Chicago Med

.

Welcome back.

- Thanks for holding things down for me

while I was out of commission.

- I'm more than happy to stand in as chief

till you settle back in.

Brothers in arms. Got your back.

- It couldn't have been easy, coming back here

given our relationship.

- My coming back here is not about you or us, it's about me.

What is this?

Flash money and an undercover

investigation, what does that look like?

- Small bills. - Not 40-50K?

Hell no.

- I don't want to endanger myself.

I don't want to endanger you because you can't

handle being in the dark.

I care about you, Milena.

I can handle it.

Hey, what are you doing up?

Oh, nothing.

Dylan...

You're staring out the window at something.

- There's this blue Impala parked behind my building.

Been idling there for like 15 minutes.

- It's probably an Uber or someone who pulled

off the road to make a call.

Yeah, you're probably right.

Okay.

What is going on with you?

Talk to me.

- I'm just worried somebody might've followed you.

- No one's more careful than me.

Gonna go shower.

Morning.

- Hey, um, while I got you here...

I've been holding onto this for you since you left.

Your old coffeemaker... - Yeah.

- Yeah. - Uh, thing, I guess.

Yeah, you-you just never reached out to me,

let me know where you were, so here you are.

I remember how you craved your--craved your coffee.

You know, I'm not so addicted

to caffeine anymore, but you keep it.

Yeah, thanks though.

Okay.

- Excuse me, do you need any assistance?

- Oh, no, thank you, I'm--I'm okay.

Ugh, God... - Are you sure?

- Hey, here, let us help, we're doctors.

Okay.

Why are hospital parking lots always so far away

from the front door?

- I'll find you a wheelchair, help get you inside.

All right--mm, okay.

- Watch your step. - Thank you.

- I woke up this morning, and something just felt off.

It was like everything just got super swollen.

Mm-hmm.

How many weeks are you?

Almost 33.

- Okay, your belly is a bit distended,

so let's take a look.

Uh, it's a boy.

- Oh, that's great. - That's great.

Can we contact your OB for you?

- I don't--I don't actually have one right now.

I'm--I'm sorry, I'm kind of in a bit

of a transition with things right now.

That's okay.

- All right, Ingrid, so I'm seeing some extra

amniotic fluid and your baby's abdomen looks a little swollen.

- That--that doesn't sound good.

What's causing this?

- Well, sometimes it could be caused

by an infection, sometimes the baby has anemia.

Is the baby going to be okay?

- I'd like to do some further testing,

but it's not necessarily serious.

Yeah, the good thing is,

you're already far enough to deliver a healthy boy,

even if we have to induce labor, all right?

Thank you.

- Hey, Doris, got your page. What do we got?

- 22-year-old male in Treatment 3.

Name's Luis Pena, passed out in front of the mayor's house.

- The mayor's house? - Mm-hmm, during a protest.

He's in bad shape, you'll see. - Okay.

- Are you the doctor in charge of Luis Pena?

I am, and you are?

- Mindy Zheng, I'm a journalist.

Perhaps you've read my Substack about the protest.

- I haven't, excuse me. Hey, Mr. Pena, so--

- Luis is on day 36 of a hunger strike,

and he doesn't want his progress thwarted

in any way whatsoever.

Got it?

- Doris, would you page Dr. Charles, please?

Yeah.

- Ma'am, would you please-- would you step outside?

No, she stays.

Mindy's telling my story.

.

- Look, Luis, your labs are concerning.

Your liver enzymes are up,

your kidneys are starting to fail, I mean,

you're likely to go into multi-system organ failure

if you don't allow us to give you nutrition.

- Nutrition? - Yeah, through a feeding tube.

- So food. - Yeah.

- Five weeks, Luis, that's, um...

that's real commitment.

I made a promise to myself.

- Tell me about that, a promise about what?

You know Greyland Recycling?

Yeah, I'm familiar with it.

- They have a huge contract with the city.

Greyland handles most of Chicago's

indus--industrial--Mindy.

- Greyland recently closed a metal shredding facility

in a white affluent neighborhood,

and the mayor just approved the final permit

to relocate that facility to South Chicago,

into a lower income neighborhood.

Where I grew up.

- Somehow guessing that metal shredding,

not the best thing for the environment.

- Definitely not-- of course, Greyland claims

that pollution controls will help keep residents safe.

- If that was true, why did the rich people want it gone?

It's environmental racism.

- Look, your cause, your devotion to it,

I find genuinely admirable, but have you asked yourself

how effective you can be from a hospital bed?

- That's why Mindy's here, so people know how I'm doing.

- Oh, hey, you can't smoke in here, bud.

- Of course, yeah, it just helps with the hunger pangs.

Yeah, I understand.

- So what is our end game strategy here, Luis?

- I won't eat until Greyland calls off their move.

And if they don't?

- Sometimes change requires sacrifice.

- Well, um, we're gonna let you rest up a bit

and check back in a while, okay?

So what's his status?

- Well, he'll drink water but nothing else,

won't even allow an IV for fluids.

I mean, pretty soon his body's going to shut down.

- So is there anything else we can do?

- He knows what he wants, he has very clear logic

to support his goals, you know, he understands the stakes.

- PUBS is short for Percutaneous Umbilical

Blood Sampling.

It'll tell us a lot more about how your baby

is doing in there. - Okay.

- Okay, now, this first needle is

going to temporarily paralyze your baby.

- Don't worry, it's not as scary as it sounds.

Just to keep him from moving around too much.

He does like to kick--okay.

Okay, little pinch.

Great, that wasn't too painful.

All right, now, with this second needle,

we're going to draw blood right from where

your umbilical cord connects with your baby.

Like an amniocentesis?

Did you have one done before?

- No, but around the end of my first trimester,

I did this blood test, a panel, and it said

that there was a chance that the baby might

be born with spinal muscular atrophy.

- SMA, that's a serious condition.

I'm surprised you didn't mention this earlier.

- I guess I was trying not to think about it too much.

Could that be the cause of the swelling?

- Perhaps, but it's hard to tell.

Let's see what the lab has to say about the blood test.

Okay.

- You're gonna have one more pinch.

Here we go...

Hey, buddy.

Got a patient asking for you by name,

a Gerald Simmons, a navy vet. Ring a bell?

- Can't say it does. What's he in for?

- Severe headaches, chest palpitations.

BP's jumping out of the gym.

I'm setting him up for an EKG as we speak.

CPO Simmons, allow me to present

Lieutenant Commander Ethan Choi.

- At your service, chief. I'll take over, Trish.

I apologize, but it's getting so I

can't remember all the patients I've seen.

Have we met before?

- No, but I got a recommendation

from the VA that you were a good doctor.

- They didn't say anything about me?

My feelings are hurt.

- Gerald, I see your BP's 170/110.

It's good you came in.