This chapter isn't terribly exciting. A new symptom. Sorry it took so long, I've been busy. Here it is, though, chapter seven.
The Common Cold
Chapter Seven
House rolled his eyes as he sat behind the x-ray machine. Cuddy was looking at the screen displaying the x-ray of House's nose. After Foreman had punched him, he had bled so quickly, the team panicked as they held towels to his face. They applied pressure until the blood clotted enough that his nose stopped spewing crimson fluid. House wanted to protest, or at least make a snide remark, but with the newfound symptom of slurring, he couldn't exactly speak in a manner anyone would easily understand.
Cuddy, to make sure they didn't have to take such measures to get House back to the clean room, had a few of the security officers standing outside the door, ready to take him on if he tried to get away. Of course, with his leg, it wasn't like he was going anywhere very quickly.
She looked at the screen and sighed in such a way that showed the situation was exactly as she had suspected it was. She leaned into the microphone.
"It looks like it's broken, House." House simply scowled.
"We need to set it. Come on." They both left the x-ray room, Cuddy keeping a firm grip on House's arm.
XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx
A while later House was in the clean room beside Jared's. He was hooked up to all kinds of monitors, beeping and flashing and doing all sorts of annoying things. He hated being in a clean room, or any hospital room for that matter, at least as a patient. He couldn't diagnose while in here. Well, he could, but it would involve Jared possibly hearing everything that was said and since he was the patient, that could get irritating. Not to mention his team wouldn't want to spend any more time in a clean room than necessary due to the obvious risk of getting infected.
He kept thinking of possible solutions to the mystery. They had exhausted seemingly every possibility. They knew it was an infection, that was what made them think it was the common cold in the first place. So what kind of infection looks like a cold at first, until black sludge starts filling your throat? He had the unshakable feeling that it was something obvious- something his mind was discarding, but shouldn't be. The answer was simple. It was right in front of his face, yet he couldn't see it. He hated it when the diagnosis turned out like that.
House had been looking around the room for some kind of clue to what he was missing when he noticed Jared's bed. He noticed, in particular, the bag for storing the patient's urine. A small portion of it was peeking from the other side of the bed. To House, looking at this man's symptoms was like looking at his future. His bleak future. He should have been scared, but strangely, he wasn't. He should have been terrified out of his mind-he was going to die. If the respiratory arrest didn't confirm it, this did. Jared wasn't scared yet, but that was because he was asleep and as of now had no idea that the urine in his bag was a rusty orange-brown. Jared had no idea that his kidneys were failing.
House pressed the nurse button on the side of his bed. The nurses at the nurse's station, saw what room the call was coming from, realized it was House, and paged his team to come to the room to investigate. Cameron, Chase, and Foreman came running into the room in their scrubs, looking panicked.
"House, are you alright?" Foreman asked. Once they saw that House was fine, they all seemed to relax a bit more.
"Don't scare us like that." Cameron said, exasperated "When we got the call from the nurse's station we thought you'd gone into respiratory arrest again!"
He wished so badly that he could make a snide comment. The fact that it would just come out sounding so slurred the comment would just come out sounding more stupid than funny.
So in an effort to avoid looking like an idiot, instead of telling his team about Jared's failing kidneys, he decided to show them. House got up out of the hospital bed.
"House, what are you doing?" Chase was the first to speak up "You're in bed for a reason!" The other two just stood and stared. To this day they never knew why they were so surprised. House did this every single time he got a patient like this and every single time they were surprised when he did something ridiculous or just plain dangerous.
House wanted to avoid talking as much as possible, so he walked over to Jared's bed. He had neglected to grab his cane, causing him to limp very heavily on his right leg. He moved around to the opposite side of the bed, where Jared's bag of urine was hanging. He lifted it for his team to see, his face giving away the full danger of the situation.
"His kidneys are failing..." Cameron muttered.
"I guess we'll start him on something to help his kidneys..." Foreman said "Whatever this is it's spread there."
"What goes from the throat, to the brain, and then jumps all the way down to the kidneys? Nothing in the middle is sick. Why are only certain parts of his body being effected and not everything?" Chase asked.
"It could be his heart." Cameron suggested. The heart pumps blood everywhere in the body."
"Or it could be the blood itself." Foreman said.
"If it was the blood his whole body would be sick, wouldn't it?" Chase asked, trying to disprove the theory.
"Well, the same could be said for the heart." Foreman mentioned.
"I say we biopsy the kidneys," Chase told them "to see what kind of bacteria is eating away at them."
"We should probably biopsy House's kidneys as well." Cameron insisted "They have the same condition. If Jared's kidneys are failing now, House's will be shot by this time tomorrow."
They looked to their boss for approval. House gave them an answer by shooting them a dirty look.
"Biopsy his kidneys." he ordered, hating the way his voice sounded, slurring the way he was. He sounded drunk.
"Biopsy his, but you're not touching mine."
"House-"
"Listen. We have the same condition. You don't need to biopsy mine because his are in the same shape. Find out what's wrong with his, you find out what's wrong with mine. And mine don't need to be touched." He hoped they were able to understand all of that.
"Oh, and MRI his heart while you're at it."
His team simply nodded and walked out of the room.
