Army Goddess

Chapter 20: Hearts

"Like stripping a house down to its frame only. We are scrubbing away cells of hearts, Teddy, actual hearts."

"I know. We are wiping them clean, till they're blank. And then in theory, when we inject them with stem cells..."

The resident finishes the sentence, "They'll live again."

Angela smiles, "Well, let's grow ourselves some new hearts."

Alex walks in, "Dr. Karev, I traded with Kepner. I'm on your service today."

"Are you up on my patients?"

His pager chimes before he can answer, causing Angela to tease him, "Karev? Karev, can you focus?"

"Yeah, sorry," Her pager chimes that time, "Oh, it's the ER. You two have fun."

♤♤♤♤

Standing with her patient and his wife, Angela asks some questions, "Can you describe the pain?"

He shakes his head, "I don't know. Uh, it just, uh..." Alex's pager chimes again, "It-it's like it-it's crushing me and I can't shake it."

"Hand me the EKG," She holds her hand out.

"Uh, it looks like anterolateral MI."

The wife starts telling them, "We almost didn't come in. We're only in town till tomorrow. We're catching a cruise for Alaska."

As Alex's pager goes off again, Angela keeps a smile on her face, "Mr. Carroll, you're experiencing a heart attack. We need to take you up to the cath lab for an angioplasty. Can you tell me what you were doing when you felt the chest pain?"

"We just went out to walk around our bed and breakfast. And, uh, it was like a piano fell onto my chest."

"So you were walking. You weren't running or doing anything else that might have triggered the pain?" Angela clarifies.

The wife starts to laugh a little bit, "Well...we saw a lion."

Angela nods, "Not the first time we've heard that today."

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"Explain it to me again," The wife says after the angioplasty.

Alex takes lead explaining, "Uh, during the angioplasty, Mr. Carroll had another heart attack. We placed a balloon pump to stabilize him, but that only buys us a little time."

Mr. Carroll tells her, "They're gonna have to do surgery, Emma."

"But he-he's going to be okay?"

Angela gives her a soft smile, "If we can perform a coronary artery bypass soon, I'm hopeful that we've caught it in time."

He starts apologizing to his wife, "I am so sorry, Em. You've been waiting for this trip 50 years. This cruise was a...gift from our kids for our anniversary. And now I've messed it all up."

Emma shakes her head, "You didn't mess anything up."

"You wanted to see those humpback whales so bad."

"Forget the whales. We came face-to-face with a lion," Emma says, causing Angela to chuckle a little.

"Yes, we did."

She smiles down at him lovingly, "It's already a heck of a vacation."

"Yes, it is."

"Happy anniversary, Martin," Emma tells him as they only have eyes for each other.

"Sat that to me tomorrow," He tells her.

♤♤♤♤

Angela wraps her arms around Mark from behind in the cafeteria, "Hey you."