Positive
Author Note: Even though I'm pretty sure the show won't go in this direction, I'd thought it would be an interesting angle to pursue. If you want me to continue, please review. I don't own House.
The day they told you were HIV positive, you didn't feel any different than the day before. You got up in the morning, took your cocktail medley of pills, and went to work at PPTH just like you had for the past six weeks. People had stopped treating you differently by then, almost as though they had forgotten that you were ever exposed in the first place. You had a miniscule chance, they figured, and there was no real reason to be concerned. Of course, House et al. didn't go up to you with gashes in their palms and ask you to please bled into them, but there were no extreme precautions, no sheltered conversations, nothing much out of the ordinary.
That day was a lazy day, one of the days when House couldn't be bothered to find a patient, so you all sat around and did crossword puzzles to pass the time. Just as you were looking up the proper spelling of "Lesch-Nyhan" for Chase, House came barging in. Everyone looked up at him, expecting him to announce a new patient, but instead, he just gestured to you.
"The lab paged me for you. They want you down in Dr. Lynchburg's office, stat."
This in itself was an oddity; paging a doctor for another doctor was practically unheard of. You stood up, holding the unbelievably heavy Physician's Desk Reference in your hands. You tried to snap it shut, but your hands were shaking far too hard for that to be possible. Chase ran over to you and lifted the book from your hands. As he did, he caught your eye just slightly and stared at you. He was thinking, you could tell, of that night a little more than six weeks ago and what it could mean for him. You looked away and gave him a tight-lipped "thanks" in response.
"No problem, mate," he responded, grinning at you in such a way that you couldn't be sure whether he loved you or hated you. You guessed that would depend on what the doctor had to say.
………..
"Hello, Dr. Cameron," the man said in a flat, unreadable voice. "Why don't you have a seat?"
Numbly, you obeyed and plopped down in the chair opposite his desk.
"I reviewed the results from your blood work, and I have some unfortunate news. The tests indicate that you are indeed HIV+… I'm sorry."
You sat there, momentarily stunned. Weren't your chances "like zero?"
Dr. Lynchburg kept on talking, explaining the broader points of HIV: immunocompromization, T-Cells, etc., etc.
You held up your hand and protested, reminding him that you too sat through this lecture in med school.
"Sorry," he said, a bit taken back, and then continued. "Your treatment will start immediately. You'll begin on stronger doses of the same medications you've been taking, but we'll probably have to change the protocol as you develop resistance to them or as your condition progresses. I want to have you in for close monitoring at first to see how you're responding, including weekly blood work. Any questions?"
You had lots of questions, but you chose not to ask them. Your head was still spinning slightly from what he had told you. You were a doctor, the person who was supposed to heal others, not the patient. You had made your life out of fixing people; what were you going to do now?
"I know this is sensitive question, but I have to ask: do you know of anyone else that might have been exposed?"
Had you not been a doctor, you might have been shocked or even offended by what he was asking. However, you had been waiting for this question to pop up, so you were able to nod your head with just the slightest tinge of color rising to your cheeks.
"As I'm sure you're aware," Lynchburg said in an even, non-judgmental tone, "he'll have to be tested as well."
You nodded once more and began to stand. Lynchburg reiterated what you had been told before about penchants and background reviews, and then stood to get the door for you.
As you were leaving, you hold him call softly after you.
"Dr. Cameron? Go home and get some rest."
……
You sat in the restaurant with a huge salad in front of you and a glass of wine off to the side. You knew that in the future you'd likely experience pretty bad nausea as a result of the drugs, so this was your pseudo-last meal. You had walked out of PPTH without even stopping to get your bag from office, so you were paying with the emergency credit card you kept in your pocket for emergencies. You guessed receiving a death sentence was enough of an emergency.
You were always an extreme optimist, the one that believed everything could be cured, that nothing was truly a lost cause, but now you weren't so sure about that. You knew you were dying for sure; your blood spelled it out. There was no hope in chemo or radiation, no hope for a differential diagnosis. You had signed on with House because you believed there was always a certain degree of hope in the cases he took, the possibility that the unknown might not be as bad as everyone expected. With HIV, though, you knew there was no hope, and that was what made it so hard.
…….
When you got back to your apartment, you called Chase. You knew there was an excellent chance he wouldn't be in his office, and you were right. The machine clicked on and you sat there in silence, waiting for the right words to come.
"Hello. This is the office of Dr. Robert Chase, Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Please leave a message. If this is an emergency, please page…."
Click.
You slammed the receiver down. You couldn't tell Chase this over the phone (not that you could tell him in person, anyway). You couldn't admit to him that you, in your stupid meth-induced state, could have killed him. You weren't good with guilt, so you always avoided the chance to make yourself guilty. You did not let the dying die alone; you did not bare bad news; you followed the Hippocratic Oath like it was a matter of life and death. You couldn't let the one time in your life you weren't "Saint Cameron" be the time that killed both of you. You just couldn't.
You got in bed and huddled under a stuck of covers. It was only 3 PM, but you were more than ready for the day to be over. You would face House, Chase, and all the rest tomorrow when your head was more level.
You weren't very good at telling people they were dying, and you were apparently no better at telling yourself.