Chapter Text
Mel woke with a start as her alarm went off in the on-call room. She didn't feel as though she got any sleep. In fact, she felt worse than when she had gone to sleep in the first place. Sometimes it felt like getting a taste of sleep and then having it ripped from you is worse than having no sleep at all. She tried to recreate some of her morning routine as she went to the locker room. She grabbed her toothpaste, deodorant, and other things and headed into the women's bathroom, where she found Santos doing the exact same thing. Trying to convince themselves that this was just like any other shift, instead of the endless shift it felt like.
After taking a few moments to freshen up, she went into the break room where she brewed herself green tea in her to-go cup. She also then decided to grab a Red Bull from the fridge since she hadn't seen Dr. Langdon emerge.
When she came out of the break room, a small crowd had formed around Robby at the nurses' station.
“ Thank you so much, everybody, for sticking around! It is getting very hard to traverse outside, and we expect that this will lead to an increase in car crashes, slips, and falls as people try to commute to work even though there is a state of emergency. That being said, if you have been working overnight, we ask that if you feel like you are not capable of continuing to work through your full 12-hour shift, you come see me, Dana, or Dr. Al, and let us know. We want you to be at your full capabilities as much as possible and therefore, plenty of breaks, sleep, water, and caffeination. “
With that, Dr. Langdon appeared like a ghost next to her. With his casual air, it almost felt like what happened last night ( this morning?) was just a dream. But as she studied his relaxed face, she saw evidence that it was, in fact, real because there was a slight pillow mark on the left side of his cheek from the massage table cradle. That made Mel smile slightly.
They began rounding with Shen taking the lead in transferring the patient's information. She handed Langdon quietly the Red Bull she had gotten for him, and he gave her a large grin.
" What did I do to deserve this?” he asked.
“It's a thank you for taking care of me last night." She said softly
He leaned down to softly whisper in her ear, "Thank me? You were the one taking care of me. My back has never felt better. You've got magic hands, Dr. King"
Mel sputtered. And with that, the group's eyes turn towards her. To avoid trying further attention to herself and because of sheer blind panic, she offered to take over the patient at N3, where the group was. Santos, who was beside her, burst into a laugh that she was trying to hide. Which just intensified Mel's panic. She quickly looked at the chart for whose bed they were just at as they moved to the next. She saw that it was a case of a foreign object lodged in the rectum, and she groaned audibly.
“I guess that's one way to use your magic hands," Santos said, with a knowing smirk
Mel wasn't surprised that Santos eavesdropped; she loved gossip even more than Princess. But any information in her hands was far more dangerous. Mel looked at her with pleading eyes
" It's not what you think.”
“Oh, it never is, sadly. I've got a very dirty imagination. " Santos nudged her. “Just tell me if he crosses the line, I'll always back you up."
Mel nodded, confused but also happy to have someone in her corner, even if the concern was misplaced.
Mel ordered X-rays for the man in North 3 and rejoined the group as they rounded. She picked up two other patients, one male with a dislocated wrist and probable broken bones who slipped on the ice, and a female with a vestibular migraine who just needed to be checked on as her migraine cocktail was already being administered.
After dismissal, Langdon watched Mel as she slipped into the room of the migraine patient first. She went in for just a moment before the lights went off in the room, and the door was shut as she exited. Langdon smiled, always enamored with her gentle thoughtfulness.
Mel then moved to order X-rays for the patient with the broken wrist and finally arrived outside the curtain of the patient with the foreign body. From the X-rays and notes from the chart, the object appeared to have been a cucumber or zucchini; it was close enough that Mel could attempt a manual extraction. She called Princess in to assist.
“Hello, Mr. Daniels. I'm Dr King, but you can call me Mel. Do you mind if I do a quick abdominal exam?"
“Can't you just get this thing out?" He roared, "I've been lying on my side for hours!"
“I'm absolutely going to try." Mel was used to men being dicks when they were in pain. She palpated his stomach and listened for movement with her scope. " I read from your chart that the object is about an 8” cucumber. Is that correct?"
“Yeah, I slipped on the ice and fell on it."
If Melissa King had a dime for every time she'd heard that, she could probably get boba weekly, instead of just on special occasions.
“Because the object is soft enough to be punctured, we might have some trouble with manual extraction. But I want you to have all the options. We can do local anesthesia or general anesthesia here in the ER, and if I can get it out, you can go home this afternoon. If I'm unable to get it out, or it shifts further inward, there will have to be surgery to remove it. "
“ I don't care, just knock me out, doc!"
Mel nodded to Princess, and they began.
--
Langdon was apparently creeping Santos out with how smiley he was for only having slept a few scattered hours. But he couldn't help it; his back felt amazing, and he slept like a baby upstairs. And it didn't hurt to know who helped him and how amazing her hands felt on his back and in his hair.
“Seriously," Santos snapped her fingers in his face. "You're scaring me, and no one should be this happy about a cyclical vomiting case, Dexter.”
" Who pissed in your corn flakes?”
" No one, I'm the one who's behaving like a human and not like a brain-dead simp.”
" Simp?”
" Geez, grandpa, “ Santos punched the bridge of her nose, "read a tweet now and again.”
He figured they were back to their baseline aggression levels after last night's incident.
“You're right, online lingo takes priority over my kids, career, and further education."
“If you have time to make goo-goo eyes at Barbie, you have time to not embarrass yourself in front of our Gen Z patients."
They stopped in front of their patient's room.
"Yeah, I totes should," he winked at her. She made a gagging noise
–-
Mel degloved as she exited Mr. Daniels room and went to go write his chart and discharge papers. Dana looked at her with questioning eyes, and she awkwardly threw a thumbs-up.
There was a very odd tradition in the Pitt that every time you remove a weird object from someone, you get a keychain with the object on it. So she knew that in a few days, a cucumber keychain would show up in her locker. Some doctors, especially in the night crew, would put the keychains on their backpacks as a badge of honor. Mel thought that was very weird and uncomfortable, but she was glad to be included in their inside joke, so she'd happily take it.
After charting at the mobile desk, she grabbed Whittaker to help her set her patient's wrist. The poor man would need a cast from his wrist to his armpit in order to deal with the breaks. It was a wonder he didn't need surgery. But they made quick work of it.
Just as they were stepping out of the room, Mel heard her name being called from outside the trauma room. Whitakers too. They both jogged over. Robby and Langdon were talking and visibly stressed.
Robby turned to them, “We've got two incoming STEMIs. One in two minutes. One in four.” he dragged a hand over his face.
Whitaker said the obvious, “But we’re only supposed to get them one at a time. Why aren’t they sending one to Presby?”
“There have been multiple accidents outside Presby, and the bus can’t get through. We’re all they’ve got. But I just called up cardiology. They only have one attending due to the storm, so they can only handle one patient at a time.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Langdon started pacing in front of the group.
“Our goal is to get both patients stable enough to get upstairs. We’ll have to triage to see who goes first. I’ll be with Witacker with the first patient.” Robby and Witaker were already gloving up and heading towards the ambulance bay. Langdon and Mel followed suit. “Langdon and Mel take the second ambulance. I’ll come get a report and make the call.” Witacker looked very concerned at Robby, but a calm wave was coming off of Robby, and they were ready to ride that wave through whatever would happen next.
The first person through the door was alert and oriented as the EMTs carted them into trauma 1.
“That’s good,” Mel said, “they look like they could last through the wait time.”
“PCI takes 30-60 minutes, Mel. One of them is not making it out of this. Langdon wasn’t looking at her, but Mel knew he wasn’t trying to be harsh. “That’s a 90-minute door to balloon, minimum.”
Mel nodded, “That’s some hospital’s standard time.” She took a deep breath and gave Langdon's bicep a little squeeze. “We can do this,” He finally met her eyes and gave her a little smile. Always an optimist to his ‘realist.’
This was Mel's first step outside since the storm began in earnest. There were big columns of snow pushed up by the hospital's snowplow. The rest of the world was covered by a white sheet, at least a foot deep. Big fat snowflakes were falling and plopping to the ground. Mel loved how calm and quiet the world was when there was snow on the ground. Langdon was thinking of his kids, how much they loved to play in the snow. How they were probably doing so right now. He could almost imagine being with them, building snowmen, and having a snow fight. He even imagined a small blonde woman all bundled up with them, making snow angels, and holding his hand. His hand itched to reach over and do it now.
But all of that evaporated when the ambulance door opened, and the EMT pulled out the stretcher with another EMT on top of the patient performing compressions. They all rushed to move him into the trauma room.
“Gary Thompson, 58, collapsed shoveling snow, EKG showed V-fib. CPR was started by his wife on site. 2 Minute downtime. Wife is on her way in.”
As the monitor showed Asystole, Mel quickly took over compressions. Personally, Mel was a fan of using the song "Not Like Us" by Kendrick Lamar in her head to keep time for the CPR. And she put her whole body into her locked arms to make sure she pushed and filled the heart with every compression. At some point, Langdon reached out, took her glass, and put it in his pocket. He focused on restoring breath. And quickly performed an intubation.
“Push 1 of Epi”
Robby came into the room then. “Where are we at?”
“Came in Asystole. First round of Epi.” Langdon answered while performing an exam.
Robby dropped his head. “Hold compressions”
The monitor showed a flatline. “Resume compressions. One more epi.” Langdon resumed running the code
Robby’s face was set in stone. “I’m sorry, we’re going to have to take our patient up.”
“Is your patient stable?” Langdon looked over at Robby with a quizzical brow
“For now. But we can’t send up a patient without a pulse to the lab. If you get them back, send them up, and they’ll go in right after.”
Langdon looked out the glass doors to a woman wearing a purple sweater standing, staring at the scene in front of her. The patient's wife. He was incredibly frustrated. At any other time, at any other day, both of these patients would get their fair share, but the bleakness of the situation made him let it go. He just nodded.
Robby disappeared into trauma 1. And a few seconds later, their patient did too.
–
CPR was three rounds deep.
“Mel, it’s time to switch off.” Langdon moved towards Mel, whose brow was dripping sweat into her eyes, her knuckles white.
“You can’t, your back.” She argued
“Mateo’s got it.”
Oh, right, of course.
“Mateo, get ready to take over. Mel, pause for a rhythm check.”
Mel dismounted the gurney, and she thought she was hallucinating out of sheer desperation. But the monitor beeped to life. “We got V-fib people,” Langdon made a gesture, and Mel had the paddles in his hands. She quickly put her hand in his breast pocket to retrieve her glasses.
“200”
“Charging”
“Clear”
The patient's body convulsed and relaxed back with a thunk.
V-fib remained.
“250”
“Charging”
“Clear”
Thunk
“Sinus rhythm," Langdon breathed
Mel took the paddles from his hands. It was her turn to be a realist. “He’ll never stay stable enough to wait an hour for the balloon.
“I know. Mateo, go find Dr. Al, please.” Lagndon had a wild idea that he wasn’t willing to bet his license on, but he hoped that Dr. Al would.
A few seconds later, she came in. Mel was reassessing the patient as Langdon stepped to the side to speak to Dr Al. The two of them nodded in agreement.
“Mateo, are the labs back?” Dr. Al asked
“Yeah, troponin is 0.50.”
Dr. Al sighed deeply and nodded to Langdon
Langdon gleamed at Mel, “Ready to do something crazy?”
Mel’s hands immediately tucked up under her chin. “I guess so.”