The experiment chapter four Pain.
"It's so hard to forget pain, but it's even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace."
Chuck Palahniuk, Diary.
In his office at Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital,
James Wilson's phone rings, he glances at it.
Are you going to answer that!?
A patient he was with asked.
"No," he said as he looked over test results.
"It's not important."
House keeps everyone and everything at arms length.
He blocks out the things he doesn't like, instead of dealing with it like an adult, he acts like a kid and runs away.
He takes every opportunity to avoid anything real, he jokes everything away, he procrastinates until it benefits him, and he has no sense of anyone else's suffering.
This was just how it was.
Wilson let's it go to voice-mail.
Hi you've reached James Wilson, sorry I'm currently not in my office, please leave me a message at the tone.
(Beep.)
"Oh come on, it's lunch time, I know you're there Wilson!"
House almost yelling into the phone, to tell Willson that he had made it to the hotel and would be meeting the medical team at the research facility the following day.
The hotel was ritzy and glitzy, colorful lights, fun music. House decided to head to the bar, which usually ends with a woman on each arm. But with nothing else to do for the night might as well get comfortable.
The next day.
The phone rings,
House awakes in his hotel room greeted only by pain as he answers with a sloppy "Hello".
"Good morning, Mr. House.
I am calling to remind you of your appointment at Opulent research facility."
The receptionist said while informing him of items to bring, and to fast from food, drink and medications five hours before arriving.
"Got it." House replied, the only answer he could manage.
Later that day.
Behind large double doors lays a lobby with a waterfall and a wall size tank of Koi fish.
At the reception desk, House checks in.
He is then greeted by Doctor Donna Tang, who is leading the experimental treatment.
Her black hair was tied up in a ponytail with an assortment of pens in her lab coat pocket.
A bright purple dress hugs her shapely figure, as does the round shiny glasses upon her face.
"Welcome to Opulent."
She said.
"It's a pleasure to meet you Doctor House."
She continued as she shook his hand.
"I will give you a tour and introduce you to the rest of your medical team."
Doctor Tang led the way through two more large doors and down a couple of hallways, from there they took the elevator.
"I was reading your file, and I have to say I was surprised by the amount of treatments you had already tried." She said.
House gives her a look of affirmation as he nods.
"I take it that the other treatments didn't help."
"Actually acupuncture worked for about five minutes."
House said with a look of frustration at the conversation.
Upon the fifth floor they stopped and walked down a long hallway.
House hobbled along slowly.
"How bad is it right now?"
Doctor Tang inquired about his pain level.
"Considering I was notified not to take anything for it, great!"
House said sarcastically with a pause before answering again.
"Ten."
She looks at him as they enter a dorm like area.
"If all goes well Doctor House, today will be the last time you'll be at a level ten." She said confidently while showing him to his room.
"This is where you will be staying for the next six weeks."
The room was simple but elegant.
Colors of beige and green dressed it.
A bed by the window, a nightstand and lamp.
A dresser with a bonsai tree uptop it , and
a small bathroom next to that.
"Get settled in and I will come get you shortly." Doctor Tang said leaving rather quickly, as House sat down on the bed looking out the window to see a lushest garden.
A little while later House was escorted with Doctor Tang to a large area with one side that
had several recliners, each was set up in a little cube, and the other side a lab setting.
"This is our treatment lounge." She informed him.
In one cube a treatment was already in progress, a middle aged man had two large tubes attached to him, one in each forearm.
A bright blue liquid was being dispensed.
They walked by a series of clear doors and rooms with different treatments taking place.
One such room looked like it was for meditation.
"And this area is our therapy lounge." Doctor Tang continued, as House hobbled along.
"It's my hope that you'll be here soon." She said while pointing to a patient who was running on a treadmill. House would never admit it but for a moment he couldn't help but imagine that it was him as well.
The idea of being able to walk, even run again was too inviting not to entertain.
But the pain would keep him from imagining for too long, a slap back to reality, as he collapses to the floor.
Doctor Tang calls for a wheelchair and asked an assistant to page Doctor Luke Borvo.
The world turned from darkness to light as House slowly regains consciousness.
A pen light to the eyes, and a smell of the rooms surrounding chemicals. A small table next to him, upon it a small metal tray.
"House can you hear me!?"
A tall husky man around his 40s asked.
"I'm Doctor Luke Borvo."
He had dark brown hair, and a scar above his right eyebrow. He sported a rather large mustache, and looked more like a club bouncer than a doctor.
Doctor Tang stood next to him.
"Do you know where you are?"
He asked.
House now realizing he is in a recliner in one of the treatment cubes he saw earlier.
"Yes and yes." House said while looking irritated, not really wanting to answer anything, let alone talk.
"Some pills would be great now."
He ordered almost barking rather loudly, the withdrawals were kicking his ass.
"We are going to start the treatment now."
Borvo continued.
"I will also be putting you on a mild sedative, but I can't give any pain medication because it will interact with this treatment."
House looks even more irritated now,
seriously contemplating hitting this man over the head with that metal tray, as he yells obscenities in his head.
Borvo leaves with Tang,
as another doctor walks in.
A tall thin woman with a complexion like milk and hair as dark as the night that ran down to her knees.
She had the usual lab coat, but also wears a tight black dress and stockings.
A perfume fills the air, a scent like cloves.
"It's wonderful to meet you Doctor House, my name is Aoi Keorri she said as she washed her hands at a nearby sink and put on some gloves.
On the tray now laid out an assortment of items including two large needles each attached to clear plastic tubes.
"I remember you from a conference you did here, about five years ago."
Doctor Keorri said as she places an Iv upon it's station and administers the sedative.
She then cleans the rugged man's forearms with rubbing alcohol,
preparing him for the injection.
House was now in considerable pain but was trying not to rub his leg.
"It was enlightening."
she informs House while also telling him about the medications that he will be receiving, but her voice was drowned out by the noise of the surrounding area.
There was a clock on the wall at the other end, in another cube that lays empty, the ticking was bugging the shit out of him, as did the fan spinning above his head, almost too fast he thought.
A bright blue liquid to the veins is introduced.
There were no televisions, no music was playing, just a sound of running water,
another waterfall somewhere perhaps.
"Eulbtsol Cxh3
Is it's official name."
Keorri said.
"Think of this treatment like synthetic stem cells, they attach themselves to broken cells, rebuild and create new cells, essentially building new muscle and even organ tissue just like traditional stem cells, but we can create these in no time at all." Doctor Keorri said.
The clock was slowing down, it's ticking was quieter, the fan seemed to stop and he didn't hear the water anymore.
Maybe it was just the sedative, or maybe it was something else.
On the wall a picture reads.
"There is no future, there is no past. I live this moment as my last."
- Jonathan Larson