In the OR time loses all meaning. In the midst of sutures and saving lives, the clock ceases to matter. 15 minutes... 15 hours. Inside the OR the best surgeons make time fly. Outside the OR, however, time takes pleasure in kicking our asses. For even the strongestof us it seems to play tricks -- slowing down... hovering... until it freezes. Leaving us stuck in the moment, unable to move in one direction or the other.* -- Meredith (voiceover)
*I feel like I'm moving in slow motion. Like I'm moving in slow motion and everything around me is moving so fast and I just wanna go back to when things were normal... And I'm just stuck. And there's all this pressure 'cause everyone's hovering around me waiting for me to do something or say something or flip out or yell or cry some more. And I'm happy to play my part. I'm happy to say the lines or do whatever it is that I'm supposed to be doing if it will make everyone feel more comfortable. But I don't... I don't know how to do this... I don't know how to be this person. I don't know who this person is. How did this happen? How did we end up here? Why am I alone?* -- Izzie
*There are moments... all of a sudden, in a split second, your life changes forever. Before you know it, you're somewhere else.* -- Derek
*At any given moment the brain has 14 billion neurons firing at a speed of 450 miles per hour. We don't have control over most of them. When we get a chill, goose bumps. When we get excited, adrenaline. The body naturally follows it's impulses, which I think is part of what makes it so hard for us to control ours. Of course sometimes we have impulses we would rather not control... that we later wish we had.* -- Meredith (voiceover)
*The body is a slave to it's impulses. But the thing that makes us human is what we can control. After the storm... after the rush... after the heat of the moment has passed, we can cool off and clean up the messes we've made. We can try to let go of what was. And then again...* -- Meredith (voiceover)
Surgeons usually fantasize about wild and improbable surgeries. Someone collapses in a restaurant, we slice them open with a butter knife, replace a valve with a hollowed out stick of carrot. But every now and then, some other kind of fantasy slips in. Most of our fantasies disolve when we wake, banished to the back of our minds. But sometimes, we're sure, if we try hard enough... we can live the dream.* -- Meredith (voiceover)
*The fantasy is simple. The pleasure is good. And twice as much pleasure is better. That pain is bad... and no pain is better. But the reality is different. The reality is that pain is there to tell us something. And there's only so much pleasure we can take without getting a stomachache... and maybe that's okay. Maybe some fantasies are only supposed to live in our dreams.* -- Meredith (voiceover)
*I know we've had our differences and I'm sorry we've been out of touch. But believe it or not I was trying to make everything better. I know you're angry, and I hope you'll forgive me. It turns out sometimes you have to do the wrong thing. Sometimes you have to make a big mistake to figure out how to make things right. Mistakes are painful, but they're the only way to find out who you really are. I know who I am now. I know what I want...* -- Denny (from his phone message to his parents)
First do no harm. As doctors we pledge to live by this oath. But harm happens and then guilt happens. And there's no oath on how to deal with that. Guilt never goes anywhere on its own. It brings its friends - doubt and insecurity.* -- Meredith (voiceover)
*First do no harm - easier said than done. We can take all the oaths in the world, but the fact is most of us do harm all the time. Sometimes even when we're trying to help we do more harm than good. And then the guilt rears its ugly head. What you do with that guilt is up to you. We're left with a choice; Either let the guilt throw you back into the behavior that got you into the trouble in the first place. Or learn from the guilt and do your best to move on.* -- Meredith (voiceover)
*To make it... really make it as a surgeon, it takes major commitment. We have to be willing to pick up that scalpel and make a cut that may or may not do more damage than good. It's all about being commited. Because if we're not... we have no business picking up that scalpel in the first place.* -- Meredith (voiceover)
*McDreamy was doing the McNasty with a McHottie!? That McBastard!* -- George (channeling Christina for Meredith)
*There are times when even the best of us have trouble with commitment. And we may be surprised by the commitments we're willing to let slip out of our grasp. Commitments are complicated. We may surprise ourselves by the commitments we're willing to make. True commitment takes effort, and sacrifice. Which is why sometimes we have to learn the hard way to choose our commitments very carefully.* -- Meredith (voiceover)
As surgeons we're trained to look for disease. Sometimes the problem is easily detected. Most of the time you need to go step by step. First probing the surface, looking for any sign of trouble. A mole, or a lesion, or an unwelcome lump. Most of the time we can't tell what's wrong with somebody by just looking at them. After all, they can look perfectly find on the outside while their insides tell us a whole other story.* -- Meredith (voiceover)
*I was heading home. I was on my way to the airport and then... You know when you asked before why I came back the first time. You know, I tried not to. I went on dates. Had a lot of great first dates with guys who were planning to stay guys. But you know you have a great date and you wanna go and tell your best friend aout it. And my best friend is Daniel... Donna. And then you have a few bad dates and... she's my best friend. She knows me. She loves me. She's... my husband. I know it sounds crazy. My family thinks I'm crazy. But you don't abandon someone just because there's baggage... you know? At the end of the day, it's Donna. Even when she hurts me. Even when I hate her.* -- Daniel/Donna (sex change patient's) wife.
*Not all wounds are superficial. Most wounds run deeper than we can imagine. You can't see them with the naked eye. And then, there are the wounds that take us by surprise. The trick with any kind of wound or disease, is to dig down and find the real source of the injury, and once you've found it... try like hell to heal that sucker.* -- Meredith (voiceover)
*Many people don't know that the human eye has a blind spot in its field of vision. There's a part of the world that we are literally blind to. The problem is, sometimes our blind spots shield us from things that really shouldn't be ignored. Sometimes our blind spots keep our lives bright and shiny... When it comes to our blind spots, maybe our brains are compensating. Maybe they're protecting us.* -- Meredith (voiceover)
*As doctors, we know everybody's secrets. Their medical histories, sexual histories. Confidential information that is as essential to a surgeon as a ten-blade. And every bit as dangerous. We keep secrets. We have to. But not all secrets can be kept.* -- Christina (voiceover)
*In some ways betrayal is inevitable. When our bodies betray us, surgery is often the key to recovery. When we betray each other... when we betray each other... the path to recovery is less clear. We do whatever it takes to rebuild the trust that was lost. And then there are some wounds... some betrayals that are so deep, so profound, that there's no way to repair what was lost. And when that happens... there's nothing left to do but wait.* -- Christina (voiceover)
*At the end of the day, when it coms down to it, all we really want is to be close to somebody. So this thing where we all keep our distance and pretend notto care about each other. It's usually a load of bull. So we pick and choose who we want to remain close to. And once we've chosen those people, we tend to stick close by... no matter how much we hurt them. The people that are still with you at the end of the day... those are the ones worth keeping. And sure, sometimes close, can be too close. But sometimes that invasion of personal space... it can be exactly what you need.* -- Meredith (voiceover)
*It does such watching them struggle. And that part never stops sucking. But when you get to see a baby heal, and then they get to go home and you just imagine this whole life that they're gonna live... well there's nothing better than that. And that part never changes.* -- Addison
**YOU are in a relationship with no words. And YOU are a millionaire in $20 shoes. So whatever!* -- Meredith (to Christina and Izzie)
*No one believes their life will turn out just kind of okay. We all think we're going to be great. And from the day we decide to be surgeons, we are filled with expectation. Expectations of the trails we will blaze, the people we will help, the difference we will make. Great expectations of who we will be, where we will go. And then, we get there.* -- Meredith (voiceover)
*Let me just remind you, that I'm still recovering from the death of my fiance, the demise of my surgical career, the fact that I was forced to deposit an 8 million dollar check that I was saving for a good cause, even though I haven't found a good cause, and I'm the only one here under the care of a shrink. I could blow at any minute. Now, George's dad has died and it has turned him into a sex machine. I'm gonna need a little help with that so one of you better pull it together!* -- Izzie
*You people are on your own today. I've got things to do... important things. And while I'm doing those things, you will remember that whatever your pathetic personal problems, there are people out there with actual problems. And you will ask yourselves in every situation, 'What would Bailey do?' W-W-B-D. I'm not saying I am God. I am saying I am your god and my wrath is large... and painful.* -- Bailey (to the interns)
*I know you all have your messy love lives and your secrets and your silliness, but I want more. I need something to hold onto. I need a reason to believe that medicine can do more than stitch you up and send you away. I need to believe that medicine can not only save lives, but... but change lives. I need... I need... I need to believe in something the way I used to believe in you all.* -- Bailey (to Addison, Mark, Derek and Burke)
*We all think we're going to be great. And we feel a little bit robbed when our expectations aren't met. But sometimes our expectations sell us short. Sometimes the expected simply pales in comparison to the unexpected. You gotta wonder why we cling to our expectations. Because the expected is just what keeps us steady. Standing. Still. The expected's just the beginning. The unexpected... is what changes our lives.* -- Meredith (voiceover)
*As surgeons we live in a world of worst case scenerios. We cut ourselves off from hoping for the best because too many times the best doesn't happen. But every now and then, something extraordinary occurs, and suddenly, best case scenerios seem possible. And every now and then, something amazing happens, and agaist our better judgement, we start to have hope.* -- Meredith (voiceover)
*It's not that I underestimate you. It's just that I don't think about you... at all.* -- Addison (to Mark)
*Anyone can fall in love and be blindly happy, but not everyone can pick up a scalpel and save a life. I raised you to be an extraordinary human being. So imagine my disappointment when I wake up after five years and discover that you're no more than ordinary.* -- Dr. Grey (to Meredith)
*Your dad told me you lost your mother a few years ago and I want to say how sorry I am. You probably have a million questions and if your mother were here I'm sure she would have more eloquent answers than I do. But I think that she and I would be saying the same thing. Which is; if you keep going the way you're going, you WILL get an STD. You WILL get pregnant. You WILL increase your chances of getting cervical cancer. You're not being smart. And you're too young for anyone to expect you to be smart the way you need to be when you're having sex. Which means you shouldn't be having it.* -- Bailey (to a very young, sexually active, clinic patient)
*As doctors we are trained to give our patients just the facts. But what our patients really want to know is, will the pain go away? Will I feel better? Am I cured? What our patients really want to know is, is there hope? But inevitably there are times when you find yourself in the worst case scenerio. When the patient's body has betrayed them and all the science we have to offer has failed them, when the worst case scenerio comes true... clinging to hope is all we've got left.* -- Meredith (voiceover)
*Disappearances happen in science. Disease can suddenly fade away. Tumors go missing. We open someone up to discover the cancer is gone. It's unexplained, it's rare, but it happens. We call it a misdiagnosis. Say we never saw it in the first place. Any explanation but the truth. That life is full of vanishing acts. If something that we didn't know we had disappears, do we miss it?* -- Meredith (voiceover)
*Like I said, disappearances happen. Pains go phantom. Blood stops running. And people... people fade away. There's more I have to say. So much more. But... I've disappeared.* -- Meredith (voiceover)
*Okay, that can't happen! Do you understand me? Sounds can't happen. Freaking out, can't happen. Because if you freak out, I'm gonna freak out. And I'm the one holding a power drill to your friend's brain. So if you're gonna vomit, if you're gonna make sounds, step away. If you're gonna stay here, you have to pull it together. Okay!?* -- Izzie (to the friend of the guy trapped on the ferry boat)
*I know people die. People die in front of us every day. But I believe Meredith will survive this. I believe... I believe... I believe in the good. I believe that it's been a hell of a year and I believe that in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, we will all be okay. I believe a lot of things. I believe that... I believe that Denny is always with me. And I believe that if I eat a cup of butter and nobody sees me, the calories don't count. And I believe that surgeons who prefer staples over stitches are just lazy... I believe we survive. I believe that believing we survive is what makes us survive.* -- Izzie (to Christina, George and Karev)
*
Episode 19
