Work Text:
She wakes up to a pounding headache and a hand that trembles when she reaches for her phone.
She mutters a swear word that would make her mother threaten to wash her mouth out with soap.
She should have been expecting this.
Stress or anxiety always triggers flare ups.
What she had quickly coined, The Second Shift From Hell, was definitely more than enough to trigger a flare up.
But she hasn’t had a flare up in she doesn’t know quite how long, which might be why she feels so caught off guard.
She hasn’t had a flare up in she doesn’t know quite how long, because she’s finally on a medication that well and truly works.
Medication that mostly keeps the tremors, mostly keeps the pain, mostly keeps the nausea, and the fatigue at bay.
“It isn’t a cure all, though,” her psychiatrist had told her when she first started the medication.
“I know,” she had replied.
And she did know.
She is a doctor after all.
She’s unfortunately also a patient.
And sometimes being a patient intervenes with being a doctor.
Sometimes being a patient triumphs over being a doctor.
Another shrill ring emanates from her phone.
Her hips ache.
She feels shaky.
She pushes herself to her feet anyway, ignoring the way her legs feel like jelly.
She glances at her cane which sits in the corner of her room, mocking her.
Sometimes it feels like being a patient triumphs over being a person.
“You alright hon?” Dana asks, as she hobbles her way towards the board to pick up a case.
Dana doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even look at the cane that her hand is tightly clutching.
But she knows that Dana knows.
And if Dana knows, so will Robby.
If there’s anything she likes about working with Robby, it’s that he doesn’t coddle her, doesn’t expect less of her.
Sometimes it does feel like he forgets, though.
Forgets that she might need to sit down for a few minutes, that some days she moves slowly not because she wants too, but because she needs too.
She thinks that the reason he forgets is because most of the time she seems fine.
And she is fine.
Even when she isn’t.
“Just not a great brain and body cooperation day,” she replies.
Dana sighs.
“Well, I’ll tell Robby to lay off a little.”
“And you come to me if you need anything, you hear me,” Dana says sternly.
She gives her a shaky thumbs up.
Dana rolls her eyes fondly.
She muddles through the rest of the morning.
If she wasn’t superstitious she might even say that the morning was going well.
But she is superstitious, so she doesn’t say those words aloud, and she does her very best not to think them.
It’s only when she takes a break to eat, courtesy of Dana, does she realize how tired she is.
How achy she is.
How her body is trembling.
How her stomach is roiling.
She throws her lunch of leftover limp Chinese noodles into her locker, and buys a Ginger Ale from the vending machine.
She dislikes Ginger Ale with a passion.
She drinks it anyway.
Or chugs it, really.
Then she gets back to work.
She muddles through the afternoon just like she muddled through the morning.
Sure, the aching in her hips has grown a bit stronger.
Sure, she can now add knee pain to her list of symptoms.
Sure, the Advil that usually alleviates her headaches is doing jack squat.
But she only has a couple hours left of her shift.
Then she can go home, curl up in bed with the lights turned off, and the shades pulled down, and die.
The prospect of dying should not be nearly as enticing as it is, but she can bring that up to her therapist next week.
She’s surveying the board,
(No, she is not cherry-picking, she just thinks It makes more sense to get the simpler cases out of the way first.)
When Dana asks (i.e, tells) her to take a case from chairs.
She says yes.
And the girl is fine
She just took a nasty fall during soccer practice, and needs a chin lac stitched up.
But suddenly it is four days ago and she is standing over that girl’s (Ruthie’s) lifeless body, her curls slipping from her slicked back ballet bun, her lipgloss shimmering in the hospital room lighting.
Suddenly she is telling a father that his 12 year old daughter is dead, and they don’t know when his wife will be out of surgery, or if she will even wake up at all.
Suddenly sobs are wracking his body, and his nine year daughter is asking what she means about her mother, about her sister, and his four year old daughter looks so confused.
Suddenly her stomach is churning, bile is rushing up her throat, and she is running, though walking (limping) quickly is probably a more accurate term.
She runs despite the pulsating ache in her hips and knees, despite the pounding of her head, despite the voices that are calling her name.
She doesn’t stop running until her fingers are touching the cool metal handle of the single bathroom door.
She stumbles in, and falls to her knees.
She isn’t exactly sure how much time she spends keeling over the toilet.
Long enough for the ache in her knees and hips to radiate up her back.
Long enough for sweat to drip down her scrub shirt.
Long enough for her stomach to begin to ache.
Long enough for her throat to burn.
Long enough for tears to well up in her eyes.
Finally
Finally
It ends.
She flushes the toilet with a trembling hand, and it’s only then that she feels the warmth of someone’s hand on her back.
She turns around.
“Howdy,” Trinity says dryly.
She can’t help but let out a breathy laugh.
“Stomach bug finally caught up to you, huh,” Trinity says, with what she thinks might be softness.
She shakes her head.
“No,” she says, voice raw from emptying the contents of her stomach.
“I have, um, Functional Neurological Disorder.”
“FND.”
“I’m having a flare up.”
“Oh, shit,” Trinity mumbles.
“How’d you know I was in here,” she blurts.
“Saw you run in.”
“I’m all too familiar with having to make a mad dash to the bathroom to hurl my guts out, so I figured that’s what was happening,” she shrugs.
Before she can ask her what she means, if she’s okay, there’s a sharp rap on the door.
“Can I come in? Dana calls softly.
“Yeah,” she calls back in a hoarse voice.
Dana opens the door, her cane in hand.
She never thought she’d be so happy to see that thing.
“You alright kid?” Dana asks.
She shrugs.
Partly because she’s too tired to say that she is, and partly because she and her therapist are working on her voicing when she isn’t fine, when she needs help.
Dana and Trinity help her onto her feet.
It’s only when she steps out of the bathroom does she notice the wheelchair.
It might as well be a blaring alarm echoing sick, sick, sick.
“No,” she says firmly.
“Oh, yes,” Dana replies sharply.
“You can barely stand kid.”
“So either you sit your ass down in that chair, or I write you up.”
She sits her ass down in the chair.
She keeps her head down as she is wheeled through the E.D, and as Robby falls into step with them.
She is hoisted into bed, despite her protests that she can do it herself.
She is hooked up to a monitor and an I.V, despite her protests.
She is given a full work up, despite her protests.
Princess gets her Zofran.
Perlah fetches her a sandwich and a juice box for when she’s feeling up to it.
She’s just downed her Zofran when Robby gets called for an incoming trauma, and Jessie calls Dana’s name.
“Dr. Santos, can you stay with Dr. Mohan for a bit?” He asks.
“Aye Aye captain,” Trinity salutes.
Robby gives an amused shake of his head.
“Either I or Dana will be in to check on you as soon as possible,” he tells her.
“And when you’re feeling up to it, I want to have a short chat with you, okay?”
“Okay,” she says tiredly, sipping her juice box.
Robbie gives her a crooked smile, and then it’s just her and Trinity.
“Flare ups fucking suck,” Trinity states bluntly.
She blinks.
She knows better than to ask Trinity what she has.
She is all too familiar with the “Oh, what do you have?” game.
“Endometriosis,” Trinity says simply, and she wonders if it is possible to read minds.
“It’s not confirmed though.”
“Just the most likely conclusion according to my gyno thus far.”
“I’m sorry,” she murmurs, and then cringes.
She is all too familiar with the “Oh, I’m sorry game.”
She is all too familiar with how much she hates the “oh I’m sorry game.”
Trinity shrugs.
“It’s cool,” she mutters, even though they both know it isn’t cool.
“Do you have flare ups often?” She asks after a moment.
“More often than I’d like,” Trinity scoffs.
“Doesn’t help how long it takes to get an actual diagnosis.”
“Yeah,” she whispers, remembering the first couple of months after she started showing symptoms, how the doctors blamed it on anxiety, on depression, on her dad’s death, on her being a teenage girl, on everything but what it actually was.
“Have you ever watched Desperate Housewives? Trinity asks suddenly.
She shakes her head.
Trinity gives her a mischievous grin.
“There’s nothing quite like watching slightly shitty T.V to get your mind off of a flare, she says grabbing the remote, and sitting at the edge of her bed.
They watch half of an episode.
Her hips still ache.
Her hands still tremble.
She still feels tired.
Trinity is sort of right though.
Or maybe it’s having someone to laugh over a shitty T.V show, that makes her feel a bit better.