I don't own House or Wilson, or Cuddy, and this fiction is not intended to violate the owners' copyrights. This is a prequel to my stories, "The Logical Thing to Do" and "Visiting Day" and a sequel to "Writers Block" and "At Last." Legally, this storyline is entirely a fantasy. Judge Helen Davis appears in the episode, "Words and Deeds." David Schiff is an original character. Any resemblance to harpomarx's superb "Inquiry" is unintentional and merely due to the canon of the series.
Another Day in Court
Chapter 1
Judge Helen Davis leaned forward over her desk. "Doctor House, I've seen an awful lot of you in the last few years."
House shifted uncomfortably, leaning on his cane. "Yes, your honor," he agreed.
"This appeal will consider your prior conviction as well as pending charges, since they're related. Unlike your last go-round in a courtroom, you have a long list of witnesses willing to testify for you, and a much shorter list of witnesses submitted by the District Attorney." She shook her head. "You're never dull, I'll grant you." She sat back. "Well, the State has presented the reasons to deny your appeal. Now it's your turn. Everyone sit down so we can get this show back on the road."
A general rustling filled the courtroom as House, his attorney, the district attorney, and spectators all took their seats. Cuddy reached forward over the railing and rested her hand for a moment on the back of House's neck. He leaned back into the comfort she offered, then straightened his shoulders.
House had a new attorney for this latest legal adventure, a criminal lawyer named David Schiff. Stacy Warner had recommended him and House and his friends were pleased with his performance so far. Schiff glanced at his notes, then rose and faced the judge. "Your Honor, as I promised in my opening argument, we will begin by demonstrating that Doctor House's medical history is so extreme that he should never have gone to prison at all, thereby negating at least some of the present charges. I call his personal physician, Doctor Robert Chase."
The bailiff left the courtroom through the side door and returned with Chase following in his wake. After being sworn in, Chase seated himself in the straight-backed wooden chair in the witness stand. "Doctor Chase, I understand that Doctor House has given you permission to disclose his medical history?"
"That is correct."
"Very well." Schiff gathered up a banker's box stuffed with files. He made a show of hoisting the full box. "These are copies of Doctor House's personal medical files from Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, along with some files from other facilities where he has been treated, including Princeton General and Mayfield Psychiatric Hospital, and the prison infirmary from when he was incarcerated. Let me go over the major points with you, Doctor Chase."
Schiff pulled out a particularly thick file and handed it to Chase. "Doctor House was disabled by an unusual infarction in his right thigh. Please describe what happened and the consequences for Doctor House's health at the time and since."
Chase opened the file but didn't need to look at it as he cleared his throat and began to speak. "Doctor House suffered a blood clot that began in his right thigh, where it lodged and blocked a vein. In his first visit to an emergency room, the intense pain from dying muscle tissue, essentially the same as experienced during a heart attack but located in the thigh, was misdiagnosed as muscle strain. Heat and rest were prescribed. When Doctor House returned to the emergency room, his complaint was dismissed as drug-seeking behavior. After three days, Doctor House correctly diagnosed the infarction himself. By then, substantial muscle death had occurred. The recommended course of action was amputation. Doctor House demanded, instead, that the clot should be removed and blood flow should be allowed to return to the damaged tissue in an effort to save function in his leg."
"Was Doctor House warned that this was a risky choice, possibly even life-threatening?"
"He was warned and he knew it himself, but it was within several, possible treatment options."
"What happened next, Doctor Chase?"
"Toxic chemicals, resulting from the death of muscle cells, flooded his system. This, along with intense pain, caused his heart to stop. He was revived after over a minute in which he could have been considered clinically dead. At his request he was put into a medically induced coma to wait out the pain in hope that some muscle function would be restored. While he was unconscious, his medical proxy allowed the 'middle option,' surgery to remove the dead muscle. While the procedure probably saved his life, Doctor House awoke disabled and in pain, the condition he has been in, nearly continuously, since that time."
House tried to ignore the recitation of the catastrophic event that had shaped his life, but it was hard to filter out Chase's clear, low voice and the concise description of his medical condition. He felt his face warm and realized he was blushing.
"Doctor Chase, could you describe the effect this event has had on Doctor House since that time?"
"Doctor House has limited mobility and use of his leg due to the amount of muscle removed. He has tried to find relief from pain, that on a good day, probably feels like a muscle cramp. During episodes of breakthrough pain, it is equivalent to the agony of advanced stage cancer, perhaps like a root canal without anesthetic, only covering much of his upper thigh." House watched the judge wince, and behind him, several people audibly caught their breath. He felt his leg twinge as if to confirm Chase's all-too-accurate description.
"What sort of impact has this chronic pain had on Doctor House's life?" the attorney continued.
Chase looked sympathetically at House before he continued. "It is difficult to impossible for Doctor House to pursue physical activity. He was very active before the infarction and has had to give up sports that were very important to him, such as golf and an adult lacrosse league. He walks with a cane and is beginning to suffer from arthritis in his right shoulder as a result, as well as damage to his left hip from carrying most of his weight. Both joints may have to be replaced eventually. Long walks around the hospital are hard on him. He sleeps with difficulty and at times has trouble with his appetite. Besides pain control medication, he must take a blood thinner that requires regular monitoring to prevent any more blood clots, along with other medications to treat related conditions."
"How has Doctor House tried to manage his pain?"
"He used Vicodin, a narcotic mixed with acetaminophen, that is addictive and that, used long-term, poses a threat to his liver and other organs. He prefers it because he finds that it controls the pain well enough while allowing him to keep his mind clear. After several attempts at detoxing, he is Vicodin free and uses prescription-strength ibuprofen. He is seeing a pain management specialist at Princeton General with regular office visits, counseling, and physical therapy. Other types of drug therapy and possibly an electrical system called TENS may be tried. He goes to the emergency room for relief from break-through pain where strong narcotics are administered as necessary. Breakthrough pain may be intense enough to cause a heart attack or stroke, so it is a legitimate emergency. He has had to go to ER twice this month alone, a little more frequently than usual, perhaps due to stress related to these proceedings. Doctor House also has, in the past, used alcohol to excess. He has ceased to do that and conditions of his probation have prohibited any alcoholic drink.
"As his personal physician, what is your impression of Doctor House's condition?"
Chase paused to consider his words for a moment. "When I worked for Doctor House, I knew he was in pain much of the time. Now that I am his personal physician as well as his colleague, I can appreciate how hard he has to struggle to function. He used to be late to work nearly every day, but I didn't' realize that it was because he rarely got a decent night's sleep and how much longer it takes him to conduct simple daily activities like getting ready for work. I also never appreciated just how irritating it was for him to have to deal constantly with his medical condition. He didn't always manage it well. Doctor House is a rather," Chase cleared his throat, "a rather private and strong personality. He dismissed our expressions of concern, sometimes in a nasty way, so that we tended to assume that his Vicodin use was tied to emotional issues rather than trying to manage intense, unending pain, or we just didn't want to set him off. In other words, his friends and associates dismissed his desperate measures to deal with a miserable medical condition simply as addiction, or as an opportunity to be verbally abusive. Or maybe it's just unbearable to think of a friend in that much pain."
The District attorney stood up. "Objection, Your Honor."
"What is the nature of your objection, Mr. Edwards?"
"The witness is reporting how other people felt. It's hearsay."
"Sustained. Doctor Chase, please confine yourself to your own impressions and diagnoses."
House's counsel nodded. "Your honor, while it wasn't phrased that way, I think that's what Doctor Chase just did."
"Very well, Counsel. Just be careful. You may continue."
"Thank you, Your Honor." Schiff turned back to his witness. "Doctor Chase, why did Doctor House select you as his physician, after years with Doctor Wilson?"
"Both Doctor Wilson and Doctor House, as well as Doctor Cuddy, realized that Doctor Wilson's own illness would make it impossible to deal with the complexities of Doctor House's condition. In addition, Doctor Wilson felt that their close friendship precluded the objectivity needed."
"Shouldn't Doctor House and Doctor Wilson have reached that conclusion some time ago?"
"You'll have to ask them."
"Please describe the other measures Doctor House has taken to deal with his pain?"
"Doctor House tried to get into a clinical trial aimed at treating the depression associated with advanced cancer, in hopes that it would help his pain. He was rejected. He tried methadone. It worked, but methadone is difficult to manage and has an impact on respiration. He also felt that it impaired his judgment so he chose to stop using it. After he was shot, he was placed in a ketamine-induced coma at his request and awoke pain free. The relief lasted about three months, then the pain returned. He injected himself with an experimental drug to grow muscle, but the drug induced the growth of benign tumors, necessitating emergency surgery to remove them. He is cooperating closely with his pain management team at this time and is doing fairly well. One of the requirements has been that he should use a wheel chair at least one day each week at the hospital. Another is frequent, random drug testing to make sure that he isn't taking anything or any quantity not prescribed. He receives counseling for, among other issues, pain-related depression related and he takes a prescribed anti-depressant."
"So is it fair to say that Doctor House cannot escape pain that is, at best, constant and inconvenient, and at times agonizing, and that Doctor House has pursued and is pursuing a number of ways to find relief?"
"That would be a fair summary."
"I submit to the court that Doctor House's disability and pain and the measures necessary to combat it, along with the complicated drug regimen Doctor House must follow, make him ineligible for incarceration in a general population. I would suggest that the intake assessment of the New Jersey prison system is badly flawed for having sent Doctor House to a high security prison, where he was monitored and medicated inadequately and forced to submit to the kinds of abuse from other prisoners that the prison system is reluctant to acknowledge. However, I will, at this time, present further evidence that Doctor House should never have been imprisoned to begin with."
The judge leaned forward and said, "Thank you, Mr. Schiff. It is time that the court recess for lunch. We will continue with Doctor Chase's testimony this afternoon. Court will reconvene at one-thirty." She banged her gavel.
The bailiff called, "All rise." Everyone in the room stood while the judge disappeared through the door into her chambers.
Chase walked over to House. "Hard to go over all that, isn't it? I'm sorry."
Blushing again, House said, "I feel like a sideshow freak. Come see the bearded lady… It's okay, Chase. It's what I get for running my car into Cuddy's dining room."
Cuddy had walked around the railing and hooked her arm around House's elbow. "Come on, I'll buy you lunch." She turned around to look for Wilson. "You too, James, this time, we stick together. Robert, I think we're not supposed to be seen talking together yet. Sorry."
"I know. Awkward isn't it?" Chase walked away to look for something to eat.
House said to Cuddy, "Lisa, this afternoon, it'll be hard to listen to. It will bring up stuff that, well, I wish we didn't have to talk about. I'm so sorry."
"Shhhh," she caressed his arm with her fingertips. "This was largely our idea, Wilson's and mine. You would have marched off to prison again without fighting. You've atoned enough. We've all atoned enough"
He started to pull away. "I'm a big boy, Lisa. I have to take responsibility for my own messes."
She wouldn't let go. "But that's just the point. We have so much damage behind us, on all sides. We were so swept up in events that we never stepped back to really look and see what we were doing to each other, what we were doing to you, what you were doing to yourself. Now, you don't have any say over this anymore. It's our turn and we're not trying to fix you. We're trying to fix the whole situation. Since you can't talk us out of it, you might as well have lunch."
House looked like a deer caught in headlights.
"You used to best Lisa in an argument sometimes," Wilson observed, "but she's holding the high card this time. Come on. I've got to gain some weight before the next round of chemo. Are you going to jeopardize my health after everything you went through to get me this far?"
House shrugged. "You're playing dirty, Wilson, and you know it," he said, but he followed Wilson out of the courtroom, Lisa's arm comfortingly snuggled under his.
-tbc-