For the First Time

Take it Away

I sat there staring at the Chief, not listening to anything he was saying, but seeing his lips move. I was blind sided by the entire situation. I looked over at Derek who seemed to be listening intently, and was still holding onto my hand. I sat there not knowing what to think, not knowing what to feel, and most certainly, not knowing how to act.

"Meredith, are you okay with that?" the Chief asked interrupting my thoughts.

"What?" I asked. 

"Are you okay with assembling a board meeting to tell everyone the news? Granted you both and Derek are on the board," the Chief said. I nodded in agreement. The Chief sent out a 911 page to all of the board members telling them to meet in conference room 2. We slowly made our way their. Derek was holding my hand and was telling me that we were going to be okay. My head was empty.

Luckily all of the board members were still at the hospital so we had to wait on no one. I sat at the head of the table with my head down and people knew that something was coming. They were expecting the worst, and in my eyes, they were getting the worst.

"Thank you all for being here on such short notice," the Chief stated. 

"Chief, what's all this about?" asked Arizona. Everyone stared at him and cocked their heads to the side whereas I myself sunk down in my seat even lower and kept staring at the ground. Derek said nothing for he was as shocked as I was.

"This afternoon I found a blood sample labeled John Doe as a patient of Dr. Grey's. I looked through her patients and she didn't have a John Doe, all of her patients had names. So I called Dr. Grey into my office to find that she ran her blood as a John Doe, and the news we got from the test results, we troubling," the Chief said. His voice began to crack.

"Meredith?" Cristina asked while looking at me. I felt a lone tear fall from my eye and I wiped it away quickly.

"Dr. Grey's test results indicate that she has liver cancer. We aren't sure what stage yet, although we need to take her up to get a full body CT to see where the cancer has spread. I need all of you to keep your stuff together while she goes through this. Do all of you understand?" the Chief questioned. Everyone in the room was stunned by the information. "Bailey, I'm putting you on this case. I trust you to be able to do this." Bailey nodded and wiped the tear from her face. I looked up to see that all eyes were on me.

"I just ask that this isn't brought up to other colleagues until people see me getting wheeled around. I want to keep it as normal as possible," I said in a hushed tone. Everyone agreed and still stared at me. "Well Bailey, are you ready?" I asked while breaking the silence. She nodded and I stood up before everyone. 

We walked down to the CT machine in silence. Every once in awhile I heard Bailey sniffle. Derek was behind us with his head hanging low. We arrived at the scanner for the Chief had already had it prepped and ready to go.

"I'll get her settled in," Derek said. He led me into the CT scanning room. 

"I'm sorry," I said with my back to him.

"Why are you sorry?" he asked.

"You didn't ask for this. You didn't ask for any of it" I responded. Tears began falling from my eyes and I turned to face him.

"Hey, don't cry," he said while wiping away my tears with his thumbs. "You're right I didn't ask for the woman I love to get liver cancer. But what I did ask for was for someone to sweep me off my feet and you did more than that." He kissed me softly on my lips and then helped me get situated for the CT. "I'm not leaving, I'm gonna be right here the entire time," Derek said. The scan started and I finally understood what patients meant by becoming claustrophobic in these things. It took about 5 minutes to get a full body read. I could see Bailey and the Chief through the glass window waiting anxiously for the picture to pop up. I heard the ding that the computers make whenever the scan was ready.

They studied the scan, pointing and talking to each other. Bailey's head fell to her chin and I saw the tears begin to fall. The Chief wiped his hand over his face and I saw him let out a deep breath. 

"It's bad," I said while sitting up after the scan and facing Derek. "It's really bad."

"We don't know that," he said back with a soft smile. "We'll just wait and whatever comes out of it, we can deal with." I smiled and nodded at him. He put me in the wheelchair and wheeled me off into my room where the Chief and Bailey would meet us. Derek helped me into a gown and got me situated right before they came in, along with Dr. Swinder. 

"Ah, so it must be really bad if you have to bring Swinder in to deal with it," I said.

"Meredith," Bailey said.

"Let me see the scans," I said sternly. Neither of them budged. "Let me see my scans, now," I said once again. This time the Chief leaned forward and handed me the envelope. I grabbed the scans out of the envelope and held them up to the light. I let out a gasp.

"Oh my God," I said with tears streaming down my face. I repeated those three words over and over until it was nearly impossible for me to say them due to the fact that I couldn't catch my breath. Derek came over and held me hoping that I would calm down. As a surgeon, you can tell by a patient's scans whether they are going to make it or not. And  my scans looked like a definite no. I sat there not able to move, not able to breathe. 

"Meredith," Dr. Swinder interjected in between my sobs. "By the looks of your scans you seem to have stage 4 liver cancer with mets spread into the liver, the upper part of the pancreas, and the left side of the stomach. And as you know, that is about as bad as it can get." I nodded realizing that she was right. I regained somewhat of emotional stability and sat up in the bed.

"Have you ever seen a case this bad?" I asked Swinder. "I mean I've worked with you on many cases and even I have never seen scans as bad as my own. I'd give myself a 5% survival rate at the most."

"Yes, your liver cancer is probably about the worse case I've ever seen, but that's not going to stop me. Dr. Webber and I have already consulted and thought about the best course of treatment. Tomorrow you will start with a very high amount of radiation to hopefully 'soften' the cancer. Then the next day we take it head on. Do our very best to remove what we can. Your cancer is a reproducing type meaning that you are likely to develop new mets. So after the surgery, we're going to give you high doses of I.L.2. You and I both know that this is pretty toxic stuff. But with this plan we are going to give you the best chance you have," Dr. Swinder explained. I looked over at Derek whose face was paler than a ghost. 

"Could you give us a moment?" I asked. The three of them left and shut the door behind them. Derek looked at me with those McDreamy eyes. I felt bad for him that I put him in this situation. "I understand if you don't want to be with me for this," I said.

"Don't ever say that," he responded while grabbing my hand. "You're the love of my life, I can't leave you. I'm with you through it all." I felt tears begin to form in my eyes and trickle down my cheeks. The few tears then turned into a sob. Derek climbed into the hospital bed with me kissing the top of my head and wrapped his arms around me.

"This is awful," I told him in between sobs. Derek let out a long sigh.

"You're gonna be okay," he said. "You're gonna be okay."

So I don't know why, but I feel like this chapter is one of my weaker ones so I apologize. I have BIG plans for the next chapter which should be up in the next four days. Thanks for reading!

-xoxo, Molly