Baby Grey (Grey's Anatomy) ABANDONED

One hundred and twenty five

Erin knocked on Bailey's office door that afternoon, a large case file under her arm and notebooks stacked on top of it with Erin's research.

"Come in," Bailey called.

Erin opened the door and stepped in, kicking it shut behind her. She walked over to Bailey's desk and dropped her research down.

"Hey," Erin sighed, dropping into the seat opposite Bailey's desk.

"Hey, Erin. How's Lydia's case?" Bailey asked.

"Well, that's kind of why I'm here," Erin said. "I'm not gonna bore you with all of the specific numbers right now. But, basically, I want to do a surgery and take a portion of her healthy diaphragm tissue and a part of her stomach that is non-hernia affected. I want to add stem cells to the organs in the lab to stimulate them to grow a new diaphragm and stomach. Then, I'm gonna transplant them both into Lydia so her diaphragm is brand new and her stomach won't create any new hernias," Erin said.

Bailey stared at her for a few seconds, eyebrows raised in her classic Bailey stare. Erin had a sickening feeling she was taking on way more than she could handle, and that Bailey thought it, too.

"Okay, let me just make sure I'm following this here. You want to take some of the only healthy parts of her diaphragm and stomach, leaving her in possibly worse condition, combine the samples with stem cells to grow new organs, and then do two transplants that have never been done in one surgery on a nine year old girl," Bailey said.

"Yeah," Erin said quietly. "That's exactly what I want to do. And, since you're chief and this is insane, I need your permission to do it. And I kind of need you to be mama B and tell me I'm not gonna kill this kid when I do this because Alex and Arizona are too scared to tell me that in case I go crazy," Erin whispered.

Bailey leaned forward, taking the files.

"This is all of the research?" she said.

"Yeah, all of her scans and latest lab results. She's got twenty six percent of her stomach that's never been hurt with hernias. If we take all of it, she'll need a feeding tube and will have to stay in the hospital, but combined with the stem cells and their growth rates in other cases with other organs, we could get about seventy percent of a functioning stomach grown within a month and a half. That's a life with just medication and yearly checkups to make sure she's fine," Erin said.

"What about her diaphragm?" Bailey said, flicking through the chart.

"Right now, twenty four percent. If we take all of that, we just have to grow it and monitor her daily for any hernias growing or pushing forward into the diaphragm," Erin said.

"What's your plan if she has a hernia grow?" Bailey asked.

"We had about a month to six weeks since her last one started growing. If she follows a similar pattern, we should be able to repair it temporarily with surgery and, hopefully, the transplant will be the last surgery she needs," Erin said.

"Do you have a method for the transplant?" Bailey said.

"I'm halfway through three rough drafts. I know what I have to do, Bailey. I can see the surgery when I think about it and I know I can do this. I just need you to say yes and tell me I can, too," Erin said.

Bailey nodded.

"Schedule Lydia for surgery tonight. Retrieve the stem cells and get ready to start growing her some new organs. I'm going to start prepping your FDA paperwork for when we have to go through with the actual transplant," Bailey said.

"Thank you," Erin nodded, the sickening feeling in her chest not easing up, even with the validation from Bailey she'd wanted.

"Erin?" Bailey said.