realityshifted | treating patients is what makes most doctors miserable

{House is sitting at his fairly cluttered desk, flipping a tennis ball in the hook of his cane idly with his feet propped up. Of notice on his desk are bone marrow biopsy tests, which are negative, and a blue folder labeled "TYLER" with just a few notes inside, it looks like.}

Female, 26, tonic clonic seizure. History of fatigue and a retinal vein occlusion two years ago. Took ecstasy about five hours before the seizure, according to Thirteen, placing two women, one of them my employees, together at about 3 A.M.. The patient rates Thirteen a seven, which is much more interesting than the probable cause of, unsurprisingly, drugs.

{He almost misses catching the ball, but an excellent save}

Thirteen thinks that the patient is a hypochondriac, but it's probably more like Thirteen doesn't want me asking this patient more about Thirteen than I really wanted to know. Maybe I should hire this girl to grab Thirteen's Huntington's test results next time Thirteen is feeling frisky. Lucas is too busy investigating Wilson's carbohydrate intake.

So, just in case it's not drugs, who wants to do some simple roleplaying for my team? Don't worry, no thinking involved, just stand there and look pretty. One of you disagree with everything I say, one of you agree, and the other one, don't decide on anything. It should be pretty easy.

{And as an afterthought, like he would forget,} Oh, and I need something from my crazy coma patient. You know who you are, so I don't really need to say much more than that.

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The knowing something is probably because he's 33 years ahead of you. Or, at least, lived through that time. Shouting at the air, I'd guess that's because of the idiot doctors he already has.

He agreed to let me try and figure it out. Every doctor wonders what goes on in a coma patient's head, so looks like I get to see. Anomalies bug me. So I'm trying to fix the problem.

Yeah, don't really get that. But he's probably not crazy. Guess there was...this one time. He said there were drugs wrong in him. It were the hippies, though.

[Chris considers this!] I suppose so. ...If you fix it, will he go home?

Who knows? Maybe he is, maybe he isn't. That's what I'm trying to find out.

{He stops flipping the ball, looking thoughtful} Maybe. Dunno. Hell, if I fix it, maybe he'll just go to Oz.

Uhm, will you tell me? If you figure it out?

[Chris was sad but now he smiles.] Dorothy's here. I suppose if he does, we'll still see him. He's part of the team, though. Guv'd miss him.

That I don't know about. If Tyler will let me, sure. If not, I can't.

{He half smiles at that} Dorothy too? This place is a weird sci-fi concept at work, I'm sure of it. But it'll be his decision. Considering the possibilities, there's a good chance that it'll have to be his decision whether he wants treatment or not. I don't think it's just that he'll wake up one day.

[nods.] Yeah, got it. I'm Chris Skelton. So you know.

[But this answer seems to satisfy him.] Boss'll be all right. He's got a thing about fighting. Don't think he'll give up.

Contrary to popular belief, living through a disease has nothing to do with how much of a "fighter" you are. So you know.

Me mum said gran lived through her's 'cos she refused to die. [He's stubborn about this now.] And boss's weird. His disease. Coma. That thing.

If he's in a coma because of trauma to the brain, there's a chance he won't ever wake up. If something's putting pressure on it, though, then just remove the pressure and you wake up. There's nothing the person can do about it other than hope their brain doesn't explode from the pressure, in that case.

[Chris focuses on the right part of that sentence.] Boss' brain is gonna explode?

Be careful not to poke him too hard. That might trigger it.

If it were like that, he couldn't be working.

If it were like that, then being a doctor would be a lot messier.

Yeah, probably. [He thinks about it more!] What did you mean, 'bout the pushing thing? Something in his head?

There's not a long list of things that cause comas. Neurologic injuries, head trauma, intoxication, weird metabolisms, and central nervous system diseases, which included brain cancer. The brain doesn't really like to share its space, so when it gets an unwanted roommate, it doesn't really bode well.

[Chris actually understands most of that! 'Neurologic' is a big word though.] 'S not like a hippie. [He thinks.] Boss got hit by a car, day he came in. Probably a lot of trauma in that. What about, uhm, you know. Time travel.

He told me he's been in a coma for ten months. If the coma is caused by trauma, there's not going to be anything worth waking up.

Why not?

Brain damage. If he's been in a coma just that long from being in a car accident, he's going to wake up a vegetable.

He's pretty active, though.

In '73. If he can hear his doctors in 2006 talking, that, somehow, means that he has a body there too, logically. That's why I decided to take his case. How cool is that?

[Chris smiles this time.] Yeah, put it that way, it's really cool.

I still stand by my theory as this place being something from a bad science fiction show. And that the "writers" shouldn't have picked a cripple. Bum leg makes it hard to run away from aliens.

There are already aliens here, though. Loads of them.

See? Point proven. Any other interesting species I should know about?

(no subject)

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