107 The Self-Destruct Button

Summery

''Okay, any blowhard who says you can sleep when you die? Tell'em to come talk to me after a few months as an intern.''

George and Izzie catch Derek sneaking out of the house, finally figuring out that he's the mysterious stranger who's been sleeping with Meredith. George immediately becomes jealous, but Izzie is bothered for completely different reasons no wonder Meredith is getting in all the good surgeries lately.

A flu is going around the hospital, and Cristina feels sick to her stomach. She blames Dr. Burke. A gunshot wound victim gets Alex's attention as he awaits attention in the lobby. Alex wants to know why he isn't in the emergency room. Answer: Because he has an appointment. It was a schedule gunshot wound. His friend shot him - with permission. The scars, apparently, make a great addition to his tattoos. Meredith assists Bailey on a case where a normal sized teenager (who is not now, nor ever was, obese) went to Mexico to get a gastric bypass operation a bad one without her parent's permission. Now they have to undo the damage that's been done. Izzie has to help a man who swallowed his girlfriend's keys just as she was dumping him.

George gets to be a part of the biggest surgery of the day well, at least initially he does. George works with Derek on the case of toddler with terrible tremors. After viewing films of the girls' brain just a couple months apart, Derek finds that her brain tissue is dying at too quickly a rate, and that the only way to halt the deterioration is with a hemispherectomy in layman's terms: removal of half the brain (in a young brain like hers, the remaining tissue still has time to adapt and learn how to replace the missing tissue). To George it's an amazing procedure to be done by a man who can seemingly do everything including Meredith. But George has one other issue on his mind: he swears he smelled bourbon on the breath of Dr. Taylor, the anesthesiologist who is to scrub in on the hemispherectomy. Dr. Taylor outranks George, though, and has a great reputation behind him. George doesn't know if he should say anything.

Alex and the tattooed gunshot victim bond over the fact they both wrestled collegiately in the state of Iowa. They also share the same ethos about pain being good for you. Burke, who has seen this patient before, has a hard time hiding his contempt for such self mutilation. He prefers safer hobbies: like playing the trumpet.

George speaks up to Dr. Taylor in front of Derek just before the hemispherectomy. Dr. Taylor is offended George would even suggest such a thing (essentially accusing him of being unfit to administer anesthesiology). Derek, somewhat reluctantly, has to side with his fellow attending Dr. Taylor, and George is kicked out of the surgery, replaced with Cristina.

Meredith discovers that there is more behind her patient's troubles than just a desire to be ultra skinny. She's under extraordinary to live up her Mother's lofty expectations for perfection. "Life shouldn't be this hard" Meredith tells her. Unfortunately, the procedure to reverse the gastic bypass doesn't go well. There's complications, the least of which is the patient's bowel exploding on Meredith. The girl, unfortunately, will have to struggle to achieve proper nutrition for the rest of her life.

Alex's tattooed patient begins to crash, as the stress on his body from the gunshot wound has ecsacerbated an infected tattoo he already had. They can't fight the infection though, as it has spread too far, and the patient dies.

During the hemispherectomy, the little girl begins to wake up as Derek is in the process of removing half her brain! Her anesthesia is too light and Dr. Taylor is fast asleep. Derek kicks Dr. Taylor out of the surgery, and later apologizes to George, where he also comes clean about Meredith, and his intentions with her.

Izzie, who's been giving Meredith a hard time all day, finally confronts Meredith over her indiscretions with an attending. Izzie's vitriol, though, subsides when she makes a startling conclusion: Meredith is actually in love with Derek. And now Izzie isn't quite so upset. In fact, she feels a little sorry for Meredith. Cristina, thinking her flu like symptoms might not be a flu at all, takes a pregnancy test. Two of them. And doesn't like what she finds.

Source: http://abc.go.com/primetime/greysanatomy/index?pn=recap#t=89824&amp;d=89701

Song

Transcript

Digby

He shot himself because he likes the scars and he feels that if it isn't painful, it isn't worth it. The bullet bounces off his rib, the rib cracks, punctures his lung, and he bleeds into his lung. He also has a previous bullet in his shoulder. They place a chest tube to reinflate the lung and drain the blood. Alex takes a picture of this. He later dies because, due to the stress of the gun shot wound, a previous infection, due to a new spider tattoo, causes overwhelming sepsis and multi-system organ failure. Alex was from the same state as him and took his death especially hard.

Claire Rice

She had her stomach stapled in Mexico because she wanted to remain thin. Her mother, Tina, pressured her to be thin and not take the easy way out. They find an edema and an abcess and her parents decide that she must reverse the surgery. She is only 17 so she must abide by their decision. During the surgery, her abcess bursts and coats Meredith with bacteria. Claire will face a life long struggle to maintain good health after the surgery because they had to remove part of her intestine. Meredith calls social services and tells her that "life shouldn't be this hard"

Jamie Hayes

Jamie is a young child with rasmussen's encephalitis and it causes her foot to twitch because of a seizure. Half her brain is dead and must be removed; because of her age, she will survive the procedure and her brain will rewire itself. George suspects the anesthesiologist has been drinking and mentions it to Derek before the surgery starts. Derek kicks George out of surgery, but later Jamie begins to wake and Cristina, who subbed for George, finds that Dr. Taylor, the anesthesiologist, is asleep.

J.P.

He swallows his girlfriend Athena's keys to prevent her from leaving. Izzie preforms her first bronchoscopy to remove the keys and during the procedure J.P. swallows to move the keys further down, to keep his girlfriend by his side. Izzie finally removes the keys and tells Athena to "take the keys and go". Athena says JP competitive, passive agressive, and needy - the trifecta. JP also called Athena's therapist to find out what she said about him.

Main Character Summery

Meredith insists that Derek remain hidden when he leaves her house, but George and Izzie spot him. Cristina is experiencing flu symptoms, what Alex calls "professional weakness" he later says "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger." Alex also starts the day by running. At the hospital they allude to what they saw in the locker room. Izzie works with JP. Alex works with the fellow wrestler, Digby, and Meredith works with Claire Rice. Bailey abuses Meredith because she is upset that Meredith is sleeping with Derek. Cris blames Burke for her illness and Burke offers "disease, diagnosis, and prescription." Cris, Alex, George, and Izzie all discuss Meredith and Derek and other ways to make it through the day. After the organ bursts on Meredith, Izzie says that Meredith smells like Karma and reveals that she knows about Meredith and Derek. Derek apologizes to George and says that because the code of Doctors, they are not supposed to question each other; however Derek says he should have taken responsibility and that George did the right thing. Claire, after surgery, asks if she will get fat and Meredith assures her that she will not get fat. Meredith returns home and eats Izzie's cake of rage and reveals that she is falling in love with Derek. Meredith and Derek decide to just sleep and Cris is seen reading a positive pregnancy test.