Chapter 9
At House's insistence, Cameron went to lie down in his office while he made a fresh pot of coffee. Sitting in the conference room, he stared at the whiteboard and tried to piece together the latest puzzle, but his heart just wasn't in it. Every few minutes, his eyes would slide across the room to his office, as he checked to see if Cameron was really sleeping.
Foreman and Chase came in behind him and House turned, expecting them to tell him it had been Lyme disease. The looks on their faces immediately told him they were still on the wrong track.
"Negative on both hemochromatosis and Lyme disease," Foreman announced.
"And we've got new symptoms," Chase added. "Numbness in his extremities and some abdominal pain."
"I'll eat the chart if you want, but we should at least test for lupus," Cameron said, coming in from House's office.
"You don't get lupus driving home from the beach," House said, but with less sarcasm than normal. Something was bugging him. "Who actually examined the patient?"
"I did," Chase answered.
"Does he have a rash?" House asked.
"He's sunburned from head to toe, his whole body looks like a rash. Why?"
"Has he been scratching?" House asked the ducklings.
"Of course, his skin is peeling like crazy," Chase answered. Where was House going with this?
"It's not just a sunburn," House said. He stood up and left his ducklings staring after him as he went to see his patient.
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"So, this was obviously your first time scuba diving," House said to the patient as he walked into the room.
"What?" Derek asked, groggy, removing the oxygen mask from his mouth to speak, and the replacing it.
"Scuba diving, this vacation was the first time you'd ever done it," House repeated.
"Yeah, so what?" Derek asked.
"Did you listen to your instructor when he warned you about all the bad things that could happen to you if you didn't do it right?" House asked him.
"Sure," Derek said.
"And did you think he made all that stuff up to scare you, or did it occur to you that maybe he knew what he was talking about?" House continued.
"What are you talking about?" Derek asked, confused.
"Okay, you're barely breathing and you're in pain, so right now at least you have an excuse for being a moron. You went back out diving alone, without the instructor or any of your friends. Then you surfaced too quickly and got decompression sickness, because like every other 20 year old male on the planet, you think you're Superman and nothing bad will happen to you," House explained. "Why did you go back out by yourself?"
Derek looked away from House, embarrassed. House made a frustrated noise and grabbed Derek by the arm.
"Look, if we don't know for sure that this is what's wrong with you, we can't treat you for it. And if we do nothing, you're just going to get worse until eventually you die. I say eventually because I don't know exactly how long it will take but since it's only been about six hours since you got here and you've already presented with about a dozen symptoms I'm going to say that was the last vacation you'll ever take. Now tell me what you did," House commanded.
"There was this really pretty reef we saw, and then a sunken ship. We explored it for a little while, but we had to get back and we couldn't collect anything. You know, like a souvenir. Just as we were surfacing, Jodi, that's the blonde, she saw this like candleholder thing, but the instructor wouldn't let her dive back down to get it. So I figured if I got it for her…" he let his voice trail off, partly from embarrassment and partly because the more he talked the harder it was to breathe. House grabbed the mask and prevented him from placing it back on his face.
"So you went back out alone to get it and you screwed up," House said. "Why didn't you tell anybody when you got back?"
"Because I didn't get the candle-holder. I couldn't find it again. How stupid would I look to her if I couldn't get it and I got myself sick?" Derek choked out, desperately. House relented, and let him put the mask back on.
"You're an idiot. But at least you won't be a dead idiot," House said to him. He stepped out of the room, where Foreman and Chase were waiting. "Treat him for decompression sickness. The moron went out diving alone to try to impress a girl."
