I had just finished rounds with mine and Alex's interns. He was off spending the day with Rebecca. I walked over to Izzie, George and Meredith.
"You're a crappy best friend," Izzie said to me.
"What did I do now?" I asked.
"Rebecca is crazy," Izzie said.
"Alex is a grown man. He'll ask me if he needs help. We talked about this. I don't take advice from you about how to be a good friend. You sleep with your friends. The thought of sleeping with Alex physically makes me want to douse myself in alcohol and set myself on fire," I said.
"You're smiley and it's concerning," George said.
"She's getting married," Meredith said.
"Damn right am I getting married to the hottest woman on the planet," I said smiling.
Timeskip
I was paged to the pit. Torres was talking to a group of teens.
"Torres, what we got?" I asked.
"Trauma consult. A kid got dared to lay in a vat of cement. Trauma Room 3," Torres said. I walked into the trauma room. Bailey stood with a firefighter.
"Okay. Well, what do you want us to do first?" The fireman asked.
"I don't know," Bailey said.
"All right, look, we blasted him out of the job site, but we figured, don't blast him too close. But this is a lot of concrete, so if you're planning on treating him, we need to get started. So what do you want to do?" The fireman asked.
"I don't know!" Bailey snapped. The kid in the block of cement started to cry. "I'm sorry. Uh, okay, I-I know I'm not doing my best to instil a sense of confidence in my abilities. Um, you know, it's just that you are trapped in what I'm guessing is several tons of, cement and I've never seen a boy ... wait, how old are you?" Bailey asked.
"19," The kid said.
"Then you're a man then. I've never seen a man trapped in several tons of cement before. But now that I have, I'm gonna figure this out," Bailey said. "Okay, I'm ... I'm gonna work with other surgeons, and we're going to figure out a plan and we're going to save you. Okay, I never, ever promise life, but I'm promising this to you. Do you understand?"
"I do," The kid cried.
"Okay," Bailey said.
"Hey, I'm Dr Sloan. What's your name?" I asked.
"Andy," The kid said.
"Okay, Andy. The cement you're covered in will slowly start absorbing the water from your body but you need that water to survive so no more tears. You can yell. You can cuss but you can't cry," I said.
"Have you ever seen anything like this?" Andy asked.
"No," I said. "But I'm sure these guys don't cut people out of cement on a regular basis,"
Timeskip
After Hahn, Torres, Bailey and Mark argued about Andy's treatment plan they finally agreed on a plan. The firefighters were working on slowly removing the cement while Mark was tending to the cement burns. Bailey was keeping tabs on his heart rate and bp. Torres and Hahn were checking his joints.
"What's that?" Andy asked.
"I'm pouring vinegar on your flesh to minimize the burns inside your skin caused by the cement," Mark said.
"I'm burning from the inside out? I'm dying. I'm dying, aren't I?" Andy asked as I began drilling holes in the cement with a hand drill.
"Hey, hey, Andrew. That word's not allowed anymore. I'm banning that word from your vocabulary," Bailey said.
"Can you move your fingers?" Hahn asked. Andy moved his fingers. "That's very good,"
"I'm not usually this dumb. I make the dean's list. I tutor. I'm ... I'm not. I'm not usually the guy who's dumb enough to jump into a tub of cement for a girl," Andy said.
"Wait, not the girl you came in with? You did this for her?" Torres asked.
"Lola. The guys dared me. She was watching. And I. She was watching. And now not only is she totally unimpressed, but now after I'm gone, she'll remember me forever as the idiot who was dumb enough to jump into a tub of cement," Andy said. "People will write stories about my idiocy and forward them to their friends. I'm gonna die as a bad e-mail forward,"
"Hey, come on. We all mess up," Bailey said.
"The doctor holding the drill once did 21 shots of vodka before backflipping into a pool off of a table just to impress a girl. Instead, she split her head open and caused 5 people to pass out," Mark said looking at me.
"Marcus there's a place and a time to discuss my stupidity and it's not right now," I said.
"I'm the guy who died in a block of cement trying to impress a girl. I'm like Han Solo. In "star wars"? He was encased in carbonite?" Andy said before turning to me. "You're pretty stupid too,"
"Yeah. I've learned to embrace it," I said.
Timeskip
We were still working on getting Andy out of the cement.
"Oh, god. My poor, poor parents. How would they face anyone at the funeral?" Andy asked.
"Oh, okay, Andrew, you're gonna make a lot of mistakes in your life, but mistakes are ... they're ... they're just pieces.
Like this is a foolish piece, but, you know, it's just a piece. You need to be proud of the whole picture. The whole picture defines you, not just this one piece," Bailey said.
"I'm a loser. I'm a loser. I'm a loser. I'm a loser," Andy repeated causing his heart rate to start rising.
"Come on. Uh, Andrew," Bailey tried. "Andrew. Hey, hey, l-listen to me,"
"Han solo is not a loser. Han solo got encased in carbonite, and ... and that was a big mess, but that's not what he's remembered for. He's remembered as the guy who made the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs and who braved the subzero temperatures of the ice planet Hoth in order to save someone he cared about from the big, ugly wampa.He is remembered as the guy who swooped down at the last minute, blasted darth vader out of the sky so that luke could use the force and ... and destroy the damn "death star," okay? Princess Leia saved him from the carbonite. And they fell in love and they saved the universe and had twin Jedi babies that went on to save the universe again. Right? Now that's the whole picture. The carbonite, it was just a piece, okay?" I said.
"Yeah," Andy said. The other doctors looked at me.
"I can't believe we're related," Mark said.
"Shut up. Scott was a huge Star Wars fan," I said.
"Scott was a boyfriend?" Andy asked.
"No. He was one of my best friends in high school," I said.
Timeskip
I had now moved on to help Torres with Andy's leg. Chief Webber had joined us.
"All right, it's at 20 centimetres. Inflate the balloon, Yang," Hahn told Cristina.
"I am," Cristina said.
"All right. So then inflate it more," Hahn said.
"Yes, Dr Hahn," Cristina said.
"Every time they loosen another piece of concrete, this leg swells even more," Torres said.
"His pressure is 18," I said.
"All right, does he have a pulse with that?" Hahn asked walking over. She reached in front of Callie for me to hand her a piece of equipment.
"I always did enjoy a good game of twister," Mark commented.
"It's finished. I'm in," Cristina said about to sew the line into place.
"Yang, do not sew that in. Hold it. I will check your work when I'm done," Hahn said.
"Chief, I've gotta do a fasciotomy," Torres said.
"What? A what?" Andy asked.
"We've got to relieve the pressure in your leg or you could lose the entire limb. Don't worry. You probably won't feel a thing," Dr Webber said.
"Oh, god," Andy said. Torres handed me a scalpel. I made the cut and watched as blood poured out of the incision.
Timeskip
We were getting ready to go into surgery while waiting for the fire department to release Andrew from the rest of the cement.
"The O.R. Is booked and standing by," Callie said walking over.
"Dr Bailey, what is it?" Cristina asked.
"Something. We're missing. We're forgetting something. Gangrene, compartment syndrome, compression, fluid balance, electrolytes. What is it? What is it? Gangrene, compartment syndrome, compression, fluids, electrolytes. Gangrene, compartment syndrome, compression, fluids, electrolytes. Gangrene, compartment syndrome, compression, fluids, elec ..." Bailey dropped her cup of water. "Bladder. His bladder. We've been hydrating him and hydrating him for over four hours now,"
"Oh, if we don't get a catheter in him quick," Hahn said setting down her cup.
"His bladder's gonna explode," Bailey said.