Kith and Kin
By Ellie J.
Disclaimer: I do not own House M.D. I am just playing with the characters. I do own Cheryl, Bill, Jack and Patrick Cuddy though.
A/N1: Medical stuff alert! I'm not a doctor. This is based on something I saw on Mystery Diagnosis. And believe it or not, this is (with minor tweaking) how they diagnosed the patient.
Chapter 7
Cuddy and House stopped for breakfast at a small bakery. Since they were in a hurry, House easily talked her into breaking her ban on carbs in favor of getting a blueberry muffin and a bottle of water. House ordered a bear claw and a cup of coffee to go.
They enjoyed an easy silence as they ate on their way to the hospital. Once there, House dropped off the samples that they had taken to be analyzed and went to get the results of the tests he had asked for. The Dean had graciously given him a small conference room – whiteboard included – to think in.
She bit back a smile as she watched him flop down on one of the chairs and spin it around.
"Nice," he said in approval. "Do you think if I came here, I would get a chair like this?" he asked to goad her.
Cuddy refused to take the bait. "House, I wasn't kidding about showing him your legal bills. Face it. No one but me is masochistic enough to put up with you."
"Masochism … is that what it is?" he asked with a gleam in his eye. She found herself smiling, but didn't answer him.
"I'm going to go check in with Cheryl and the boys."
"Don't forget about Daddy Dearest," he said in a taunting voice.
She rolled her eyes. "Definitely masochism," she muttered just loudly enough for House to hear as she left. He just smiled and turned back to his whiteboard and picked up the phone to call his staff.
Cuddy stopped off to talk to the Dean of Franklin as a courtesy before going to see her father. 'Or you're just chicken,' a voice which sounded suspiciously like House's taunted in her head. She entered her father's room with an uncomfortable smile on her face. Cheryl and Patrick were sitting there watching The Price Is Right with her father. Jack was nowhere to be seen.
"Lisa," Cheryl said, apparently surprised. "That didn't take as long as I thought it would."
"I still don't see why you had to go rifling through our home," her father said, obviously irritated.
Cuddy took a deep breath and forced herself to meet her father's gaze. "Dad, House needs to see the big picture if he's going to figure out what's wrong with you. That includes seeing if there's anything in your home and work that could be affecting you."
"And no one else?"
"It could be a combination of things. House doesn't want to leave any stone unturned. House knows what he's doing. Just let him do his work so he can figure out what's wrong with you."
"He's so brilliant, but he doesn't know how to use a razor or an iron," he muttered.
"Luckily, he doesn't need to use a razor or an iron to diagnose you."
Her father stared at her a moment before nodding and looking back towards Cheryl. A part of Cuddy felt like laughing. That was the most she'd said to her father since arriving yesterday. Of course, she spent so much of her time defending House and his methods that she could probably do it in her sleep.
She turned to Patrick. "Where's Jack?" she asked.
Patrick rolled his eyes. "He went to go find a quiet place to study. Apparently he can't read while people are playing Plinko."
"He's going to college soon, he can't afford to let his grades drop," their father irritably said.
"His grades are fine, Dad," Patrick told him. "He's just too anal to get anything less than an A."
"You could stand to have his work ethic …" their father began, but trailed off. Cuddy noticed that he had gotten much paler and that his face was covered with a fine sheen of sweat.
"Dad," Cuddy said as she approached the bed. "Dad, can you hear me?" she asked. Her father looked blankly at her as if he couldn't understand what she was saying. His breath was becoming shallower and he started to shake violently. Cuddy ran to the door. "He's having a severe hypoglycemic reaction!" she shouted into the hallway.
The room was a cacophony of motion as medical personnel came in with medication that they injected into the IV. Cuddy just stood there, feeling useless, but knowing it was best to stay out of everyone's way.
After what seemed an eternity, her father's condition began to improve.
"That came on fast," she told the nurse. The nurse gave her a worried look.
"We cannot get his blood sugar stabilized. I hope your Dr. House can figure this out quickly."
Cuddy bit her lip as she understood what the nurse didn't say. If House didn't diagnose her father soon, then he would die.
House grumpily walked into the hospital cafeteria to by himself a soda before going up to Bill Cuddy's room. There were some holes in the medical history that needed to be plugged up before he and the others could do a proper DDx.
House paid for his soda and then noticed Jack sitting in the corner of the cafeteria reading something. Acting on impulse he approached the young man and sat down opposite him. Jack looked up in surprise.
"What are you reading?" House asked.
"The Return of the Native."
"God that's a depressing book."
"Welcome to senior year AP Lit: One depressing book after another."
House studied the young man for a moment. "Why are you here reading it here?"
"The television was bothering me in Dad's room."
"No, let me rephrase. Why are you reading it at all?"
Jack shuffled in his seat. "I need to keep my grades up for college."
"Oh please," House scoffed. "Your father's in the hospital. Teachers eat that kind of stuff up. Besides, colleges will take 'Overcoming Personal Tragedy' essays over grades any day."
"You think I should exploit my father's illness to get me into college?" he asked angrily.
"I'm saying that any kid who would be so worried about getting into college that he would rather do homework than spend time with his sick father would take advantage of any angle he could get." Jack looked down and studied the front of the book as House continued. "But that's not really what you're doing here, is it?"
Jack met his gaze head on. "That's really none of your business, is it?"
House chuckled. "No. But you remind me of your sister so much that sticking my nose where it doesn't belong is almost second nature."
Jack changed the subject. "Aren't you supposed to be doing whatever it is that you do to help my father?"
"I was just grabbing a soda on my way to his room. The history that they took isn't as complete as I would like, and nice change of subject there. I have no idea why I'm imparting this advice to you since imparting advice goes against everything that I believe in, but here it is. Don't waste your time doing things that you have control over just to avoid the things that you don't. If the worst happens, are you going to really care if you read that last chapter of The Return of the Native? Come on, let's go to your dad's room," House said as he got up. Jack looked at him, almost resentfully, but followed anyways.
House was relieved when Jack didn't say anything as they got on the elevator. He didn't want to think too much about why he had offered the advice.
The elevator doors opened and they headed towards the hospital room. House's eyes widened in surprise to see several doctors and nurses exiting the room. He heard Jack gasp and watched the young man run into the room. House was right behind him.
Bill Cuddy was lying on the bed, obviously recovering from an attack. House's eyes quickly scanned the room and saw "his" Cuddy in conference with a doctor and a nurse. She looked up and saw him, and House was strangely pleased to see relief flash in her eyes to see him there. He walked over to join her and the other doctor.
"He had a severe hypoglycemic attack. They were able to bring him out of it, though." The doctor next to her quietly cleared his throat. House could see that she was annoyed with the man, but he was sure that no one else could. "Dr. House," she said in her Dean of Medicine voice, "This is Dr. Smythe. He's been in charge of my father's case until now. Dr. Smythe, this is Dr. House."
"Who did this medical history?" House asked without preamble.
"One of my students," Smythe answered.
"Well your student's a moron and so are you if you think that this is an adequate medical history." Cuddy rolled her eyes as she watched Smythe's face turn an interesting shade of red.
"Why don't we discuss this outside my father's room?" Cuddy said as she not so gently guided the men away from her family.
"Cuddy, you have no idea what I just went through with Cameron," he complained as soon as they were in the hallway. "She's going to bring this up every time I complain about her getting too much information from a patient from now until her fellowship ends. She was unbearably smug over the phone."
"Poor you," Cuddy said without a trace of sympathy. She turned to Smythe who was fuming next to her.
"We did the standard history that we do for every patient here," Smythe began as he defended himself.
House snorted derisively. "Well gee. That works well when you have a patient with something easy like appendicitis or syphilis. But did you think that you might want to get some more information when you couldn't figure out what was wrong with him? Or were you too busy having sex with your students to actually look at their work!"
Smythe paled with anger. "I want an apology, and I want it now."
"I'm sorry that you're an idiot, and that you're involved in training an entire generation of idiot doctors." House told him very sincerely. Smythe made a move as if he were about to punch House, but Cuddy inserted herself in between them.
"Stop it!" she hissed at them both. She turned to House. "This is my father. Can you, just once, behave in a manner that won't get you punched?" He looked down and Cuddy was surprised to see a hint of guilt in his eyes. "Go and get a better history." House opened his mouth, but Cuddy smacked him in the arm. "Go." He gave Smythe a dirty look and left.
She turned to Dr. Smythe. "Dr. House is a brilliant physician, but unfortunately, he's also a giant jackass. The thing is, he gets to be a jackass because he's right most of the time." A hint of the anger she was feeling made its way to her eyes and Smythe stepped back a bit. "This is a teaching hospital. So you might want to take the time to teach your students to do something as basic as taking a history." She left Smythe sputtering in the hallway to join House and her family in her father's room.
She found House sitting in a chair as he asked them all his 'standard' medical history questions. She knew she would probably have to get the family out of the room later so that House could ask the more embarrassing questions that her father wouldn't likely answer in front of them, but for now it was just the general stuff.
"Has there been any other changes in your health, no matter how small or insignificant, over the past year?" House asked as he chewed on the pen.
"Not that I can think of," her father answered.
Cheryl interrupted. "Bill, you were complaining about being short of breath."
"That's just me getting old," he told her.
"When did you start feeling short of breath?" House asked.
"A few months before all this started. I'm not a young man, anymore. My age is finally catching up with me." House was deep in thought as he stared at her father. Cuddy held her breath; she knew that look. He had an idea.
"I didn't see any scans of your chest in your file. Has anyone listened to you breathe since this all started?" House asked.
Her father thought for a moment. "I don't think –," he started but was unable to finish as House raced out the door.
"House! What do you think--," Cuddy asked as she followed him. She caught up with him in time to see him grab a random nurse, steal her stethoscope and start to make his way back to her father's room as he disregarded the angry squawkings behind him.
"House!" Cuddy said, once more, trying to get his attention, but he ignored her as he approached her father, put the earpiece in, and placed the stethoscope's diaphragm against his chest.
"Breathe in deeply," he instructed. Her father complied and House listened as he moved the stethoscope around his chest. When he got to the lower right side of his chest he stopped and concentrated. He met Cuddy's gaze, and she knew he had something.
"What is it?" Cuddy asked. He took off the stethoscope and handed it to her. She put it on and listened to her father breathe. She looked up at House in surprise.
"Oh my God," she whispered.
"What do you hear?" Cheryl asked, obviously frightened.
"Nothing," Cuddy replied.
"What? I don't understand?" Cheryl asked.
"She doesn't hear anything," House answered for her. "Which is bad. The lungs are a noisy place. We should be able to hear air moving around, but there's nothing going on in that part of the lungs. We need to order scans to see what's going on in there."
"But you have an idea," Patrick said. Cuddy met House's gaze and he seemed to be asking permission to tell them. She nodded slightly.
"I think he may have a tumor in his lung."
"A tumor? Cancer?"
"Probably," House said.
"How is that messing with his blood sugars and causing all of the wrinkles?" Cheryl asked, turning paler by the second.
House looked away before beginning to explain to everyone. He wasn't good at this part of being a doctor. "I believe you have something called Non-Islet Cell Tumor Hypoglycemia. The tumor is secreting a hormone that eats up the sugar in the bloodstream, and also, in rare cases, it can act like Human Growth Hormone. To confirm the diagnosis, we're going to need to run some more tests."
"What's the treatment?" Bill asked.
Cuddy met House's gaze, and she answered for him. "We'll have a better idea once we get a scan to see how big the tumor is, but I would say in your case, because of the difficulty in maintaining a normal blood sugar, they'll probably want to try and remove the tumor, and then treat you for the cancer."
Cheryl started to silently cry, and Bill took her hand to comfort her. The boys went over to support their parents, but Cuddy stayed off to the side, not knowing exactly what to do. House watched the scene with a flash of anger. He knew that they weren't doing it deliberately, but it seemed wrong to have Cuddy standing alone like this.
"I'll go and arrange for those tests," he told the subdued family.
"I'll go with you," Cuddy said, needing to leave the room for a moment. She met House's understanding gaze, but quickly looked away. She couldn't deal with his pity right now.
Tbc
A/N2: On my profile page, there is a link to the Something To It – House/Cuddy Fanfiction Awards page. I'm not saying this to have you nominate me (although I wouldn't complain if you did), but the organizers have put out a call saying that they need nominations, and I'm doing my part to get the word out. It's actually the FAQ page, but it gives instructions on how to nominate and all that jazz on there.
A/N3: Please Review.
