A Rush Of Blood to the Head – Chapter II

"What are we looking at?"

Burke stood next to Meredith in the darkened room, their faces illuminated by the blue light in front of them.

"The chest films. There's some scaring around the lungs, but that's from the surgery, nothing that would explain the seizing."

"Or the blood."

"Or that..." Meredith thought of the litres of blood that the man must have bled. She was never squeamish when it came to that – she was a surgeon for god's sake – but the sight of all that blood made her feel queasy inside.

"I've got CT of the abdomen." Bailey walked into the room, followed enthusiastically by George. Bailey put the films up and turned the light on. All four leaned into the films intently.

"Midline burst, just there." George pointed.

"How do we proceed?" Bailey asked.

"Get him into surgery, repair the tear and figure out why the hell he bled from his gut in the first place."

"Good, prep Mr Dunn for surgery. Dr Burke?"

"Go ahead. Just watch out, I think he might have a problem clotting." Bailey walked out with George, leaving Burke in the room with Meredith.

"Do you know what's wrong with him?"

Burke sighed. "No idea. I'm a surgeon, not a diagnostician however good I am. But we have to figure out the cause of this because it will probably happen again."

Meredith turned off the lights and collected the films.

"Hold on," Burke said suddenly. "Get Yang, Stevens and Karev."

"Why?"

"We need a consult. And I know just the one. Just get them all and meet me in conference room 1."

Burke walked out of the room leaving Meredith alone. And confused.

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Dr Cameron sat House's desk, bored and tired. It had been weeks since they have been given a new case. Chase and Forman were having lunch at the table and quizzing each other on their diagnosis skills.

"Blinding, hallucinations and internal bleeding."

"Naphthalene poisoning. Too easy"

"You didn't think so before..."

Cameron had been given the usual task of reading and answering House's emails while he was being 'tortured' in the clinic. She had begun to zone out when suddenly the phone rung. She jumped a bit in surprise but then came to her senses and answered the phone hesitantly, most of the calls House gets are abusive.

"Hello?"

A deep but confused voice came from the phone: "Dr House?"

"What? No, sorry this is Dr Cameron. Dr House is in the clinic right now."

"Excellent. Can you get him for me? It's Dr Burke. I'm sure he won't mind missing out on clinic duty but I need him for a consult."

A consult? Cameron lit up at the word. She realized it was incredibly insensitive to the patient but she had been waiting patiently for someone – anyone – to get sick. She realized then that House had actually gotten to her. "I'll get him now, one second Dr Burke" She pressed the hold button and went on the search for House.

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Christina was leaning on her chair in the conference room.

"So you're getting a consult?"

Burke looked at her.

"You've got a problem with that?"

"No, nothings wrong with that. So, who's this Dr House anyway?"

Meredith looked up at Christina. "Seriously? You of all people should know House. The diagnostician at Princeton Plainsburough. Genius? Controversial?"

"Wait, you mean the Dr House. The one with the infarction?" Christina sat up in her chair.

"Wow, those medical journals really get into personal detail." Alex said with raised eyebrows.

"I've heard people talk about him." Christina said in a dismissive tone.

"He went to Johns Hopkins." Said Burke sitting down. "Was a couple of years ahead of me, but I knew him. By reputation mostly, but I've seen him a few times after graduation. Hopefully he can help us figure out what's wrong with Mr. Dunn."

"So, what has the jock done to the patient?" A deep gruff voice came from the loudspeaker on the table. "Forgotten where the brain is? It's under the arm-pit if you wanted to know."

"Dr House." Burke moved forward to the speaker, "Thanks for helping, its certainly been a while."

"Your welcome, it's great, now: what have we got here?"

Burke hinted at Meredith who cautiously approached the table. "34 year old male, post lobectomy, started seizing violently and then bled from the bowl."

There was a silence.

"Right. Ok..." House's voice crackled through the speaker "I thought you were going to give me something exciting. Exploding liver, low bp. But then again, you are a surgeon. I was probably an infection due to the surgery. Moves to the brain, causes seizures, moves to the abdomen, causes bleeding."

"No infection." Karev piped up.

"What?"

"We did the blood work, there's no infection."

There was another silence.

A different voice now came from the speaker, an Australian one: "Could be a clotting problem, post surgery the body was over stressed."

"Who's that?" Burke asked curiously.

"Do a blood clot test." Came House's voice once more.

"No can do, he's in surgery to fix up the bleeding."

"Well, that's one clot test. Ring back when he's out."

"He never went in." Bailey stood at the door.

"What?" Burke looked up at her.

"He never went in, he had a stroke just after he was prepped."

"A stoke? He's 34." A female voice came from the phone.

"He obviously has no problem clotting." Said House. "Burke, keep the patient stable and get us a whiteboard. We're coming to Seattle."

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NB: Ok, so its very medicine-filled. But that's what its like! Shall scatter some more Mer/Der, BANG and Izzie/Alex in there, and some House/Cameron I think. Teehee. Review to stop me from writing drivel.