Chapter 34

"Don't Go To Bed Mad … Just Go To Bed!"

I stood propped in the kitchen doorway, watching him pick unenthusiastically at his dinner, when his phone rang, startling us both. I walked over and laid my hand on the receiver, knowing the call must be coming from the hospital. Not Cuddy. She would have used my cell phone number. The Caller ID gave the number of the Diagnostics Department at PPTH, and I smiled.

Guess who!

I looked over at him, not bothering to keep the smirk off my face. "Unhhh … you up to answering this? It's one of your people … and I'm the one around here who's supposed to be sick and wishing he were dead …"

He nodded, deadpanning me with a Russell Crowe glare, and held out his hand. I picked up the receiver and placed it directly into his outstretched palm.

"Yeah?"

I turned my back to keep from betraying my presence to the caller.

"Cameron. What are you doing there so late? Got a case?" I watched him as he listened, shifting his eyes around the room, not happy at what he heard. "Cuddy? I don't care what she said about not bothering me with cases. Wilson's got the flu. Flu's boring. No, I don't want you defying her orders. You know me … I'm all about the rules!"

He sighed, eyes lighting on my face in a silent and beseeching manner that made me cover my mouth to keep from laughing aloud. "He's not doing well, no," he continued into the phone. "High fever … giving him some really crazy ideas. Seems to think this is all a game of 'Let's Pretend'."

My eyes widened and I shot him a dirty look. His return expression turned mischievous, but I could discern a moment of anger that manifested itself fleetingly, then gone.

"Me? Just great. Of course I sound funny. I'm a funny guy. No … not getting the flu. It's tiring work, keeping him oriented to the reality of his illness."

His not-so-subtle digs were beginning to rankle, but I was also becoming concerned. He was looking a little flushed, and I didn't care much for the way he was breathing. "Get her off the phone!" I whispered, pantomiming a throat-slitting gesture. "Hang up … now!"

"He'll be fine. Got a great doctor … not necessary … this is my very bestest bud, Cameron. Doesn't trust anybody but me. 'Course I'm not insulting you … would I do that? This is Jimmy, and I'll handle it. I wouldn't trust his care to Albert Schweitzer himself. Look, Cuddy's got us quarantined anyway. The rules, remember? Don't mess with the boss lady! Gotta go … hearing some really unattractive retching noises … need to toss a barf bucket in his direction. Bye …"

He handed the phone back to me and began a lengthy bout of machine-gun coughing.

I hung the receiver back on its base quickly, and forgot my growing annoyance almost immediately. "I think your fever's up again. Let's get a temp."

The reading was just over 101 and the pulse ox 91 per cent. "I'm going to call PG. We should at least have preliminary culture results by now."

The cultures showed that the PICC line was clean, so I decided to try a broader-spectrum antibiotic, in case the pneumonia might be resistant to the ceftriaxone. I called the hospice pharmacy and placed an order for cefepime. Because Greg had initially shown improvement on the ceftriaxone, I started to think we might be dealing with mixed organisms. Now we could really use that sputum specimen!

I approached him again. He looked rough. "House … just talked with the lab over at PG, and we're clear on the PICC. I'm going to switch you to cefepime, but a specimen would really help. Think you can manage it?" I could tell his fever was still on its way up, and he wasn't feeling so hot.

His answer was short and final. "No." He closed his eyes and his body sagged.

"Let's try an aerosol," I said. "… see if that helps bring anything up, okay?"

He didn't answer. I sighed and left to go collect the equipment and a sterile container. When I came back, he was pretending to be asleep. His eyelids were quivering. "Come on," I said, trying a different tack, "let's try and get this done. It's almost time for your evening neb anyway." He sighed, flung an arm across his eyes and shook his head. End of non-conversation.

I found myself gritting my teeth, trying very hard to be patient. "Look … if you're feeling that lousy, let's just get you back to bed. I'll bring you some ibuprofen for the fever, and we'll try this in an hour or so."

He gave no indication he'd even heard me. He pulled the blanket up across his body and turned his head to the back of the couch.

He worried me, but I tried to ignore it. I picked up the tympanic thermometer and moved the blanket away from his face. "Let me get a temp …"

I inserted the probe into House's ear canal, and at that second an arm flew up and knocked the thermometer out of my hand to send it clattering across the floor. Stunned, I backpedaled quickly and stared down at him.

He turned around with surprising agility and sat up. His fever-bright eyes were set and angry, his jaw hard and inflexible and his respiration rapid. "Just get the hell away from me! Go away! I'm sick of this, all of it! What are you worried about, anyway? Probably brought the pneumonia on myself, 'cause I'm too dumb to know the difference between pain and emotion … so I've gotta be too dumb to understand my own health, right? So it's all in my head! Doesn't matter what you do. I'm gonna either get better or die anyway!"

He was out of breath and he continued to stare at me with unfocused eyes, starting to rub at his thigh with an almost frenetic rhythm.

"What's the matter with your leg?" I demanded. I tried to speak calmly, tame the situation down a few notches. It wouldn't be good for him to let it go out of control and escalate beyond the point of reason. Somehow my concern and fear and frustration made the question come out sounding angry and challenging. I moved closer to his side.

"Absolutely nothing!" He was beginning to dig his fingertips into the muscle. "Told you … I'm just too stupid to know when I'm perfectly healthy. Let's just forget that I might be too smart to create pain!"

I was scared for him. Again. His breathing was labored, grating and metallic. He was clearly in pain and showing no signs of beginning to calm down. My hands were trembling when I reached out to him in a pacifying gesture. He lashed out, grabbed my wrists and propelled me back and away from him.

Anger gave his meager strength a boost and I stumbled back into the edge of the coffee table, sitting down hard on its surface. The loss of balance startled me and something snapped. In spite of myself, and all my efforts to keep from lashing out at this very ill friend, I lost it. I forgot his physical fragility; forgot the building leg spasm, the labored respirations, the rising fever. I forgot my own medical training.

Suddenly I wasn't a doctor. I wasn't even a rational human being. Tiny spots of red were popping in my field of vision, and I was holding my breath as though sinking over my head beneath the surface of an ocean from which I couldn't escape. I was drowning and helpless and in a situation I could no longer control. I was finally and completely overwhelmed by it all, and angry and frustrated and beginning to panic.

I was killing him!

I lashed out …

"You're right!" I screamed. "Absolutely correct, as usual! The brilliant Dr. House has it all figured out. We don't need to treat anything! We're just wasting our time because you can just will yourself well! Or dead … let's not forget that option!"

I was breathing rapidly too. And shaking like a leaf. The tiny corner of my mind that tried to tell me I was not acting rationally was not helping the situation. I knew I was over the top, and didn't care. He was playing games with life and I was finished with the effort at diplomacy. My patience was gone. In the corner of my mind where sanity still rested, taking a time out, I knew this argument should not be happening. But there we were … and I had to get Greg to face the truth.

Somehow.

"Don't try to tell me you're too smart to be having psychosomatic pain! Look at you! That argument would be a lot more credible if I hadn't seen you self-induce a migraine just so you could tell yourself a twenty-year grudge was valid! Or fracture your own fingers to win a damned bet!

"Last week you let yourself get to the brink of hypovolemic shock rather than admit you were having trouble with your meds. Yeah House … you're smart … and you're self- destructive. Dangerous combination! Makes you a prime candidate for psychosomatic pain, you know that?"

I couldn't help myself. I was gesturing wildly, throwing my arms around, tears running down my face, hair hanging in my eyes and spittle flying out of my mouth in my intensity.

Greg looked up at me from his efforts to calm the spasm in his leg. His eyes were slits, the creases at their corners spreading outward and stretching the skin. The deep creases near his mouth that sometimes defined one of his very best features … the dimples that gave him the four-year-old look … were creased to hardness and drawing his mouth into a thin, straight line across his face. He was in pain and it was getting worse. But his anger was even more intense. "Do us both a favor!" He yelled. "Get the hell out of here! And you're right … with friends like you, I don't need to hold onto twenty-year grudges!"

His words carried the sting of a slap in the face.

He's right! I've got to get out of here and calm down.

I whirled and ran for the kitchen, but the dizziness hit like a fist from the darkness, and I grabbed the edge of the bookcase to keep from falling on my face. I clung there, wondering what the hell had happened. I was dizzy, fingertips tingling, hyperventilating. I straightened by degrees and forced my breathing to slow down. I could feel his pain-clouded eyes on me as I made my way unsteadily into the kitchen.

Beyond the doorframe, another wave of dizziness forced me into the butcher-block table, and I hunched over it, moving hand-over-hand to the sink.

I heard the sound of Greg's cane approaching unsteadily behind me, but I hadn't the strength to turn or stand upright or even speak. My breath was caught in my throat, my lips dripping drool into the sink, and tears of humiliation joined the flood of embarrassing bodily fluids gushing down my cheeks and off the point of my chin. What the hell did he want now?

"What's the matter with you?" His voice was harsh.

I couldn't answer, so he moved closer. I felt his disturbing body heat close to my arm, but the only thing of which I was capable, was waving my hand weakly in an effort to force him back and away from me. That didn't work. I was shaking too violently, so I hunched my shoulders, effectively shutting him out, and leaned further over the sink. Then, when he made no move to back away, I lowered my head onto my crossed arms and stood there with legs splayed, willing him to just let me alone.

I was dimly aware that Greg was moving around, doing something or other close by, but I didn't acknowledge him until I felt the tentative tap on my arm. He had filled a glass with water and was holding it out to me, leaving himself vulnerable, with only one hand on the cane and no other support.

That impressed me.

"Here," he said. He thrust the glass into my numb, unresisting fingers, forcing my head around and up to look into those sad eyes. I curled my fingers around it, searching his face dumbly. But I couldn't clasp it, and the glass shattered in the sink, splashing water everywhere.

Greg sighed and filled a second glass, turned and set it on the counter. I was still staring at him stupidly as he put down the cane and rested both hands firmly on my shoulders, propelling me to the nearest chair.

I didn't even try to resist. This shouldn't be happening … he'd been going into a leg spasm, my stupefied brain tried to tell me …

But Greg was still there, now picking up the glass again, handing it to me. In the other outstretched palm, a lorazepam tablet appeared. I looked at the water glass, at the pill, then into his face. His eyes were still sad. He bent down until those eyes were on the same level as my own.

"Take. It."

He waited until I'd swallowed the pill and drank the water. He set the glass back on the counter, then slowly turned and walked with effort out of the kitchen.

I sat there. What had just happened?

Fifteen minutes? An hour? A day? Whatever. I didn't know.

Once the quiet and the solitude and medication did their work, I rose, stiff-limbed, as reason returned and I remembered the flare-up and the angry exchange of words with my friend who was ill and in pain and experiencing respiratory distress and fever …

I hurried into the living room and experienced a moment of panic when Greg wasn't there. I continued to the bedroom and stopped short in the doorway.

He was in bed. Fresh sweats were pulled up into place over the boxer briefs. He was resting against his pillows. Aerosol containers were discarded at the foot of the bed. He had obviously just finished giving himself a treatment. The sterile cup sat on his night table with a specimen of sputum in it and tightly capped. He looked up at me with a resigned expression as he fiddled with the nasal cannula, fitting it over his head even as I closed the distance between us. "Forgot to get the ibuprofen when I was in the kitchen," he said. His voice was matter-of-fact and unchallenging. "I had to disconnect the IV … so you might want to get that too. If you don't mind …"

I nodded dumbly and turned away from the doorframe, not meeting his eyes. Was I dreaming? What was in that pill he'd given me? Was I hallucinating too? The man was actually cooperating!

When I got back, I handed him the pills and reconnected the TPN, still without saying anything. Then I sat down in the bedside chair and took the chance of asking a question.

"How's your leg?"

"Fine. Must've been a false alarm.

"Good. That's … good." I stood and retrieved my stethoscope. Still stunned, I knew I was being more gentle than usual when I assessed his breath sounds. Perhaps if I refrained from rattling the bars of the cage, the wildlife would remain calm. Finished, I folded the stethoscope and put it back on the bedside table. "Can I get you anything?"

He lifted his eyes shyly.

Shyly???

He smiled a tiny bit … and I saw the dimples return for just a second.

"A donut would sure taste good about now …"

My jaw dropped. It did. I know it did. But I couldn't have stopped it if my life had depended upon it. I stood looking at that frail man on the bed … the stubborn child … the loving friend who found it very hard to express that love …

House might have initiated the painful incident we'd both just suffered through, but he'd also done his damnedest … in his own endlessly baffling way … to put it to rights again.

And he had!

"Hmmmm … I bet two donuts would taste even better," I told him softly.

Shaking my head in utter amazement, I stood up and left the room, headed for the kitchen and a search for goodies that might somehow fill the bill …

Oooo0oooO

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