Hold On To Me

Chapter 11

Joe sits in the corner beating himself up. It is his fault that Herrmann is in that OR right now. He should have never brought in Freddy.

"Doc" Boden alerts them all of Sienna walking towards them.

"How is he?" Cindy stands up immediately, followed by the 51 family.

"We have given Herrmann several units of blood; he's stabilized. The knife went through his liver; diaphragm and lungs so we put a tube into his chest to re-inflate the lung and help him breathe. We're hopeful that the bleeding has stopped since we don't see anything on the CT."

"When will you know?" Cindy asks

Sienna takes a deep breath, "The next several hours are critical."

She stays quiet while they all try to grasp the news. "Cindy, you can come to see him."

**

"Sienna" Gabby runs up to her. "Is he going to be okay – medical expert to medical expert"

Sienna sighs, "He's not out of the woods and I have a resident sitting on him 24/7. He's strong as hell."

Gabby frowns, "thanks"

"I'll update you every change. I promise. Right now, Herrmann is my main priority."

She smiles softly, "Thank you Si"

**

"Richards" Sienna walks into Herrmann's room to find the resident on his case going over his file. "How's his breathing and vitals?"

"Still normal, he's losing blood"

"Speed up those transfusions. Let's get his white blood cell count up."

"On it"

**

"Sienna" Cruz runs up to her, he looks disheveled and worried.

"Hey Joe, you okay?"

"I brought in Freddy, you know, and I know everyone is blaming me for this. If Herrmann-" he trails off but Sienna knows he was about to say 'if Herrmann doesn't make it'

"Hey" She puts a hand on his arm, "This wasn't your fault. You tried to do a good thing by letting Freddy see a different life than the one he has now, you tried to help him. What he did to Herrmann – that's on him. You need to stop beating yourself up and be there for your brother."

Before he could say something, she gets paged 911 to Herrmann's room.

"Shit, I need to go"

"Wait, is that Herrmann, Sienna?!"

"Joe, stay put."

She runs into Herrmann's room.

"Stats are falling 80%."

Sienna takes off her stethoscope and listens to his heartbeat. "Hey Herrmann, I need you to take some nice easy breaths."

"He's crashing" The resident says.

"Nice and easy breaths Herrmann" She tells him again but he keeps on crashing.

"We need a BIPAP and an EPI in here now" Sienna yells.

The resident hands it to her

"We need that BIPAP on him now. Give him 125 milligrams of Methicillin"

"Right away doctor"

"I need a stat portable X-Ray" she continues giving orders to the residents, trying like hell to get his heart rate to slow down.

"Stats are back up, 94%. He's breathing better" She finally says after the drug is in his system. He's worse than she thought.

**

"What happened in there?" Cindy asks as tears stream down her face.

Sienna looks Gabby and Cindy both in the eyes, "Herrmann developed what we call TRALI. Transfusion-related acute lung injury. It's a reaction to the antibodies and blood products especially plasma. It sent him into respiratory distress. We can treat these symptoms with steroids and BIPAP but if it happens again we will need to intubate him and put him on a breathing machine."

Cindy looks at Gabby with worry clear in her eyes. The paramedic speaks up, "What about the liver bleed?"

"The liver bleed is under control. I'm more worried about his respiratory issues right now"

**

"I need to do more Connor. I need to fix him and steroids won't help."

The blonde trauma surgeon is busy wracking her brain for ways to fix Herrmann. The waiting game is making her anxious and frustrated. She's not used to waiting.

Connor looks at the file again, "It's his lung that is deflating right?"

"Right"

"What about a lung transplant?"

Sienna frowns, "His white blood cell count is too low"

Connor sighs, "if only there was a way to take his lung out and put it back in hey?"

Just then she gets an idea. It's a field procedure she did back in Afghanistan a few times, it's risky but way better than sitting on her ass doing nothing but wait.

Her face light up, "You're a genius"

"What did I do?" She hears him ask faintly in the background but she's already gone to ask permission to his family.

There was a lot of hesitation from Cindy but she agrees nonetheless for Sienna to do an internal lung transplant.

**

With a much lighter mood Sienna scrubs out of the OR. Herrmann is back to normal. He's fine. The surgery worked.

She walks to the 51 family – all of them pacing around in worry but stops to look at her when she gets closer to them.

"The surgery was a success" They all breathe out in relief. "It worked, he's going to be just fine."

Cindy cries out in relief as she hugs Sienna tightly. "Thank you, thank you so very much."

The blonde smiles, "I will keep him here for a few days to observe him. You guys can go see him in half an hour, just check with Maggie."

"Thank you Si" Gabby smiles brightly. "Thank you."