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S14.E11: (Don't Fear) the Reaper


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On 2/1/2018 at 8:07 PM, readster said:

Also, the flashback of her father looked nothing like the actor who played him back in season 4. 

I actually thought it was the exact same actor as the last two times. 

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6 hours ago, jschoolgirl said:

How would being at a different hospital save them money?

Not sure why that quoted text was attributed to me, because I'm not the one who wrote that, it was @SnoGirl

Edited by Layne
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On 2/2/2018 at 8:51 AM, Jillybean said:

Yep, this was so distracting! Chandra Wilson appears to be pretty short, so having a much taller actress playing teen Miranda was an odd choice.

I really don't understand Ben. First he was an anaesthesiologist, then he wanted to be a surgeon, now suddenly he has decided to be a firefighter?  I can relate to getting onto a career path that ultimately isn't a good fit, but this seems ridiculous.  Just the financial implications alone are confusing, to say the least.

 

Ben seems to me, to want to be a thrill-seeker/SQUIRREL!! kind of person (which, if i was married to him, would piss me the hell off) but to channell Derek here, use your damn words. like they literally (as shown in the flash backs) had this discussion. Ben does not have the right to make a decision like this on his own, keep it a secret, decide to go for it, and then tell Bailey. And the fact they did it with him twice?  I feel they just wanted to have a "Grey" person in this show, and they figured Ben made the most sense, but they easily could have used Matthew or something as like on 3rd Watch they had the Paramedic/Firefighter combo 

 

 

23 hours ago, Efzee said:

This episode was boring to me. I'm not a big fan of Bailey since around... season 7 or 8, I think. She used to be great, then she became annoying and that has simply continued. Granted, she's been toned down this new season, but the character feels way too Mary Sue to me.  One of the reasons I find her annoying is because she's lost the ability to talk like a normal person and instead has developed the habit of shouting/yelling and being all dramatic. She used to be able to say more with a look or a calmly/sarcastically spoken word or sentence. 

 

Anyway, while I've heard the whole 'women don't get listened to and/or not taken seriously (especially women of color) by doctors'-spiel plenty of times, her behavior is exactly the reason why she wasn't taken seriously. She was acting hysterically and did not sound like a professional at all. If she'd just calmed down and spoken to the shrink/cardio guy like they were equals, she could have avoided all the drama. Something along the lines of the following would have worked: "Look, we're both doctors and we know heart attacks manifest differently in men than women, and I'm telling you that I'm positive I'm having a heart attack. The fact that I've had OCD for the last couple of years doesn't factor into that. Just order me the stress test and if it's negative, then I'll tell you all about my super hectic life and why the resulting stress might be affecting me today. Or would you rather I, the first female Afro-American Chief of Surgery, die here in your ER? Because I can tell you what your PR consultant would say about that. So, how about it? You gonna get me that stress test or do I need to call my own head of Cardio as well as the media?"

 

On another note, I'd really like to see a medical emergency with one/multiple of the main characters in a different hospital and them receiving proper treatment. Maybe even be impressed by how well the situation was handled and/or someone learning a new/different method or something like that. The only somewhat similar situation I can recall would be when Cristina went to Mayo and learned from the Old Doctor who died in his OR.

 

I agree with you.

 

 

20 hours ago, RedbirdNelly said:

I liked this episode more than I've liked other Grey's episodes lately. The main positive for me was Maggie--I found myself thinking "I wish they would always write Maggie this way." She came across as competent. I will cross my fingers this continues, but doubtful.

Also, Catherine can deliver a "child please" so well.

I do wish Grey's would be a little more subtle with the dialogue. They do seem to have at least one part of every episode that comes across as a "very special afternoon special". Just so beat you over the head at the beginning with the point on women not being listened to. I liked seeing that shown and part of the plot, but the dialogue feels like you are watching an afternoon special.

the flashbacks were nice but also highlighted for me how many crazy things have happened over the seasons to one group of people.

I agree she should have called Ben, but I also kind of got not doing that at least at first. I once had concerns about chest pains. I finally drove myself to the ER, which is kind of nuts, since if I was really in trouble, driving myself is not a good idea. Ended up calling my husband from there (everything turned out fine) and he was kind of annoyed that I had not brought up the pain earlier. It just felt like telling him made it real; just dealing with it myself made it "surely this is nothing."

 

Debbie Allen really can. LOL. i love little things like that. 

 

19 hours ago, Ohwell said:

*sigh* Ok, I'm just gonna say it.  In real life, Chandra Wilson/Bailey would probably be advised by a doctor to lose some weight and exercise more in order to stave off having a heart attack.  She's short, and sometimes it looks like she struggles just to walk around that hospital.

Yeup. but i did like how she said she gets her steps + has her green drinks, so she kind of headed off the "you're overweight" thing at the pass. 

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On 2-2-2018 at 4:35 PM, Qoass said:

You mean like when Richard was in a car accident and ended up at Mercy West on Callie's first day there?

You mean when he was correcting the intern who was treating him by telling him to use different materials and then was subsequently told that material was too expensive and that's about all we saw, until Richard showed up at Seattle Grace saving the day by announcing the merger? That episode?

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God, this episode contained everything I detest about this show. Every doctor in the world except for those select 10 or so at the GSMH being portrayed as incompetent hacks, tired girl power speeches, mommy issues, Bailey acting insufferably, ridiculous epiphanies, fake drama, Maggie magic, MONOLOGUES... Sheesh. I actually found myself missing Meredith, FFS.

I didn't think anything could top that infamous Owen guiding the little girl over the phone on how to operate on her mom episode, but this one may have done it.

I did like those flashbacks featuring former characters, though. 

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I liked this episode a lot. Yes, Bailey's speech in the ER sounded like a PSA but so what - it is so true that patients, especially women, often have to fiercely advocate for proper medical treatment. I did find it a bit unrealistic that the cardiac doctor would fail to listen to the Chief of Surgery from a competing hospital but I guess that is the point: if someone that respected in the field cannot get correct medical treatment without resorting to phoning a colleague, one can only imagine what happens to everyone else. Many women do not know that heart attack symptoms are different in women than in men. If Grey's helped to save even one woman, great. 

I liked seeing younger Miranda (at different ages) and learning of her relationship with her mother. I also liked how Richard knew Bailey so well that he was able to figure out that something was wrong when she called in sick. 

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On ‎2‎/‎2‎/‎2018 at 1:14 PM, RedbirdNelly said:

I liked this episode more than I've liked other Grey's episodes lately. The main positive for me was Maggie--I found myself thinking "I wish they would always write Maggie this way." She came across as competent. I will cross my fingers this continues, but doubtful.

Also, Catherine can deliver a "child please" so well.

I do wish Grey's would be a little more subtle with the dialogue. They do seem to have at least one part of every episode that comes across as a "very special afternoon special". Just so beat you over the head at the beginning with the point on women not being listened to. I liked seeing that shown and part of the plot, but the dialogue feels like you are watching an afternoon special.

the flashbacks were nice but also highlighted for me how many crazy things have happened over the seasons to one group of people.

I agree she should have called Ben, but I also kind of got not doing that at least at first. I once had concerns about chest pains. I finally drove myself to the ER, which is kind of nuts, since if I was really in trouble, driving myself is not a good idea. Ended up calling my husband from there (everything turned out fine) and he was kind of annoyed that I had not brought up the pain earlier. It just felt like telling him made it real; just dealing with it myself made it "surely this is nothing."

Not gonna lie, when Ben was sprinting down the street to get to Miranda, I thought - Oh lordy, please don't have him get stopped by a cop for the crime of black male running.  That absolutely exists, but would have been so heavy handed and distracting in that moment.

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On 2/2/2018 at 10:10 AM, Efzee said:

Anyway, while I've heard the whole 'women don't get listened to and/or not taken seriously (especially women of color) by doctors'-spiel plenty of times, her behavior is exactly the reason why she wasn't taken seriously. She was acting hysterically and did not sound like a professional at all.

I didn't see or hear Bailey acting hysterically. There's more than one way for a doctor to sound like a doctor. Bailey was adamant and rhetorical. Both the intern and the senior physician were portrayed as patronizing her, hard. With the intern, she did pull rank and threaten PR consequences, motivating him to summon the senior physician. The senior physician came on with a condescending smile and the same there-there hand upon her shoulder, as he brushed off her arguments for the stress test. His manner summed up what he thought of her, and of her being Chief of Surgery at the other major hospital in town (the one not founded by Presbyterians): cute. Cute like a cartoon. 

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The problem is that it's simply beyond the realm of possibility that a fellow doctor, surgeon and the friggin' chief of surgery at a renowned hospital wouldn't be getting all imaginable tests the second she checked in. It just wouldn't happen. It does happen to regular people, and more so to women, especially to women of colour, no one can deny that. But, they couldn't set up such a scenario at the GSMH, which is as we all know is a fantasy La La Land where all doctors are Perfect Human Beings and there is no such thing as prejudice, bias, racism, sexism, homophobia or any of the other social evils. So, in order to make point, they had to have one of their doctors experience such an ordeal at another hospital, and to me, it just didn't work.

But even if we handwave that away, if Bailey still had to ability to communicate with other people and not treat them like children that she can't even, maybe she could have explained why she felt she was experiencing a heart attack, what her symptoms were, how they differed from those men have and why it might go undiagonosed in women. And like that it maybe, just maybe might have been a Very Special Episode with an educational aspect. A very important one, at that.

This way, it was just Bailey getting away with being obnoxious because she is Bailey.

Edited by Joana
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On 2/2/2018 at 10:18 AM, diadochokinesis said:

I just have to laugh because all the speech pathologists are mad because our career was called boring.  LOL. 

Yeah, we're boring until they need you because they want to eat or talk after their stroke.

Edited by allthumbs
I was a little too mean LOL
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8 hours ago, Pallas said:

I didn't see or hear Bailey acting hysterically. There's more than one way for a doctor to sound like a doctor. Bailey was adamant and rhetorical. Both the intern and the senior physician were portrayed as patronizing her, hard. With the intern, she did pull rank and threaten PR consequences, motivating him to summon the senior physician. The senior physician came on with a condescending smile and the same there-there hand upon her shoulder, as he brushed off her arguments for the stress test. His manner summed up what he thought of her, and of her being Chief of Surgery at the other major hospital in town (the one not founded by Presbyterians): cute. Cute like a cartoon. 

Honestly, she rivaled Ellis being wheeled into the ER yelling and screaming. Of course, Ellis was suffering from Alzheimer's Disease at the time.

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20 minutes ago, Efzee said:

Honestly, she rivaled Ellis being wheeled into the ER yelling and screaming. Of course, Ellis was suffering from Alzheimer's Disease at the time.

I saw it differently.  Not having ever had a heart attack, I'm going to assume that they are quite painful and I'm sure that Bailey, like pretty much every other single person on this planet, is not at her best when she's when pain.  Yet, at the same time, she knew that to give into that would probably make her less believable to the doctors, so she over-corrected, shall we say, and became pedantic.  

There were a lot of things that I found unrealistic--the worst of which was how Seattle Presbyterian was painted as being completely ineffectual in every single way--but I wouldn't put Bailey's behavior in that category.  No, she did not behave the way nearly any woman off the street in the same situation would have behaved, but she is not just any woman.  She's a surgeon and she knew what was happening and was dealing with people who were unwilling to give her the care that she knew she needed.

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On 2/2/2018 at 8:51 AM, Jillybean said:

I really don't understand Ben. First he was an anaesthesiologist, then he wanted to be a surgeon, now suddenly he has decided to be a firefighter?  I can relate to getting onto a career path that ultimately isn't a good fit, but this seems ridiculous.  Just the financial implications alone are confusing, to say the least.

I figure he's maybe supposed to be bipolar or something like that. How maybe he gets in a manic state and is like, "I need to change careers!" Would be interesting if they opted to explore an angle like that...

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Ben seems like an adrenalin junkie.  (Or more likely, Shonda Rhimes needed the character to kickstart her now show.)

On 2/2/2018 at 10:18 AM, diadochokinesis said:

I just have to laugh because all the speech pathologists are mad because our career was called boring.  LOL. 

Surgeons and ER doctors are adrenalin junkies, and pick specialties where they don't have to spend too long with their patients or build up a rapport over the years with them.  You know, the opposite of the patience and rapport speech pathologists need.

On 2/2/2018 at 10:54 AM, Lady Calypso said:

I thought this episode was ok, but not as great as I think they hoped it would be. Personally, I think if I had another doctor from another hospital yelling at me, demanding me to run all of these tests, despite the first tests coming back clean, I'd be less inclined to do it. However, I was starting to understand why Bailey was so insistent on the tests as she explained to Dr. Maxwell about statistics with women of colour. Then Maggie/Richard came in and then started blaming the other doctors for not running every single test and I started getting annoyed again. It was just their overall attitudes that pissed me off.

It's harder than you think to be a doctor when you're the patient too.  Most doctors don't like treating other doctors because they tend to second guess them, even worse if they are right.  My parents were both doctors and both had a hard time being taken seriously by treating doctors who they hadn't built a friendship with before.  I remember my mother going to my father's cardiologist and telling him that a medication (Prepulsid) was causing worrying side effects for my father.  She was ignored. Ten years later, after a number of deaths, the drug was finally taken off the market.  There are more stories if you have time.  And neither of my parents are POC.

On 2/2/2018 at 12:27 PM, OtterMommy said:

Oh, I have to mention that I got a kick out of the fact that teenaged Miranda is noticeably taller than adult Miranda!

Med school is really, really tough.

On 2/2/2018 at 5:11 PM, RedheadZombie said:

Women's symptoms are dismissed because they are so vague in nature.  One common symptom is a sense of doom, which can be easily mislabeled as anxiety or a panic attack.  Plus, many people come to the ER having a panic attack which they interpret as a heart attack.   I don't believe they would have gotten a psychiatrist that quickly.  

I believe it..  Calling for a psych consult is the default when a physician doesn't know what's going on, especially in a case like this when Bailey was being obnoxious. (Granted, the resident wouldn't have come down so quickly but it's television.)  One of the psychologists in a hospital I worked at told me that she had to fight the physicians that the patient's problem was medical not psychological. It wasn't until he had a TIA on live TV that they started to listen to her.

I suspect the biggest motivator to send patients for tests in the US is fear of getting sued.

My best friend used to renovate houses until six years ago when she started to lose movement in her legs and developed a neuropathy.  She went to see a neurologist who did tests and when she went back to get the results, he told her he had nothing to say and referred her to a psychiatrist.  My friend stood up, grabbed her wheelie-walker and walk out on him.  (The next neurologist admitted that it was a physical problem, not a psychological one.)

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On 2/1/2018 at 6:12 PM, RogerDodger said:

Totally predictable and heavy handed.  The only surprise would have been if they had actually killed her off.

I wish they had killed her off. I can't stand Bailey, she's been my least favorite since day one.  She's smug, arrogant and condescending.  Blech. I think I made it maybe 15 minutes into this episode before I had to turn it off. 

Edited by Maharincess
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On 2/1/2018 at 10:43 PM, betha said:

That’s funny, I didn’t notice the height, I was too distracted by how good the casting was in finding young actresses who look just like Chandra Wilson! I loved this episode. It was heavy-handed, but that is needed. It is a huge problem. Heart disease in women, women not being listened to by the medical establishment, and black women in particular. 

I agree. Bailey was absolutely correct when she said heart attacks in women present differently.  I loved this episode too. This is the Maggie I like. Her rambling in the waiting room slightly annoyed me but I'll give her a pass for this instance.

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18 hours ago, Joana said:

But even if we handwave that away, if Bailey still had to ability to communicate with other people and not treat them like children that she can't even, maybe she could have explained why she felt she was experiencing a heart attack, what her symptoms were, how they differed from those men have and why it might go undiagonosed in women. And like that it maybe, just maybe might have been a Very Special Episode with an educational aspect. A very important one, at that.

 

That was definitely my problem with the episode and Bailey's behavior in the beginning. Maybe it happened "off screen" or I missed a line, but she never really seemed to make clear just why she thought she was having an atypical presentation of a heart attack. What specifically was she feeling that led her to realize that it was not indigestion (as she'd mentioned in the car while arguing with Ben) but something more serious? Since the show decided to play up her escalating reactions with insulting the doctors and side-stepping their routine medical history questions, it never really made clear just what symptoms women (especially POC) should look for when potentially experiencing a heart attack, aside from indigestion.

If anything, the early events (plus the normal labs and EKG) did indeed made it look more like Bailey went to the ER first with panic attack symptoms as the docs initially suspected but then had an actual coronary event after the exertion of performing CPR on another patient. The Seattle Pres physicians weren't that off base in exploring the panic attack route for an exasperated patient with a high stress job working at a hospital that recently underwent an explosion and a computer hack.

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On February 1, 2018 at 9:46 PM, jschoolgirl said:

I am very surprised that there was no PSA at the end about women and heart attacks. My family all dies of heart disease, including the women. My mom had an AMI at age 62. I expect to die from it.

 

I was surprised, too. My mother was said to have been about six months away from a heart attack, when she finally went to the doctor (she broke a hip). She was then also found to have an aneurysm, which is what took her from us. I asked her doctor - a big time surgeon, I couldn't believe was in our area, but there he was - about gastrointestinal symptoms, and he shrugged like he'd never heard about that before (in women). Now here we have Bailey talking about nausea/an upset stomach, and how it manifests differently in women. 

My grandmother died of a heart attack (mum's mum), when my mother was the age at which I lost her. I recently found out that my blood pressure was okay, even when I was stressed, but my heart was racing every time my pulse was checked. So I've started on a liquid CoQ10 supplement that is supposed to also help with my stomach problem. 

Edited by Anela
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I hated almost every moment of this episode.


I had a heart attack at age 44 (I am a woman, and am now 55). And yes, my symptoms were not what is typically shown in the movies, etc. - the clutching of the chest, the gasping, the loss of consciousness, etc. Nope, never happened to me.  When the EMTs put me in the ambulance, they put nitro glycerin under my tongue - and yes, my husband called 911  but not because I was in dire pain or unconsciousness, but because I'd vomited (making me think I had food poisoning) and then broke out into a full body, soaking sweat (to the point that I had wring out my bathrobe). But no panic attack, as has been mentioned as a symptom. I continued to believe I had food poisoning but the second I got into the ER, an IV was put in, blood was taken, I was questioned thoroughly, and NOT ONCE did anyone ever even REMOTELY suggest that this was all in my head. I had a CT scan done as well shortly after arriving, to see if I'd perhaps suffering some sort of bruising of my heart. In short, everything that could be done to assess me and figure things out was done. It made me SO ANGRY to see the doctors at this other hospital completely and utterly acting like idiots, and doing NOTHING.  EVERY SINGLE person with whom I came in contact that fateful morning was COMPLETELY professional, and did EVERY TEST immediately in order to figure out what was happening. They were amazing - even the woman who came by my bed in the ER to take my insurance info was compassionate, concerned, and reassuring. As mentioned, they drew blood right away and sent it right to the lab. The results came back within a few hours, and sure enough, I had those enzymes present that confirmed it was a heart attack in progress. 

Then I got all riled up watching Bailey's angioplasty. I had that procedure, and had two stents put in my blocked artery and let me tell you, it was NOT a simple thing. And while I was conscious - but heavily drugged - it was extremely painful - they go in through an artery in your groin ( and yup, you are shaved while on the table, right before the surgeon begins). I could feel the wire inside my heart. After it's over, you cannot move for hours, because even the slightest motion might cause you to bleed out where the incision was. This happened to me as they wheeled me back to recovery - a nurse jumped up on my gurney and had to apply to pressure as they rolled me down the hall, and she stayed on top of me until the bleeding stopped! Then, I had to lie still for the rest of the night - not allowed to even turn my head sideways. And when Bailey talked about going back to work the next day  - NO NO NO. It takes quite a while to recover from that incision in the groin - only the slightest amount of walking is allowed, and only on a flat surface. I was in the hospital for a week. Once you are healed, then comes cardiac rehab. It is a long, slow process. And while I know that every single person has a unique experience, this depiction just made me crazy. Even Bailey sort of pissed me off - who in the HELL does not call their spouse/partner/family???? It is LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE to keep something like this a secret from your spouse/partner. It is not something from which you magically recover after a few hours. The angioplasty procedure itself requires some recovery time. I am VERY willing to suspend my belief over many things, but having been through a heart attack, I unfortunately had zero tolerance seeing this portrayal, and it utterly ruined this episode for me in every way. It was nice but bittersweet to see George, Derek, and Callie, though. 
 

Edited to add: I totally get the message that women's symptoms can be completely different than those of men - or, there can be no symptoms at all - but the delivery of this important message was simply awful, just dreadful. I also acknowledge that having had a heart attack makes me utterly biased and unable to fairly assess any part of this episode! I have no idea why I kept watching.

Edited by Biggie B
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I find it incredibly ironic how on the DVR, they keep showing white males talking about heart attacks and yet the episode features a black woman (Bailey) who is having a heart attack. Also, it bugged that they made the Asian doctor more incompetent than the white doctors.

Edited by kinnej5
Was still watching the episode and posted before I finished.
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17 hours ago, kinnej5 said:

the Asian doctor more incompetent than the white doctors.

But the Asian doctor was an intern, and his initial treatment of Bailey -- in both senses -- was no worse than his prestigious senior's.

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On 2/1/2018 at 10:47 PM, MrWhyt said:

yeah this was not a bottle episode. Bottle episodes use existing sets and have a minimum number of guest actors to keep costs down. I didn't think that they'd kill Bailey off but they did do a good job with the tension IMO, reminded me of the "Love's Labours Lost" episode of ER.

That episode of ER still haunts me. Used to work L&D. When the ER patient came up with just about every complication one could think of, I started to laugh to myself that "next she will develop DIC" and within about 30 seconds, that's what happened. At that point, I stopped laughing as they did such a great job with the tension and depicting what goes on with DIC, that all I had left were bad memories of a patient we had who developed it. Terrifying and tragic.

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I have a chronic medical condition, and I have to go to the ER several times a year, and end up, hospitalized twice a year. I am also a minority woman. My experiences in the ER have been similar to Bailey’s, no matter where I lived in the US. I also work as a nurse, and understand the challenges of being sick where you work. So this episode struck several chords with me. 

Most of the time I go to the ER, even the ERs in the hospitals where I work upstairs, the treatment is not up to par. I’ve lived all across the US and this exp is fairly consistent.  For starters, my symptoms are often minimized, even though I have had really bad episodes where I almost died, in the waiting room of the ED, waiting just to be treated. On top of that, there is a hurry in the ED to come up with a diagnosis and discharge you to clear up the bed. Factor that in with the implicit bias, pre-judgements and  and mansplaining, it’s quite easy for me to see how Bailey ended up where she was. I related so much to that episode. I have to make sure i have someone with me when I go into the ED, a family member or friend, someone who will be my advocate to back me up. It’s the only way I’ve been able to stay alive. 

So good how Webber knew instantly that something was wrong with Bailey. I didn’t like that Maggie was pulled away from all her other patients to save 1 Patient, but it turns out it was fortuitous that she was there to save the day. Ben seems like an adrenaline junkie, so maybe being a fireman is the career he’s been looking for. Remember last season when he was reprimanded for being a renegade? Plus financially, it’s a huge step down from anesthisiologist/surgeon to fireman so he must love it, otherwise, why take such a huge pay cut? The moment when he arrived at the hospital, at her bedside brought tears to my eyes. “You call me”. And even though Bailey is one bossy bitch, Ben has always been one of the few people she would listen to. It also gave us more insight into her back story, and I’m sure the mom might come back in the future as another plot line, as all Moms do. 

Although it wasn’t the typical usual episode, I enjoyed it. Plus it was educational for women not to take their bodies for granted or ignore symptoms. It also reminds us that not everyone is invincible. 

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