Ch.56
"So why Jewish? Was it the cool hats?" House says walking into the room taking the two people by surprise at his blunt question.
"Uhm…" the woman says not sure how to respond.
"What does our religion have to do with this?" the man says looking annoyed at House's shit-eating grin.
"Nothing, though I'm just curious why someone with her past would go to the next extreme. That maybe she had some regrets at the wedding and passed out because of it," House says giving his thought that she is faking her illness.
The man looked ready to punch House, which wouldn't be the first that a patient or a patient's family had done that. The woman looks to her new husband with worry, as I step between the two men hoping it doesn't come to a punch.
"We'd like to see the person in charge of the hospital," the man says and I nod my head telling him where to find Cuddy's Office.
"Gabe, what the hell! Now I have to go talk with Cuddy," House says groaning and walking to Cuddy's Office with the man.
"Sorry about that… House can be a dick," I say to the woman as the rest of the team nods their heads agreeing with me.
"So can we ask you a few questions, I promise they will pertain to your medical history," I say as the woman nods.
"Sure," the woman says and we ask her the basic questions about her history, as I'm sure we will somehow still be on the case even with House being a dick.
"So my idiots, let's talk! The woman has Bloody Urine, poor Bladder Control, an altered mental status, and Dyspnea. Anything else we are missing?" House says as we are waiting in his Office for his return.
"Pulmonary Involvement rules out porphyria," Thirteen says to everyone.
"The Lab Tech also pulled up Wegener's, which would explain her elevated SED rate," Taub say looking at the Lab's notes on her blood work.
"Wegener's wouldn't explain the changed mental status," House says making Taub stare at him annoyed.
"Actually, we've been trying to ignore that part of the whiteboard," Thirteen says as we three nod their heads. Personally, I agree with House as the woman went from one extreme to another.
"I wrote it in black. I'm always serious when I use black," House says with his signature sarcasm.
"Lupus would explain–" Kutner starts to say.
"Maybe she didn't change," Thirteen says cutting him off.
"Are you agreeing with me or are you making a point?" House asks Thirteen with a curious look.
"I'm making a point," Thirteen says glaring at House.
"That's gonna take longer," House says dismissing Thirteen's annoyance.
"How do we know that the real Roz, isn't who she is now and who she was then?" Thirteen says trying to make House question himself.
"Can't we say that her previous life was true without making her present one a fraud?" Thirteen continues as House takes a seat at the table.
"'Life is messy' argument, nice. Explains everything without explaining anything. If it's Lupus, there's a heart problem we don't know about yet. Run her through a stress test, if she has a heart attack, I'm right," House says, standing back up and looking annoyed at Thirteen.
"Or we could wait, hope that–" Taub starts to say.
"You're afraid to give her a heart attack," House says giving him a faked incredulous look.
"Of course we're afraid–" Taub starts to say again.
"There's no reason to be afraid. Unless you think I'm right," House says giving him a challenging look.
"It's Wegener's," Taub says after looking a bit flustered, but then standing firm with his diagnosis.
"But we'll have the crash cart just in case," Taub says as we all look at him standing up to House.
"Ok, go," House says as he gives him a small nod.
Later the woman goes through with the stress test but can't complete it, because her one leg gives out under her. So instead I decided we should look at her brain doing an MRI of her head. Thirteen was with me running the test alongside me.
"The caudal structures look okay. She hasn't changed?" I say seeing how the brain looks completely fine, so far.
"Sex, drugs, rock and roll, The six hundred rules of God are all in there somewhere," I say as I agree with House that the woman has changed, going from one extreme to another.
"We oversimplify people. It's how the human mind works, everything's got a category" Thirteen says to me with a sigh seeing I'm taking House's side.
"You don't like it. You don't wanna be oversimplified," I say shrugging since the woman made a drastic change rather quickly and late in her life. Thirteen just looks at me with a side eye, before ignoring me.
"Roz, please move your right leg," I say into the microphone seeing Thirteen go quiet.
"No one can describe themselves in ten words. Why would we want to hear anyone else do it?" Thirteen says after I talk to Roz.
"Because sometimes, as Doctors, we have to view the patient by what we see and know regardless of how that makes them feel. That just because they tell us one thing, that their body might be telling us another," I say to her making her stop to think about what I mean.
"Roz, please move your right leg an inch," I say seeing Thirteen go quiet again.
"You've been working with House for a long time," Thirteen says to me still standing by her point.
"Sometimes, you have to take the feelings out to see the real problems," I say shrugging her her annoyance with me now.
"How's our mental yentl?" House says walking into the room as I shake my head at his statement.
"MRI shows no sign of clots," Thirteen says to House.
"FMRI shows no problem areas," I say shrugging.
"Go restart her IV," House says to Thirteen.
"What'd I mess up?" I say looking at House, who shakes his head.
"Nothing, but like so many procedures we put patients through, it hurts," House says as I sigh hearing his reason.
"Which, if she's enjoying it, will show up in pretty colors," House says waving his hand around sarcastically.
"This is why you wanted an FMRI? It showed she didn't have a blood clot, which is diagnostically relevant. And it can show if she's become a masochist… also diagnostically relevant. And it'll be cool," House says to us, which makes us both look at him with hesitation.
"Either explain which part of my analysis didn't make sense or go do it," House says as Thirteen lets out a heavy sigh and goes to redo the IV line.
"Heavens! Look at her Limbic system! Pleasure centers are lighting up like a Hanukah Bush. Thirteen must have a touch like an elephant," House says looking over my shoulder at the screen.
"Ok, Roz. We've got what we need," I say holding back a chuckle at House's bluntness. Thirteen stops and starts to help Roz out of the MRI.
"Yes, it was impressive," House says as I stand up to go help too.
"Yeah, yeah. You were right again, old man," I say walking out as House laughs.
As I'm helping Roz up, we hear the Heart Monitor start to rapidly beep. Telling us there is a problem, looking over we see her heart rate crashing. Roz then collapses in my arms as I slowly lower her to the floor. Just as Thirteen grabs the crash cart, Roz appears to be stabilizing. House comes out of the testing room and we all look at each other confused as Roz starts to wake back up.
"Get her up. All the way up, on her feet," House says as Thirteen and I help Roz stand up.
As soon as we help Roz stand up, her heart rate begins to rapidly crash again. Then as she sits down in a chair we place her in she begins to stabilize again.
"Make her do that again," House says with a curious look trying to understand why this is happening.
"No, let's get her back to her room. We can understand she can't stand up now," I say stopping House from messing around.
Everyone is arguing in the office about the new symptom and House admits that maybe the woman doesn't have a mental issue. I'm wracking my brain for all the possible causes. Then I start to make a few connections, which I'm sure House is doing the same as we make eye contact knowing the answer right away.
"Nephroptosis!" we both say at the same time as the others stare at us confused.
"What how?" Taub says wanting to know our reasons.
"Because when Gabe helped her up, we grabbed her by the side, near her kidney placing pressure on it. Pinching the nerve which shouldn't be exposed like it is, plus her wedding dress might have put pressure there too," House says as I nod my head.
"Let's go see if you guys are right," Kutner says as we all make our way to Roz and her husband.
After doing our tests, we found that House and I were correct, making House smirk at the others who were shooting us glares. House takes the lead in the surgery as I'm his assistant surgeon, once we finish Roz was considered back to 'normal'.
"Today was fun, we should do it again sometime," House says once we are all back in the office making the others just roll their eyes at him.
"Gabe, stay back a moment," House says as we all start to pack our things to leave for the day.
"Yeah?" I say as the others leave while shooting us both a glance before leaving themselves.
"I just wanted to say, I'll be there at your party, and my plus one is Wilson," House says smirking at me.
"Great and congrats, I didn't know you and Wilson finally decided to give it a go," I say with a laugh as House gives me a fake laugh as I leave.
"Can't wait to meet Alex's family! I heard so much about them from your Dad!" House shouts to me as I leave, making me pause thinking about House meeting the Dunphys and Pritchetts.
"Oh, shit," I say now realizing this might just be an even crazier party with everyone there.
"Hey, what's wrong?" Alex says to me as we walk to her car, we switch who drives every day.
"House is coming to our engagement party," I say to her giving her a dead-eyed look.
"Oh my God, no!" Alex says knowing just what House is like, as he'll visit her out of boredom to bother her about me. Or brother her to annoy me.
"I don't think our families will be able to handle him… in a nice way, House might just be killed," Alex says thinking about the interaction between him and certain members of our families.
"Well, he is coming with Wilson. So I'll talk with Wilson to see if he can keep House in check for us," I say to Alex who nods her head while still panicking slightly.