Diary of a Girl from Seattle

A Diagnosis

Dear Diary,

I went to the hospital this morning when shift ended to apologize to Carina. I don't think I was directly nasty to her, but I realized I was kinda bitchy about the whole thing and I just wanted to clear the air. I went to OB but didn't see her there so I figured I'd check on our injured camping friends and then try again.

On my way down to the ICU I ran into Meredith. She stopped me to ask if I'd seen Deluca. I asked which one she was looking for. She said Andrew, so I told her I saw him dropping off labs about 10 minutes ago. She thanked me and started to walk away but I stopped her to ask if she'd seen his sister. And surprisingly she had; she said Carina was just around the corner, I could probably still catch her. I turned the corner and sure enough, there was Carina.

I apologized for being so weird the morning before and she said it was fine, it was an awkward introduction, she understood. I started to explain but saw that she looked preoccupied and concerned.

"What's wrong?" Mattie asked.

"Nothing, I hope" Carina started, "I don't know. I'm worried about Andrea."

Mattie nodded, "He did look exhausted when I saw him earlier. That case is really hitting him hard huh?"

Carina shook her head. "It's.. It's not just that. He's been up and down a lot lately. And he's the same age my papa was when..." she trailed off.

It dawned on Mattie what Carina was worried about.

"When he was diagnosed with Bipolar?" She asked.

Carina nodded. "And I'm pretty sure that now it's happening to my baby brother."

"Okay," Mattie said. "What have you been noticing?"

Carina rattled off a whole list of possible signs and symptoms. Mattie half listened while deep in thought.

Mattie nodded in agreement, "Yeah, some of that really does sound like hypomania. And if you're right, full blown mania could be next."

Carina looked surprised, "How do you know so much about Bipolar Disorder?" she asked.

"Because I have it." Mattie admitted.

I explained to Carina that I started experiencing symptoms at 19, was diagnosed at 20, and started medication at 21. I've been managing it for 4 years now, so I know what it looks like. She was surprised to hear about my diagnosis, saying that she never would have guessed, that I seemed so together. I laughed, and explained that was in part because I have Bipolar II, which manifests as less severe swings between depression and hypomania, and never reaches full blown mania. And also in part because I caught and started managing it early. I told her that I also had a family history, so I was really careful to work with my psychiatrist when I started recognizing the symptoms. She seemed relieved to have someone else actually understand what it was, especially since I agreed that she was right to be worried about Andrew. I don't tell many people about it, but I'm glad I told Carina. And I made sure she knew she could talk to me about all of this if she ever needs to. She thanked me and then joked that if she shows up at my apartment now Maya and I won't know who she's there to see. We both laughed before she got paged to OB and headed off.

I was pretty tired at that point so I was going to head home. I was trotting down the steps when I saw Jo a floor below me. I heard her leaving a message for Alex (who is still in Iowa visiting his mom). She sounded freaked out and when I got down there I could tell she had been crying. I asked if she wanted to just go for a walk and she nodded. She vented and spiralled a little as we made our way around the hospital. Mostly, I tried to just listen but I also didn't want her totally freaking out. I reminded her that Alex is just like this sometimes. Back when he was a resident something happened with his brother and he had to go back to Iowa for a little bit. He didn't say a word to anyone about it while he was there and barely talked about it when he came back. But he did come back. And then everything was fine. That seemed to bring her back down to earth a little bit so I told her to let me know if she heard anything from him and headed home. For real this time.

I was exhausted so I took a nap. Then I went over to see Andy and Jack's new place. It's not as nice as my apartment haha but it's not bad. We went to grab coffee and just hung out for a while. It was actually really nice, especially since I've only seen her at the station lately. After that I went over to Giuls' house for dinner. It was fun to spend the night with her and Jasper. He showed me his toy fire truck again and talked about the tour we took a few weeks earlier. It was at least the 3rd time I'd heard his recap of the tour I took him on haha but it makes him happy to tell it so I'll always be happy to listen. After Jasper went to bed Giuls and I curled up to watch a movie and ended up falling asleep together on the couch. It was kinda a perfect night.

-Mattie

-- Author's Note: For just Station 19 centric chapters, check out my other story "Just Close Enough to Burn." It's the same as what's posted here, just with fewer Grey's Anatomy story lines. -- xo G