, surgeons get closure with their patients. Sometimes we fix you, sometimes we can't. But our intention is to find a long-term solution. Which isn't to say emergency medicine isn't important, especially when something's gone neglected too long. But try as we might, some solutions can only be temporary. We evaluate you. We think in the moment. We do our best. And we hope like hell we've done enough to carry you through."
-Meredith Grey, S17E11, "Sorry Doesn't Always Make It Right"

While laying in her hospital bed, Anna woke up, seeing Dr. Bailey and Dr. Webber enter her room. They carried tablets with her recent test results displayed on them. Dr. Bailey started, "Good morning, Anna. How are you feeling?"

"Okay." Anna cleared her throat, "Waiting for the okay to go home and sleep in my own bed."

"We want to monitor you for a few more days because you did come back positive for protein in your urine. 40% of diabetics develop kidney complications around five to ten years in. The good news is, we caught this early, and we can slow down, almost reverse the damage done to your kidneys and prevent fullblown kidney disease." Dr. Webber explained.

"So," Anna took in the information, "How do you treat it?"

"You'll take a low dose of a blood pressure medication for hypertension." Dr. Bailey explained, "Even if you don't necessarily have hypertension, the medication can help your kidneys. We'll need to monitor your blood pressure closely to make sure it doesn't go too low. You take one pill daily."

"Alright." Anna sighed, "How was my a1c?"

"Your hemoglobin a1c was 7.4," Dr. Webber answered, "So, it's going down, but it could be better. We're going for 7% and lower. Okay?"

𝘛𝘳𝘢𝘶𝘮𝘢, 𝘛𝘳𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘥𝘺 - 𝙂𝙧𝙚𝙮'𝙨 𝘼𝙣𝙖𝙩𝙤𝙢𝙮 (ON HOLD)Where stories live. Discover now