But that hasn’t been my real issue.
My real issue has been resisting the urge to be on the floor because that’s where Grace is. I’ve been hoping she’d seek me out. Come to my office just to see me or kiss me or anything really. She hasn’t, I didn’t expect her to, I know she’s busy—I just hoped. But that hope, my inability to get her off my mind, it’s consuming. I don’t know how much longer I can play this game.
The one where I pretend to be casual when I’m anything but.
All I know is that I’d be insane not to fight tooth and nail for her. To prove to her just how perfect, how meant to be, we are. It’s words I never thought I’d say, but now can’t seem to stop. I don’t want another woman because she’s not her. I think when you realize that, you know it’s the real deal, so yeah.
Now the fuck what do I do?
My phone starts ringing at the exact second my beeper goes off, startling me out of my reverie. I grab my phone first, answering it as I read my beeper.
“Fritz,” I answer, but whoever is calling me gets drowned out by the loud overhead announcement of rapid response team to labor and delivery nurses’ station. Rapid response team to labor and delivery nurses’ station.
I’m out of my chair and sprinting down the hall before my brain can even catch up with what I’m doing. I have no idea what happened because I don’t have time to read my page or talk on the phone. All I know is that it’s something and whatever it is, it’s not fucking good.
But the moment I turn the corner and take in the scene, it’s like someone is strangling me to the point of cutting off the blood and air to my head. I’ve never seen Grace have a seizure and it isn’t until this moment that I understand what true, violent, soul-gripping fear feels like. Dread spirals through me, a vise shredding me from within as I sprint down the hall, shoving people out of the way and not caring one bit.
“Grace.” My voice isn’t my own. My body either as I drop down to the ground near her head. They managed to slide something under her to protect her head and position her on her left side as she seizes, her body jerking in a rhythmic motion. Her eyes are open, fixed, and unfocused. Blood drips to the mat from the corner of her blue lips.
I can’t look away. I can barely move.
My breaths are sharp, short, ragged.
I’m scrambling to make sense of this. Of Grace having a tonic-clonic seizure. Knowing it’s my fault. I pushed her too hard. Allowed her to work too many hours. Encouraged her to have a drink last night. Took her to a concert where the strobe lights might have overloaded her system and then brought her home so late knowing she was getting up so early today.
The need to grab her, hold her, help her consumes me, but I know better than to touch her.
“Ativan, 4mg IM on board,” someone announces.
“Come on, Grace,” I rasp but medications administered intramuscularly can take minutes to take effect, not seconds. She’s still going. Her body rigid, her limbs spastic. “How long has she been seizing?”
“A little more than a minute. We need to move her to the ED.”
“While she’s seizing?” I bark at whoever just said that.
“We don’t have stronger benzos or other anticonvulsants up here, doctor,” the nurse informs me. “She needs an IV and to have her airway secured. We typically give mag sulfate for seizures and that’s not what she needs.”
Fuck. They’re right. This is labor and delivery. Not the ICU or the ED or even a med/surg floor. Typically our patients are healthy and if they’re not, there are only certain medications we can give them for fear of hurting the fetus or having it pass through breast milk.
Just then the rapid response team—also known as the code team—come hurtling down the floor, practically tossing me aside. Drew and Margot are on the team today, their eyes briefly touching mine before they get to work on Grace.
Margot starts a line in no-time flat even with Grace’s seizure still going strong. The respiratory therapist manages her airway and just as Margot slowly pushes IV Dilantin Grace stops seizing. Relief rattles my bones as her body sags down onto the mat they have her on. She’s still unconscious, not even yet in a postictal state.
“She’s epileptic, right?” Margot questions as they work to get Grace strapped onto a board and then up onto a gurney, an oxygen mask now over her mouth and nose.
“Yes. But she hasn’t had a seizure in years. She’s only on PRN (as needed) rescue meds.”
“Okay. Let’s move,” Drew commands once she’s secured and everyone starts toward the elevator at quick-pace, including me. “Do we know what caused this? Any drug or alcohol use I should be aware of?”
I shake my head. “Some alcohol last night. No drugs.” We step onto the elevator, pressing the button for the emergency department. “She’s been working a lot of hours. Not sleeping as much as she should have. We went to a concert last night and she’s here today on only a few hours of rest—”
My sentence abruptly cuts off as Grace starts seizing again, her face crashing into the railing of the gurney, creating a gash on her temple. “Dammit,” Drew hisses. “Roll her now.”
The team rolls her back onto her side to protect her body and airway.
My hands dive into my hair, gripping the roots while my heart and stomach plummet into my feet. I can’t watch this. I can’t watch her like this and stand here and do nothing. My vision blurs as the monitor alarm blares loudly, her heart rate shoots up along with her blood pressure.
Margot curses under her breath. “One minute fifty-two seconds between seizures. We need to start a Dilantin drip. IV push might not have been enough. She already got four Ativan IM. I’m switching over and pushing five of Diazepam IV now.”
“Is that enough?” I snap. “Why doesn’t she already have a drip going? Why is she seizing again?”
Everyone ignores me and I’m going out of my fucking mind right now.
It’s like all medical knowledge I’ve ever accrued is gone. Right out of my head. All I can see is Grace. Is her body jerking. Is her complete loss of basic functions. She has no control and I feel just as powerless.
Out of control and fucking powerless.
It’s not who I am. I’m always composed. Never one to panic, even in the diciest of situations or the scariest of surgeries or the most complicated of deliveries. Never. But this is Grace. My Grace.
“We need stat labs,” Drew interjects just as the doors to the ED open and we race out. “I need to know what I’m working with.”
“On it,” Margot replies. “You want the standard panel? Anything else with it?”
“A blood gas. Let’s also add some glucose to her bag when we get it up. First labs though, Margot. I want someone to sprint them down to the lab themselves and wait while they run them. We’re not missing anything.”
“You hear that, Bonnie?” Margot questions the nurse on her side. “That’s you. You’re on point for labs.”
“Got it,” Bonnie, who has been documenting the event, says.
“Oxygen levels are holding steady,” the respiratory therapist states. “Her heart rate and BP are leveling out too.”