Little bird

Shake your groove thing

“ Remember when you were a kid and your biggest worry was, like, if you'd get a bike for your birthday or if you'd get to eat cookies for breakfast? Being an adult? Totally overrated. I mean seriously, don't be fooled by all the hot shoes and the great sex and the no parents anywhere telling you what to do. Adulthood is responsibility. Responsibility, it really does suck. Really, really sucks. Adults have to be places and do things and earn a living and pay the rent. And if you're training to be a surgeon, holding a human heart in your hands, hello? Talk about responsibility. Kind of makes bikes and cookies look really, really good, doesn't it? The scariest part about responsibility? When you screw up and let it slip right through your fingers. Responsibility. It really does suck. Unfortunately, once you get past the age of braces and training bras, responsibility doesn't go away. It can't be avoided. Either someone makes us face it or we suffer the consequences. And still adulthood has it perks. I mean the shoes, the sex, the no parents anywhere telling you what to do. That's, pretty damn good. ”
— Meredith Grey

Meredith is sleeping in the shower with a toothbrush. She awakens as her arm slips from her knee and continues her shower.

Meredith walks into the nursing home her mother lives at and discusses having her mother sign everything over to her while she is lucid. She’s distractedly watching her mother through the glass and explains that she has not slept in 48 hours, and she’s getting her first shot at heart surgery this morning, she’s missing rounds, and asks if they are sure there is no one else to handle this instead. The nursing home representative explains they are talking about her mother’s estate, finances, medical care and asks if Meredith really wants to leave her mother’s life in someone else’s hands.

In the OR, Burke is placing a stitch as Meredith begins to nod off while holding the heart in her hands. Burke notices her jerk awake and questions her about it. Meredith apologizes and says the heart slipped, but he’s finished, she can release Mrs. Patterson’s heart now.

As they prepare to take the patient off by-pass, George and Cristina watch from the gallery. George is jealous that Meredith got to hold a heart.  Izzie comes in looking for George, telling him she needs more ice and chips. He’s surprised and asks how many people she invited. Cristina reiterates the invite list was ‘jocks only’ meaning only surgery, trauma, and plastics. Izzie tells them she invited some people from peds as well, who Cristina calls preschoolers. Cristina, George and Izzie all deny there’s a party, as Alex watches the surgery below. Delilah then quietly sqid to Alex about the party and where the house is.

In the OR, an alarm is going off, but they aren’t sure what the problem is. The anesthesiologist tells Burke the patient’s temperature is rising as they continue to massage the heart. Burke says she should be doing that on her own by now when the patient flatlines. The continue compressions as Burke calls for paddles and shocks her twice before getting a rhythm. Burke compliments the team and leaves to scrub out. As Meredith turn away from the table, she notices her fingernail has punctured her glove and worries she may have done something.

Meredith tells George that she thinks she may have done something to the heart while she was holding it. She nodded off a little and thinks she may have squeezed it. George dismisses this and says the heart is a tough muscle, but Meredith tells him her fingernail popped a glove. She asks him what if she punctured the patient’s heart. He tells her if she had punctured it, they would have known when they tried to reperfused, but they got her heart started again so the patient is okay. Meredith wonders if she should tell Burke. George asks her what there is to tell, that nothing happened, and the woman is okay. They continue to tell one another the patient is fine.

Richard, Bailey, Delilah and George are reviewing chest films for Mrs. Drake. Bailey asks George what he sees. He points out hyperinflated lungs, cloudy with bullae and seriously diminished capacity and says the patient must be having trouble breathing. Bailey asks what his course of action would be and he tells her he would do a bullectomy procedure to reduce the pressure. Richard has the chart and says they operated on this patient in 1999, but even though she has been through this procedure before, George still needs to walk her through it and resist the anti-smoking lectures, Mrs. Drake feels bad enough already. As he leaves, George asks Bailey if she thinks they put this lung scan on packs of cigarettes if people would stop smoking. Delilah punches him in his arm and says," I know smokers and she is not one." George says that the scan doesn't lie.