Twenty Five Years Later – sex, intense and scary medical crisis, death, some reappropriated religious-ish themes
Suddenly awake at three in the morning, I rub my eyes and smell the coffee already roasting at the cafe near our new Hayes Valley loft and mixing with the scents of fog, our cats' food, and traffic.
I lean towards my husband in bed, embrace him, then pull away.
"I don't deserve you," I moan.
"Well, then don't deserve me. Just enjoy me," he responds in a thick whisper, and we do so, even at our advanced ages.
He's beautiful, and we've enjoyed twenty-two ecstatic years of marriage. And now we stay up for a few moments to chat.
"Hey, know what? They're finally installing that new diagnostics computer in our department. But we're not out of jobs yet...still too many kinks in the system to work out. And besides, with the economy the way it is, the power goes in and out, they have to conserve it for life support machines."
Now it's early morning at SF General, and the emergencies are already up and in full swing. In one room there's a sudden cardiac event with no prior health problems, down the hall there's a child with advanced pneumonia and blistered feet from walking all the way here, right in front of me is an injured veteran who needs two prosthetic legs after stepping on a landmine.
All over the rest of the place are the usual quiet catastrophes we've seen before and during Palin's presidency: malnutrition and complications of vitamin deficiency, fibromyalgia and other chronic conditions worsening with lack of treatment and stress, sexually transmitted infections in poor students and single parents, and of course the pepper spray and rubber bullet injuries.
Already I can hear the protests starting, and imagine the dusty men, women, and children outside on Market Street parading and chanting with stringy hair. "What do we want? A chance! When do we want it? Now!" Occasionally, someone yells, "Survival!" instead of "A Chance!" and the message gets a bit garbled.
After Alex, Philippe, Clara and Pericardia found work and moved out, I'd finally taken my husband's advice and earned a M.D., and now we shared a department. A team of dedicated unemployed interns now managed the Rorschach Zeitgeist, occasionally buzzing my Iphone with thoughts and questions, and we prided ourselves on being able to offer them a stipend, something to live on while covering the gaps on their resumes.
I glance out at the skyline, peering out towards the Civic Center. The Opera's doing a production of Lucrezia and the whole city's been covered in posters and billboards for the 'heroic martyr.' Rape and suicide amid the wreaths and glitzy shopping bags and adoptable storewindow puppies, shop til you drop!
Back to work, checking in on patients in various states of disrepair. Sprained ankles, pneumonia, broken arms, and an occasional bacterial infection. I try to start with treatable stuff first, to keep my spirits up before heading off to see the kids with cancer and the middle-aged folks with chronic heart disease and pulmonary conditions.
Everyone on our staff's in a pleasant mood today, at least. Park's cracked a few jokes here and there and Adams has brought everyone breakfast burritos with couscous and spinach. And the nurses are humming and making the best of our crowded busy day. And Wilson let Taub borrow some picture frames from his collection of gifts from patients to frame his baby pictures.
Everyone, except for the diagnostics computer. It's on the fritz again, along with the appointment calendar and billing database. We've called tech support, but they can't come out for another week.
"It's okay," my husband grins, then repeats more seriously. "I can handle it. Isn't that why you hired me, anyway?"
I smile.
So, he went at it, like a modern John Henry, who raced the steam engine to hammer in railroad ties, running from room to room and bed to bed, carrying his clipboard and stethoscope and shouting out thoughts to the nurses.
"Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease."
"Cough, cough. Thanks."
"Lupus. Unfortunately, it really is lupus this time," he says solemnly to a middle-aged woman, who nods and thanks him for finally acknowledging that something really is wrong with her, that she isn't simply lazy.
"Chronic fatigue syndrome. Possibly Epstein-Barr virus. Unfortunately even espresso might not help, but hang in there."
"Thanks." The patient reached to shake his hand, but my husband had to run out of the room with only a nod.
"Wilm's kidney tumor," he says to a young boy's parents. "Treatable, with a good prognosis."
"Obsessive-compulsive disorder. Caused by an untreated strep infection to the brain's basal ganglia," to a guy bouncing up and down on one foot. He then looks over at his mother, with a paisley pink purse bulging with extra pockets for the dozens of plastic packets of tissues she's carrying, and whispers under his breath, "Or, maybe it's hereditary."
I check in on a handful of my own patients, including several elderly folks with diabetes and heart trouble, and take the time to reassure a man with Alzheimer's disease that yes, he's in the right room and the right office.
Then, I start in on the reams of paperwork burdening all modern medical professionals. Insurance, billing, forms related to new drugs and malpractice lawsuits. None actually against House...the patients generally realized there was a method to his madness, once they walked out alive and healthy, or at least with logical answers about what was happening to them.
However, he'd been slowing down recently, limping more than usual and walking more slowly and sighing the way men do when their souls are tired. Some of it, I knew, was obviously that he was actually old, already seventy-two. But there was more, more weakness than usual. I noticed, because I was his wife, and woke up next to the guy every day...or well, several times a night. When the hospital started to get more crowded we had to agree that he'd sleep out on our futon couch before especially busy days, since whenever we shared a bed, we still hardly got any sleep at all ;)
But now, I was really worried about the guy, in a way I'd never been before. And I reached out to do a whole shelf of the bureaucratic paperwork that he cursed.
He passed by and saw me working, and wrapped his arm around my shoulder, inspiring wistful glances from Chase, Wilson, and Taub. Each of them had had their ups and downs in the love department, and I'd cheered them on and served as a patient sounding board for advice, as my husband had provided sarcastic little insights into the male psyche to Adams and Park. And I wished them all the best, as I'd developed a certain amount of sympathy over the years for those of all genders regarding matters of the heart.
And House had even softened over the years, speaking in a calmer voice and taking more suggestions from the diagnostics team. We appreciated that, but we'd also realized that deep down we admired his strength, his independence of mind and ability to stand up and lead when a decision had to be made. We wanted him to be kind, but to stay strong enough to make a difference in this hospital. So, I knew to let him be strong when it mattered, to never contradict him in public and to express my gratitude for the work he did to save so many lives.
But today he seemed less strong, seemed to have wrapped his arm around me as much for himself as for me.
"Well, my lovely queen, you'll be pleased to know that I've started an initiative among the doctors here where we're contributing a percentage of our own salaries to cover rape kits and exams for the survivors. No matter what the president says, this is San Francisco, not Wasilla, or South Dakota, or St. Laurence! This is civilization here, and we're going to act like it," he says, pounding his cane into the ground for emphasis.
I nod and thank him. He sees that I'm glancing over at an opera poster some visitor's left tacked up against the wall.
"We'll make it so there don't have to be any Lucrezias here. We've got a full on support system for all survivors of physical, societal, and economic violence. Family counseling to assist those who choose to report rapes and assaults, anonymous reporting to a community crimestoppers line, and community-based, nonpolice and prevention strategies for those who choose that route. I did not marry a Lucrezia, and I'm not letting the medical system create more violence in people's lives."
"Good for you! You can be my hero, anytime," calls Adams. She's come to understand House over the years, and his personal way of caring for others, even if it isn't traditionally sappy or philanthropic the way she would do it.
"And no person's going to have to choose between having a life and staying alive. Except, of course, for one woman," he says, gesturing towards a photo of the president. "Ms. Palin, now, if she gets raped, I'm telling her mom to keep her safe at home, away from dangerous places where she gets in trouble, like the White House!"
The office breaks into spontaneous rounds of cheering. Meanwhile, House wanders away, in search of yet another patient to diagnose and save.
After a few hours of paperwork, I decide to go check on him.
He's slumped over a dinky little orange folding chair in the breakroom, not moving, with his mouth hanging open.
"HELP!"
I discover he has no pulse and isn't breathing, so turn him to the side and begin CPR while screaming between breaths for someone to come.
A passing nurse and another physician arrive, relieving me and carrying him to a hospital bed. And, with my years of experience, I know the 'dead-on-arrival' look.
Even knowing how much this would bug my extremely rational husband, I decide not to believe what my senses and intellect are telling me. Not yet.
I grab for his hand as they're carting him out of the room, managing to reach the small of his back. His skin already feels stiff and cold.
Wilson rushes in, carrying a half-eaten bagel and fumbling with the cane he, also, now uses to get around. He looks at his friend of thirty years, and then at me.
"I'll take over for you for the rest of the day. Or week. Or month," he offers, hand on my arm. "I'll even go on that sick baby's ambulance ride for you. Be with Greg. You've really made him happy," he says, stopping for a moment, before adding, "in ways even I couldn't."
That's a wonderfully kind offer, and I consider accepting, to be at my husband's side, the way a wife should, and the way I want to.
But then I think. I don't have a normal husband. I married Dr. Gregory House, Diagnostician Extraordinaire. And he wouldn't want me to leave a tiny premature patient in crisis, or to go without figuring out what's wrong with this little boy, whose mother had rushed him in days ago after he developed a fever and refused to eat.
What had seemed like treatable, but risky, bacterial pneumonia at first had proved to be something much worse, since an urgent-care medical clinic on the edge of the city, way out near Glen Park, had called to say they thought he was having seizures.
The physician on call there had tried to reach 911, but couldn't get through. A huge Occupy protest still raged in several neighborhoods, despite the grinding rain, and people were being rushed in with all kinds of bullet wounds and broken bones and random internal injuries. Spontaneous riots had ignited all around the Bay Area and other major cities with the chaos, and some urban areas had become virtual war zones.
As if it weren't enough that the United States currently fought seven foreign countries, bringing soldiers home in body bags and threatening to force a default on our debt, plunging the Dow and most folks' bank balances underwater. Books in the grocery stores and airports already proclaimed the End of Western Civilization, and folks here glanced at the TVs in the waiting rooms and agreed.
Everyone and their cousin seemed to be calling paramedics, and most were receiving busy signals, from what we were hearing. The entire city, even emergency services, had suffered in several rounds of budget cuts, so the already short-handed crew of paramedics were overwhelmed.
So, we were sending our own ambulance to pick up the baby, and a diagnostic specialist was riding out with them to get him. And, I thought about my husband, and his life and legacy, and I knew I'd be the one.
But first, I rushed into House's office and grabbed an envelope from his bottom desk drawer. He'd asked me to open and read it if anything should ever happen to him, and never to touch it otherwise.
Inside the ambulance, heading south but stuck in traffic, I gently open the envelope.
I haven't listened to the voicemails on my cellphone yet, but I already know from everyone's faces before we left, and from the fact that there's only one message from the hospital and not dozens asking for information and medical advice, that my husband's no longer a part of this world.
I'll grieve later, I know I will. Already I can hardly catch my breath, hardly face a night alone. I'll probably ask Thirteen or Cameron to keep me company. Or maybe Cuddy. This night will be hard for her too, and we can share memories.
A note's inside the envelope addressed to her, with a note to give it to her without reading it first.
However, there's another long, handwritten letter he made for me on old parchment and blotter paper from an apothecary shop we visited in a funky small town's historical district on our tenth anniversary. It's all of our favorite jokes, and memories, and several sarcastic comments on each event. Never has snark made me weep so sincerely.
But, I've got to turn my focus back to the current patient. We've already snaked our way through the shopping crowds near Union Square and the tattooed protesting crowds in the Mission, and navigated past the Civic Center's white mausoleums to the past. Now, we're navigating the slippery hills of Diamond Heights near Glen Park, seesawing past suburban houses and about to reach the sick child we're here to help.
Even with the recent years of natural and societal disasters, it's impossible to turn San Francisco completely bleak. I only wish we were coming to appreciate the hidden underbelly of her glory under better circumstances.
We load the newborn, Joshua, into a tiny cot and hook him up to a baby oxygen tank just in case. One look, and I realize, even before he receives the inevitable MRI's and brain scans, that his little fits and coughs are miniature seizures. He'll need radiation and probably brain surgery, and does not have an easy road ahead.
I stop and talk to the family, holding the mom's hands and shaking the father's. They agree to follow in their own beat-up 2002 Chevy, and soon lose us in the winding roads.
Good idea, because our ambulance develops mechanical problems and stops running not too long after we start. We have to pull off the road to avoid being hit, and it's still scary on the shoulder because there are so many crazy drivers speeding around these places, especially in the rain. I have a feeling we can keep the little baby stabilized for another few hours till we get him in the hospital, but it would be awful and distracting to have the family with us panicking.
Wind rocks the vehicle, and I instinctively reach for the baby's hand to keep him calm. His little fingers grasp mine with unusual strength given his fragile condition, and I blow him a kiss while singing a lullaby.
Oh, if only House were here. He'd have wonderful, calming, hilariously fractured children's songs and stories for everyone, and would probably fix the vehicle and supply the boy's diagnosis while he's at it.
All we can do is look within ourselves and ask what he would do in our place.
Someone approaches, dressed in an old sweatshirt jacket, jeans and work boots. "You guys need any help?"
His name's Frank, and he's a plumber and amateur mechanic, and noticed us on his way home from work.
Every adult passenger steps out, we put the ambulance in drive, and he helps push us farther off the road, onto a nearby home's gravel driveway. Their collie starts to bark and runs towards us, and soon the neighbors are waiting with us, putting flares in the road and waving to signal passing cars to watch out.
Everyone peers inside to take a peek at little Joshua, adoring the baby and praying for his quick and full recovery. He's ok for now, but we've got to get him into the hospital stat. Hopefully the second ambulance the hospital's sending to give us a lift gets here soon!
A gentleman dressed in a funny top hat, velvet jacket and cane stops by. "Hey guys, don't worry. Despite the getup here, I'm not crazy or homeless or anything. I'm Magic Calvin the Master of All Trades, or really William Klein. I entertain kids and teens at rich people's parties and swanky nightclubs, it's a living. Anyway, happy to help however I can."
The vehicle's already safely off the road, and the new one will be here sooner than anything can be repaired, so Magic Calvin gets to entertain Joshua, who's waking up and beginning to get a bit fussy. Poor baby, he misses his mommy and daddy and probably his milk, by now.
A little boy, probably close to ten years old, runs out with a toy drum. "Hey! Magic Calvin! You remember me, I'm Miguel!" He joins in playing with the baby.
Everyone gets to talking while we wait, and we learn a few things about each other. Frank's actually from the East Bay, grew up in Stockton and now lives back near my childhood home in St. Laurence. Magic Calvin's a huge fan both of the San Francisco Giants and of Broadway musicals, and Miguel's a fourth grade honor student.
I look over at some heavily made-up people in elaborate Roman costumes, and I realize they're from the cast of the San Francisco Opera. We've got Lucrezia here, wrapped in her thickly colored and richly dyed Roman matron's toga and still carrying her trademark dagger, and a barbarian soldier, shabbily adorned in a shield and rags.
Joshua begins to wail too loudly for Miguel and Frank, even for Magic Calvin and the paramedics, so Lucrezia comes to comfort him. Taking the newborn in her tender arms, she seems almost divine in her royal robes and flowing dark hair, all the more striking now that the rain has stopped and a large star has appeared over her head. Or maybe it's a searchlight from a car dealership, who knows.
While holding the baby, she jokes about her role in the show, throwing down her dagger. "You know, I don't think I'll be needing this after all. I can be plenty heroic on my own terms by staying alive."
Continuing in the same vein, her barbarian companion adds, "And, I don't see why I would have ever attacked you. After all, we're both survivors of the violence of Empire – you as a woman, and me as a member of an occupied Germanic nation. So how about we become comrades instead?"
Magic Calvin, Frank, the paramedics and I applaud. "I took a few business courses in college, and I remember reading about opportunity costs. Basically that's a fancy word for the cost of everything else you give up when you decide to do something. So Lucrezia, your suicide would have brought about a lot of those for Rome. Kinda silly for your society to demand that of you."
"Hey guys!" Miguel calls out. "I see the other ambulance coming!" He points down the road to the oncoming headlights. We thank our motley group of helpers, pat the collie behind the ears, and load tiny Joshua and his stacks of life-sustaining equipment into the second vehicle.
I was right about the seizures, and about the child's brain tumor. And, thankfully, I was correct about my hesitant, but optimistic prognosis. After a few years of treatment,I'd get to watch Joshua grow up to become a fine strong young little boy.
Back in the hospital, Wilson takes me aside and confirms what I already know about my husband's passing. I open the envelope and give him the letter House set aside for his best friend, and hold his hand while we mourn together.
Then, I excuse myself, and remove the one for Cuddy, heading towards her office. If she's in, I'll hand it to her and see if she wouldn't mind sharing a hot Irish coffee and our mutual grief tonight. Just the two of us women talking, both people House deeply loved, away from the world's chaos and focusing on our own tonight.
It is Christmastime. Not what we'd hoped for or imagined, but we'd get through it and find happiness somehow.