Feelings

Chapter 4

The alarm buzzed at 5:00 in the morning, startling Melendez awake. He rolled over and smacked the snooze button, trying to motivate himself to get out of bed. He had a bypass surgery with Dr. Park along with assisting Claire with another transfusion session for Chris. On top of that, Andrews had asked to speak with him first thing in the morning and that was rarely a pleasant experience. He finally pushed back the covers and went to freshen up in the bathroom. He showered and dressed and was just about to leave the room when he noticed something half-heartedly thrown in the corner of the room. He picked it up and noticed it was a black leather jacket that didn't belong to him, "Audrey," he whispered to himself amusingly, throwing it over his arm so he could return it to her, hopefully without anyone else noticing.

Then he remembered where Lim was: trapped alone in isolation with no one else to comfort her, hooked up to IVs, ventilators, and other various monitors. That was if she even made it through the night. Why, oh why, did he actually go home instead of sleeping in the break room last night? He shouldn't have just left her alone without at least one familiar face nearby. Somehow, he managed to bring himself back to reality enough to drive to St. Bonaventure and went to the locker room to change into his scrubs, storing Lim's jacket in his locker for the time being. He knew that the first stop he had to make today was Andrews's office, so he mustered up the courage to go find his boss. He found Andrews's office and knocked on the door, "Dr. Melendez, please have a seat."

Melendez nodded nervously and sat down across from Andrews, "Dr. Andrews," he tried to hide the quiver in his voice.

Andrews folded his hands on his desk and leaned on it, "It pains me that I'm going to end up rewarding you for your actions once this conversation is over, but what were you thinking yesterday? You had no idea what was going on in quarantine other than the little information we were provided, you had no idea how Dr. Lim was going to respond to any of those treatments because she was not your patient, and you put your patient's life in the balance by trying to get his donor out of quarantine instead of just going for a match from the bone marrow registry."

"My patient preferred a biological match for the bone marrow," Melendez defended, "And Dr. Lim wasn't anyone's patient."

"But taking over a case without being assigned to it," warned Andrews.

"Dr. Andrews, I realize Dr. Murphy and Dr. Reznick are second-year residents, but they were both overwhelmed without Dr. Lim's guidance. I had full confidence in their abilities as long as they had a supervising physician," Melendez explained his motives, "I had them treat Audrey the same way I would have treated any other patient with ARDS."

Andrews sighed, "I really shouldn't be doing this, because your actions were somewhat reckless, but if it wasn't for your knowledge of treating ARDS and respiratory failure, then the hospital could have very well had four victims of the SARS mutation."

"So she's still alive?" Melendez asked himself happily.

"Because you often exercise good judgment and because you were in the running for the Chief of Surgery position, I'm assigning you as Dr. Lim's attending physician while she's hospitalized. You will work with the team from the CDC team and do exactly as they tell you to do in regards to Dr. Lim's course of treatment. You will follow all hospital protocol, you will protect yourself from infection at all times, and you will not disobey or take over unless absolutely necessary. Have I made myself clear, Dr. Melendez?"

"Yes sir," Melendez affirmed.

"Good," Andrews said, "You may go about your day."