The Diagnosis

Case 1: Wait 30 Minutes After Eating

Initial Symptom

Author's Note: I was watching House one day when curiosity struck me about one of the symptoms, so I pulled out my computer and looked it up. While reading about it, I noticed a particularly interesting cause for this symptom and suddenly had an idea: 'What if we had to figure out what was wrong with the patient?' This struck me as an interesting idea for a FanFiction, but maybe not the most entertaining. I decided to test it out by making this little game. Hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own House.

Instructions: The game is fairly simple; I have already picked a diagnosis and researched it. It's up to you to figure out what that diagnosis is either by researching the symptoms or using medical knowledge you may or may not have. Each chapter I will give you a new symptom to work with, and each chapter will be posted either after a guess, or after a few days have passed without a guess. You can talk amongst yourselves using any method, even the reviews if you like. Once you think you have a correct diagnosis post it in a review and say that it is your final guess for that chapter, and then I'll write the test for that diagnosis in the next chapter. You can also request something specific be tested if you want. There will be a chart at the end of each chapter for your benefit that lists various bits of information.

Here's some websites I would recommend using for research (just remove the spaces):

www . wrongdiagnosis . com (No, i'm not joking about this one, no matter what the site is called. This is actually one of the better ones.)

www. righthealth . com

www . webmd . com

www . illnessfinder . com

Even wikipedia and Google Health could be useful here.

As a side note, if you are having trouble debating a possible diagnosis in the reviews because of the one review a chapter limit, then remember that only applies if you're logged in. All you have to do is log out and you can post as many reviews as necessary to figure out the diagnosis.

~ Beach 10:25am ~

Jehnia sighed, somewhat bored. She was sitting down on a blue beach towel, propping herself up with her hands so she wasn't on the ground. Even though she was at the beach she couldn't think of anything to do.

Her eyes scanned the shore, but found nothing interesting. She sighed again and decided that the most interesting thing to stare at was her friend, Aero, swimming a little ways out, although swimming might not be the best word for… whatever it was.

He was doing some kind of random motion that vaguely resembled swimming, but more closely resembled a three-legged dog attempting to cross a swimming pool full of extra thick molasses.

While the dog was on fire.

She sighed a third time, and shook her head. They were both avid swimmers, and thoroughly enjoyed the activity, but Aero had an odd habit of trying to find better ways to swim.

So far, he wasn't having any luck.

Jehnia stood up and started walking out into the water, then began swimming over to where Aero was still doing his flaming, three-legged dog in molasses paddle in the same spot as before. A few seconds later he slowed, then finally stopped.

He floated there for a second or two before he turned to Jehnia and opened his mouth to say something.

Then promptly vomited an ounce or two of blood into the water.

"W- What the-?" Jehnia stuttered out, treading water for a moment before her rational mind kicked in.

She hoisted Aero's arm over her shoulders for extra support, then began to paddle him back to shore.

Unfortunately, a slightly out of shape 5' 5", 139lb, 17 year old girl dragging a barley conscious 5' 10", 174lb, 19 year old boy is not an easy feat, even in water.

Especially when he doesn't quite grasp the concept of 'shut up'.

"Well, this is not good," He mumbled absently, "But at least it can't get much worse."

And since there seems to be some cosmic law that makes everything worse when someone says that, it got worse.

It just so happened that a nearby shark, most likely a Thresher, attracted by the smell of Aero's blood, picked that exact moment to sink its teeth into Jehnia's left side, missing a major organ by inches.

"AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!" Jehnia shouted, instinctively swinging her arm at the shark. She hit it twice before scoring a lucky blow to its gills that made it let go.

Now they had a new problem, getting back to shore when Jehnia was wounded and Aero was sick.

Fortunately, a lifeguard had managed to reach them by this time and was able to paddle them both back to shore, albeit at a snail's pace. This was extremely painful for Jehnia, who was literally having salt poured on her wound.

It seemed to take hours, but it was actually just a few minutes. By the time they got back to the shore an ambulance was already waiting, apparently someone had called 911. Jehnia was rushed into the ambulance with Aero following along.

"What happened?" One of the paramedics asked him.

"She was bitten by a shark, what the hell do you think happened?" Aero replied angrily.

"No, I mean do you know why it bit her?" The paramedic asked.

"I- I think it was a-attracted to th-the bl-" Aero suddenly stopped talking and grabbed his stomach.

"Are you alright sir?" She barley finished her sentence when Aero suddenly bent forward and regurgitated a decent amount of blood onto the floor of the vehicle. Then he fell over into the red puddle.

"The patient's going into shock!" The paramedic said urgently.

"It looks like the wounds aren't too deep, she hasn't lost enough blood to go into shock," Another said, somehow failing to notice Aero despite the small size of the ambulance.

"Not the girl, the boy! He vomited up too much blood. He's sick," She said quickly.

The ambulance reached Princeton-Plainsboro with both Aero and Jehnia in somewhat stable conditions, and the file somehow found itself marked as follows.

Case Doctor: Gregory House M.D.

~ Chart ~

Patient Name

Aero Grillos

Medical History

Nothing Relevant

(A couple colds, one case of the flu)

Age

19

Hair Color

Blond

Skin Tone

White

Height

5' 10"

Weight

174 lb

Symptoms

Hematemesis (Vomiting Blood)

Secondary Symptoms

Hypovolemic Shock due to blood loss

(AN: It's important to note that if a symptom is listed here, it's not directly caused by the final diagnosis, it's caused by one of the other symptoms. In this case, the patient vomiting up too much blood caused the shock.)

Other Information

Patient is an avid swimmer

Diagnosis

N/A

~ Break ~

Author's Note: Well, there's the first symptom. Unless one of you happens to be an amazing guesser, you're not likely to figure out the diagnosis from just this. Good luck figuring it out.