#neuro follow up last week was annoying in that I sat in the exam room for 45 minutes reading about shih tzus

[hag-o-hags]

hold the fuckin phone here lads

i had a consult with rheumatology/immunology re: long tall short fat covid, and i went to a PA who was .... let's call it distracted? by the fact that I have prediabetes markers

which, frankly, duh, my mom's entire family are diabetic or prediabetic, my father's (v small) family was Skinny Diabetics -- my genes mean it's a matter of if not when (ETA: "not if BUT when" and/or "when not if". cripes. it took three goes to get this right. see below re: 65% rate of braining good.)

(and like sidebar if everyone in my family got breast cancer nobody would be sitting there like ooooooohhh make sure you're getting enough CARDIO whilst RECOVERING FROM A LIFE ALTERING FATIGUE DISORDER)

anyway there were a couple ..... blood orange flags? things that I wouldn't appreciate from my PCP, but from a specialist? sure whatever, maybe you have really solid evidence that this particular supplement is worth a try. I was coping with Robitussin for a while there.

but!!!!!!

she also gave me some studies to look through, which, hah, thank you, my brain works 65% of the time, but hey, sure, the musculoskeletal effects of diabetes mellitus might be helpful.

Bitch it's chiropractic!!!!!

the principle author is from the TEXAS CHIROPRACTIC COLLEGE

it's published by the JOURNAL OF THE CANADIAN CHIROPRACTIC ASSOCIATION

putting aside the teeny tiny minor issue that I do not at present actually have diabetes mellitus whY are you giving me chiropractic advice

when I took some of what she said back to my pcp (who remains, as ever, the fucking best), she was like "Um. No. No that doesn't track." At the time I was willing to accept that okay, we've taken a rheum/immun tactic off our list, we can go back to Neuro. But now I'm sort of thinking that hi. Hello. Maybe we really didn't spend enough time on the Immediate Family History of Bonkers Rheumatological Issues.

I'm tired. And my hands won't stop being tingly.

[drreporting]

Convalescence Pt.12

Thanks for following me on this journey. This was my first time writing a two parter so i hope you guys really enjoyed it. As always, lots of constructive criticism and compliments are welcomed.

Monday 18th July 2017.

“Follow my finger.”

“Oh god it’s brain cancer, isn’t it,” the patient exclaimed, panicking as Amelia assessed her, “I have brain cancer.”

Sighing and slowly rolling her eyes as subtly as possible, Amelia announced, “You don’t have brain cancer. You have a concussion.”

The woman furrowed her eyebrows. “Wh-what?”

“A mild one, too.” She pulled out her pad and wrote her a prescription. “There’s a pharmacy right across the street. Have a nice day.”

Seeing walk-in patients with ‘pneumonia’ and ‘brain cancer’ had become her new norm since Friday, when she finally started working again. Although she had agreed to the one week of clinic duty to get her back into the groove of things, seeing patients who’d wrongly self-diagnosed themselves at home was extremely annoying to the point where she contemplated quitting her job. Doing paperwork and lancing abscesses in the ER was work for an intern, and she was no intern.

“I have a surprise for you,” Owen beamed when Amelia exited the exam room, pulling out his phone, “Rosie took her first steps today at day care.”

She took the phone from him and grinned from ear to ear as she watched the video. “She’s gonna be twice as much trouble now.”

“Yeah,” he chuckled, stuffing his hands into his coat pockets, “I just figured you needed some cheering up today, especially after that toe abscess.”

“I did.” She looked up at him and smiled before turning her attention back to the video. “Thank you, Owen.”

He shrugged and smiled. “No problem. How’s your day been so far?”

“Sometimes I get the undeniable urge to eat a handful of ten blades,” she accurately described, “but it usually passes without incident.”

Owen laughed at the joke and smiled. “Well, if…”

“Got another patient, Shepherd,” Stephanie called from the ER desk, cutting him off, “Exam room two.” Stephanie had been running the ER for two inconsecutive days since Amelia had come back and she found that odd, knowing the resident showed a lot of interest in neuro and little to no interest in trauma. Maybe she was being punished.

Sighing sadly, Amelia handed back the phone to him and pouted. “I’ll see you at lunch.”

“Hopefully,” he teased, planting a quick kiss on her cheek before heading off.

“Good morning, Mr…-” She looked at her tablet – “Spring. How can I help you?”

“I’ve been having migraines for almost ten years,” he explained as he handed Amelia a copy of an MRI, “I’ve also had blurred vision and-”

“Brain stones,” Amelia finished, staring at the MRI in awe. Finally, a patient with a real problem.

---

“Are you sure he doesn’t have coeliac disease?” Derek asked as he and Amelia looked over the MRIs once more.

“They’re doing a spinal tap on him right now,” she replied.

He looked at her with a cheesy grin on his face. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“If you mean CEC syndrome, then yes,” Amelia eagerly announced, unable to stop the wide grin on her face.

“But that’s so rare,” he exclaimed.

“I know!” she agreed.

“Know what?” Meredith asked as she entered the viewing room, two coffees in her hand.

“Amy found a CEC syndrome patient,” Derek proudly announced as he took one of the cups from Meredith.

“Are you gonna operate?” Meredith asked, taking a look at the slides herself.

“I doubt Bailey would clear me for surgery,” Amelia grumbled, wistfully looking at the scans.

“Well, I can’t do the surgery,” Derek reminded her, lifting his air cast, “And it is your patient. You should do the surgery. Ask Bailey.”

“Maybe,” she mused, her fingertips tingling at the thought of cutting into this man’s brain.

---

Owen sat at the side of the cafeteria, eagerly waiting to have lunch with his wife. With the usually unpresentable cafeteria food set neatly at the table for both of them to enjoy together, and the flowers he’d bought last minute to add to the décor, he couldn’t have been more excited to just enjoy a simple lunch with her and talk about lame things like the weather. However, after 20 minutes with no show of her, he ended up eating the whole thing and dumping the bouquet of flowers, safe for one sunflower.

With about 25 minutes left in his lunch, he ventured down the halls of the hospital, not really looking for anyone or anything. He stopped at the OR board to see who was doing what today, and was shocked to see Amelia’s name up on the board for a craniotomy in OR 2. He smiled to himself and shook his head.

---

He rested the sunflower over her tablet, momentarily distracting her from her patient’s chat. With furrowed eyebrows, she picked it up and looked at him questioningly before realising why he put it there.

“Crap,” Amelia hissed, squeezing her eyes shut, “Owen, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he assured her, although he was a little disappointed she’d forgotten, “We can have lunch another time.”

“It’s not okay,” she frowned.

“Forget about it,” he told her, “I saw your name on the OR board earlier.”

Her frown turned into a wide grin. Reaching into her lab coat, she pulled out a sample container holding a number of small, hard objects.

“Are those bladder stones?” he asked, confused.

“They’re stones, but not bladder stones,” she announced, “They’re brain stones from a CEC patient.”

“Really?” He smiled and listened intently as they walked down the hall, simply content with having her happy.

“I mean, the only downside is that I got to operate with Nelson taking the lead, but that doesn’t even matter anymore,” she finished, taking a deep breath, “I want to celebrate right now.”

“Celebrate?” Owen asked, chuckling, “We have a Tim Talk in an hour, how do you plan to do that?”

As they passed the supply closet, an idea struck her. “I only need 30 minutes.” Grabbing onto his tie, Amelia led him into the room.

---

“This is the finish line, guys. I legitimately didn’t think you two would make it here, but you did,” Tim celebrated, “Although…it’s not too late to get that divorce we were talking about.”

“I think we’re good, thanks,” Owen said.

In a lower voice, Amelia whispered, “Send me your guy’s card, just in case.”

Tim laughed. “I’m proud of you guys; you worked hard. I want to say I’m gonna miss you, but that would be a lie.” Amelia and Owen laughed and held each other’s hands. “No seriously, you two caused me a lot of stress induced migraines. Get the hell out of my office and, please, never come back.” He smiled at the two of them and winked.

“I think he genuinely hates us,” Amelia whispered as they left the office.

“I think I would hate us too, to be honest,” Owen agreed, swinging their laced hands in between them, “So, now what?” Amelia shrugged, a lost look on her face. Usually, their meetings would take up 2-4 hours out of the day.

---

“Ahh!” Owen huffed, collapsing to the floor with the camcorder in his hand. “I didn’t get it!”

“How did you not get that?” Amelia exclaimed, sitting down next to him and taking the camcorder to look back at the film, “She was walking for a whole ten seconds!” Rosie sat down and looked innocently at them, wondering what all the big hullaballoo was about.

“I don’t know how this stupid thing works!” he said, crossing his legs and looking over her shoulder, “Can’t I just take the video with my phone?”

“No, because phones fall in water and break and die,” she said, disappointed to find that Owen had, in fact, not gotten the video. Sighing in defeat, Amelia rested her head on Owen’s shoulder and said, “Let’s just give it a rest.”

“I’m sorry,” he told her, kissing the top of her head. “I really thought I got it that time.”

“She’ll walk again when she’s ready,” she said, setting the camcorder down to the side.

Rosie stared at them and giggled, unaware of their plight. Pointing her tiny finger to Amelia, she said, “Dada.”

Amelia smiled, quickly correcting her. “No Rosie, mama.”

The little girl furrowed her red eyebrows, pointing to Owen, “Mama.” She pointed to Amelia again and said, “Dada.”

“I don’t think that’s going to change any time soon,” Amelia chuckled.

“I hope it doesn’t,” Owen remarked, a wistful smile on his face. “It’ll mean that she’s growing up, and I don’t want her to grow up.”

“Neither do I,” she agreed, “I already feel like I missed so much in the last 6 months.”

“You mostly missed her first words,” Owen shrugged, “I mean, I missed Ryan’s, so I guess we’re even now.”

Amelia looked up at him in disbelief before smiling and elbowing him in his ribs. “Ass.”

“I guess we can try again with the next one,” he shrugged.

“Maybe.” She looked at the little girl staring back at her with bright blue eyes, and smiled. “Look at what we made, Owen.”

“I know,” he agreed, sighing contently.

There was a peaceful hum of silence for a moment before she spoke up again. “I want more.”

“I know,” he said, wrapping his hand around her shoulder and squeezing it. He left the topic there, not wanting to push her before she was ready.

“Owen, I meant I want more now,” she clarified.

“Now?!” he exclaimed, looking down at her with widened eyes.

“Well, not now now, silly,” she mused, looking up at him with a nervous smile, “but  9 or 10 months from now, maybe…”

“Really?” he asked, a goofy grin beginning to make its way on his face.

“Well, unless you don’t want anymore and I just assumed…”

“No!” he quickly said, “I want more. I just didn’t think we’d have more any time soon.”

“I thought so too,” she replied, watching Rosie fiddle with the blocks near her foot, “But Rosie’s walking and talking and being miserably independent, and  Ryan reads books and studies now instead of hanging out with his old bat of a mother…”

“You’re not an old bat,” he chuckled, “I’m an old bat.” Amelia giggled, making Owen smile.

“I miss the baby smell too,” she confessed.

“It sounds like someone has baby fever,” Owen taunted.

“Well, did you see Avery and Kepner’s new baby?” she said, “How could you not have baby fever?”

“That baby is cute,” he laughed. Owen pulled away a little and looked down at her. “Amelia, do you really want another baby right now?”

Amelia gazed at him and smiled before reaching up to give him a quick yet tender peck. “I do.”

He didn’t think he could smile any harder. “Then let’s make a baby,” he said, grinning mischievously as he moved her to lie on her back and towered over her, one hand pressing on the floor on either side of her face and trapping her.

“Owen, what?” she exclaimed, pushing on his chest to keep him away, “I didn’t mean now!”

“Now is the best time,” he teased, tugging on the elastic of her shorts.

She slapped his hand away and laughed. “Not in front of the baby!”

“It’s okay,” he said, dotting love bites along her jaw line, “She won’t remember any of this.”

“Ryan is upstairs!” Amelia tried, although she made no attempts to stop him anymore. That was when she noticed, in her peripheral, that Rosie had begun to walk again, this time towards them. She came all the way up to Owen and grabbed his jersey to get his attention. Confused, Owen looked to his side and noticed the baby pouting at her.

“No,” was the simple word she said, although it was fierce and sturdy. She began pulling on his jersey to get him off of Amelia.

“Okay, Red, no babies tonight,” Owen laughed, surrendering and setting Amelia free. He then took Rosie into his arms and cradled her in his lap. The little girl’s eyes had already begun to flutter close when he asked, “Amelia, we’re good, right? We’re okay?”

Amelia looked up at him with a confused, yet amused expression. “Of course…why?”

Owen looked down at Rosie then up at her, a little fidgety. “I just wanted to make sure, you know. Just in case…”

She brought her hand up to his face and caressed his cheek before giving him a kiss. “We’re okay.”

Fin.