Chapter 10

Suffer the Children

I picked up the phone, "Hello?"

"Philly? How are you?"

I recognized Mike Townsend's voice, "Oh, hi Mike, I'm doing well. You?"

"Fine, I received House's email with your vitals. It looks like you're healing well."

"I feel better. I don't get as winded as before and there's been no infection." I paused, it felt like Townsend had some other reason for calling, "Is that all you wanted to know?"

"I'm afraid not. Is House there?"

His voice had turned very serious and I felt a shiver run down me. "No he isn't. I sent him to make a house call. Mike, what's up?"

"I guess I can tell you since you'll have to administer it. I just got House's liver enzyme results and he needs to stop the Vicodin immediately. They've gone up substantially since two weeks ago. I'm sending you Methemoglobinemia. I want you to administer it and then get him down here. We have to get him off the Vicodin."

"He's been seeing you?" My voice squeaked.

"Not really. When he came in with you I did a blood panel and he's been sending down a sample of his blood each week with the patient samples. The liver enzymes were elevated when he was here before. Now they're worse. He's got to get off of the opioids, he's blowing his liver."

I felt sick to my stomach. My skin felt like it was crawling up my bones. I wanted so much to find him and keep him safe. We talked on the phone and Mike told me to start going through his things, finding the Vicodin.

"Philly, I've been through this. You're going to need to be ruthless. First, take his car keys away so he can't leave. I want to put him through rapid detox. We'll admit him to ICU and then we'll put House out with anesthesia. While under anesthesia, I'll administer medications that accelerate the physical reactions to the rapid withdrawal process."

I felt stupid. I had never heard of rapid withdrawal or if it even worked. But we had no option, Greg was losing his liver and would need a liver transplant or die if we didn't reverse the process soon. I doubted they would give him a liver if he wasn't off the drugs.

I told Mildred to shut the clinic down for the rest of the day. I drove home and started tearing his studio apart. He apparently didn't feel a need to hide the stash from me, because it was in his bathroom, in the medicine cabinet. I pocketed it and then went up to my house. Since coming home from the hospital, he had moved in with me. There had been no discussion; I heard him come through the door, drop something and walk into the kitchen where I was. I looked out in the living room and in the corner was most of his stuff. He acted as if movie in with me was a 'done thing' and he was following through on our plans. I said nothing because I did need his help to get well and, so far, he had been very good to me.

There was another full bottle of Vicodin hidden in a bottle of vitamins and half a bottle in a sock. I flushed everything down the toilet. I knew I needed to go through his car when he got home. I waited, my heart racing, worried to death about him. I couldn't sit down, so I dusted and vacuumed. Fifteen minutes later he drove into the driveway, getting out and coming inside.

He closed the door and looked at me suspiciously, "Why is the clinic closed?"

"We need to get to the hospital."

"Why?"

"We have a patient that's in liver failure. Come on, we've got to take him down the mountain."

"Let me go pee first."

I thanked God that he went into the bathroom. Knowing I had very little time, I ran out to his car and started going through it. I found one vial with only a few pills in it. I wasn't feeling good about that, pretty sure there was more somewhere. I thought I would find more, but I didn't.

I rushed back inside and found him in the kitchen. He was starting to raid the refrigerator, but I didn't want him to eat in case we needed his stomach to be empty. "Honey, we have to get going." I said. I only realized after I said it that I had called him honey.

He stopped in his tracks and narrowed his eyes, "Honey?"

I walked over and kissed him, feeling his back pockets for vials. I moved my hand to the front, pretending to fondle him while I looked for more vials.

He chuckled, "You have a funny way of hurrying me out the door."

There were no vials in his pockets, so I went for the coat pockets. There was one in there."Well, we can always take a little time out to have a snuggle."

He reached around to hold and kiss me. I slipped my hand into the pocket of his jacket and took the vial. He stopped my hand cold as I tried to pull it out. He held my wrist, looking in my eyes, expecting me to release the vial. I wouldn't give up my bounty.

He turned his head and lowered his voice, "What's going on?"

"Let my wrist go or kill me, but you're not getting the vial."

His eyes grew big and his mouth dropped open in shock. He let go of my wrist. He stood there staring over my shoulder, as if he was in deep, deep thought. Then his eyes cleared and he stared at me.

"I'm the patient in liver failure and you're taking me into detox."

I broke down. Tears were streaming down my cheeks. I was having a hard time trying to keep it together. In my head I pictured a full blown addict, refusing to admit he had a problem, fighting me all the way. I could only whisper, "Greg, please let me take you in--"

He shook his head and looked at me as if I was crazy, "Whoa, whoa, whoa...are you crazy? I'm not an idiot. If my liver is getting worse, I need to detox. You don't have to get out the straightjacket or mace; I'll go willingly. Unless, this is some kind of kinky foreplay, if I resist, you seduce me into going."

My whole body started to relax. He picked some things out of his clothes, threw them in a bag and then grinned ridiculously at me, "Let's get this party started." He started walking out to the jeep, "I suspect I'll be going through rapid detox."

I slowly nodded as I got into the jeep. He was undressed and in a hospital gownl two hours later. Philly pinched his butt through the open gab in the back. He was going through detox the next morning. I told Mildred to close the clinic. I wasn't going to be able to function anyway. I had just been given a crash course in how to take care of a maniacal drug addict by Dr. Mike and I was nervous as hell. While Greg was detoxing, I made myself useful and made some calls. The first was to Larry Scott in Beckley.

"Larry Scott."

"Hi, this is Philly MacKenna."

There was a pause, "The doctor in Peapatch?"

"Yes. I'm calling about June? You're suppose to come up in June to take my place so that I can go to Italy."

He seemed suspicious, "Yes. Don't worry, I'll be there in June."

"I'm desperate. I need someone to spell me for the next two weeks. If you can send a resident for next two weeks, you're off the hook for June."

"Did House agree to this?"

"Yeah, it's my time off; he said I can take it anytime I want."

He chuckled, "This is great, I was just cursing my luck. My best friend just offered me a slot at St. Andrews that week in June, now I can go. Hey, no problem, they'll be there the day after tomorrow."

"Thanks. Have them talk to Mildred at the clinic."

Mike Townsed gave me the Naltrexone to administer to House when he got home.

"Philly, this isn't going to be easy. Rapid detox isn't a cure-all. He's going to have a fever, cramping, diarrhea. He'll be angry, tired, depressed. It will take a week before he starts to come out of it. Worse, from what I've heard about him, he's not the nicest person anyway. This will amplify it. He may say things he doesn't believe or are exaggerated. So take everything with a grain of salt." He patted my knee and got up, "Oh, we'll send you home with some adult diapers."

I swallowed hard and nodded.

I was allowed in to see him four hours later. I started crying again, he had drool coming down his mouth and chin, snot was running out his nose, his eyes were sunken, he was white and pasty. Some tiny blood vessels had obviously burst close to the surface of nasal passages, because he has a little blood coming out his nose. He looked at me with one eye open and shook his head. I reached over and felt his head, he was hot. He knocked my arm away.

"Don't touch! Don't touch! Touching hurts." He yelled at me.

I backed up, "Okay, okay." I looked at his chart and then asked him, "How are you doing?"

"How the fuck do you think I'm doing? Christ, just get out and let me sleep."

"Okay? I'll be taking you home tomorrow."

"Fine, see you tomorrow."

I went over to kiss him and remembered he didn't want to be touched. He gave me a look to warn me not to come closer. "Before I go home, is there any Vicodin I may have missed?"

"I don't think so. You found it in my sock?"

"Yes."

"Then you found the one I really hid."

I knew that wasn't true, I had found the pills in the vitamins, "Okay, I'll see you tomorrow."

I picked him up in the morning. An orderly wheeled him out to the jeep. He looked like hell again. He had a Kleenex in one hand and in the other, his cane, laying across his lap. The orderly had to help him get into the jeep. He had no energy, he laid his head against the window as we drove along.

"I need to get gas." I said.

"Ah, shit! Couldn't you get it before you picked me up? I want to get home. Christ don't you think ahead?"

I said nothing, I simply pulled into the gas station and started to get gas. I heard the passenger door open and ran over to see him trying to get out. "Damn it, I have to go take a crap. The cramps, they're horrible." He reached for the handle and then fell back against the seat, "Oh no...no. Damn, Philly...I'm..."

I knew he had just had an accident in his pants. It was the reason that Mike had made sure that I had diapers. I went to the back and got a diaper out of the back and put it under the him on the seat. He was embarrassed, angry and exhausted and I was the whipping post in his path.

"Do you need help getting back into the jeep?"

"Jesus Fucking Christ! Can't you see I've crapped my pants? I don't want to get back in and sit on it!"

"I was going to take you back and get you cleaned up at the hospital."

He clenched his jaw, rolled his eyes and got back inside. I finished filling up and got back inside. It smelled horrible and I felt terrible for him. I drove back to the hospital, went inside and got a wheelchair. He was so exhausted, it was hard for me to even get him into the chair. I took him up to the doctor's lounge, grabbed some scrubbs and helped him into the shower where I leaned him up against the tile and cleaned him up. He put on the diaper himself and then we got him into the turquoise scrubs. The doctor's showers were personal cubicles, so I wasn't worried about anyone seeing us. After he was clean, we put him back in the wheelchair, wheeled him to the jeep and I started to drive home. I looked over at him as he slept. He looked older, weary, and uncomfortable. I felt terrible for him.

I put him to bed and then made him some soup. He ate it along with a small piece of french bread, stopping as his stomach cramped and his bowels let loose again. He exhaled and looked up at the ceiling in frustration. We got him into the bathroom and cleaned him up again. He started to complain that he was cold so I dressed him in sweatpants and put him back in bed. I rushed down to the basement to put on some logs to warm the house.