University of Chicago Medical Center

University of Chicago Medical Center becomes the place where Brett Bohlinger’s concern for Sanquita Bell meets the full force of medical risk. Seeking expertise unavailable through Sanquita’s usual care, Brett brings her to a nephrologist; the consultation reveals how seriously pregnancy is compromising Sanquita’s already fragile kidneys and makes the baby’s survival an urgent question rather than a distant hope.

Specialist Care and the Reason for the Visit

Before the appointment, Brett is worried that Sanquita is not looking healthy. Sanquita is four months pregnant, though the pregnancy is hard to see, and has been visiting whichever doctors are on duty at Cook County Health Department. Brett believes those general practitioners lack expertise in kidney disease, so she arranges an appointment with Dr. Chan at University of Chicago Medical Center, whom she describes to Andrew as one of the country’s best nephrologists. The center matters first as a deliberate choice: Brett is trying to replace uncertain, nonspecialist care with a consultation focused on the condition she fears is being overlooked.

The visit begins on a frigid morning. Brett picks Sanquita up at Joshua House at sunrise, red-eyed and rumpled, and drives her toward the appointment. The scene’s winter details—snow crunching beneath boots, ice cracking on Lake Michigan, furnaces humming—place this effort in an ordinary city morning, while Sanquita’s bare hands, rubbed in front of the car’s heat vent, make her vulnerability immediate. Brett explains why she trusts the center’s nephrology program, citing its national standing, but Sanquita questions why Brett is spending her time on her. Brett answers that she cares about her and wants to help. The trip thus begins not with Sanquita’s confidence in the institution or in Brett, but with Brett’s insistence that care is a reason to act.

The Consultation

At the medical center, Sanquita asks Brett to accompany her. Brett is surprised by the invitation and places a protective hand on Sanquita’s shoulder as they follow a nurse into the examination room. In a flimsy green hospital gown, with her hair tied back and no makeup, Sanquita looks to Brett like a child awaiting a pediatric appointment. That impression does not diminish the seriousness of the encounter: it makes the contrast between her youth and the clinical stakes especially plain.

Dr. Chan examines Sanquita, orders multiple blood draws, and asks an exhausting series of questions before directing her to get dressed and meet in the office across the hall. Brett introduces herself as Sanquita’s teacher and friend, adding that Sanquita’s mother lives in Detroit. The answer establishes Brett’s role without claiming family authority: she is present as a trusted companion, not as a relative or decision-maker. The center’s care proceeds through examination, tests, and questioning, but the appointment’s crucial information arrives in Dr. Chan’s explanation of what the pregnancy means for Sanquita’s kidneys.

Dr. Chan describes Sanquita’s condition as very serious. Her kidneys are already tenuous, and the stress of pregnancy is compromising them further. If they fail to function properly, potassium levels can rise, putting Sanquita at risk of cardiac arrest. Dr. Chan wants to see her again when the laboratory results arrive, but says time is of the essence and recommends that she abort the fetus as soon as possible. The center is therefore not merely the destination for a second opinion: it is where a specialist translates a frightening combination of kidney disease and pregnancy into an immediate, consequential recommendation.

Risk, Refusal, and Narrative Significance

Sanquita reacts with an emphatic refusal and turns toward Brett as though Brett has betrayed her. Brett steadies her with a hand on her arm, then asks Dr. Chan what Sanquita’s prognosis would be if she continued the pregnancy. Dr. Chan estimates Sanquita’s chances at fifty percent and the baby’s at roughly thirty percent. She does not specify survival, but the exchange makes the implication unmistakable. The figures sharpen the scene’s conflict: the decision is not presented as a simple choice between treatment and no treatment, but as a collision between Sanquita’s determination to keep the pregnancy and the danger to both her and the fetus.

The setting concentrates medical knowledge and personal attachment in the same room. Dr. Chan supplies the specialist’s assessment and the numerical risks; Sanquita’s refusal expresses her own position; Brett, invited into the examination room, becomes witness and advocate, asking about prognosis when Sanquita is ready to leave the conversation. The center cannot settle the emotional or ethical decision for them. What it does is make the danger explicit, changing Brett’s effort to help from an act of concern into a confrontation with consequences that neither affection nor good intentions can erase.