G. Holmes, MD

What?

2006-11-18T19:32:41Z

Okay, somebody had better tell me what Slash is and why someone's been writing it about General Hospital on the office computer. I'm not going to look it up because the last time the internet gave me any information at all outside of the medical databases there were people who dressed up in animal costumes and had sex, and I'm not going through that again.

It's definitely not Black Duckling because he doesn't use the office computer and it's probably not Chick Duckling because when would she have the time between answering my email and Caring About Everyone. That leaves Watson or Pretty Duckling, and Watson has his own computer where he can write all the porn he wants.

Seriously, there are soap opera doctors having sex on my office computer. I want to know why.

i_blues_joo @ 2006-10-11T20:32:00

2006-10-12T01:32:07Z

Hey, who's bored with baseball? I am.

And bored with people, and bored with my CD collection and bored with Watson's CD collection. I'm thinking of raiding Pretty's CD collection but can you imagine the boy bands? It pains the soul.

Let's play a game.

Which earworm's in your head?

The Holmes in the Hat

2006-07-13T01:24:03Z

I have cases. They take time. Updating is for the puny.

I don't think my team's slept at all in the last two weeks. We had two cases running simultaneously, which is pretty much unheard-of in Fourth Circle's department of Diagnostics. Here, we're all about craftsmanship, and craftsmanship is incompatible with mass production. We are as Christie's to Wal Mart.

Either that or we're just lazy. You be the judge.

Anyway, we had two cases and a lot of labs and I have my daily "long lunch" with Dragon Lady, so I haven't been updating. No more respiratory episodes. Maybe I really am allergic to hot tattoo'd chicks. How much would that suck?

Thing One has been healed and sent off, however, and we're just waiting for some labs on Thing Two before we heal her and tell her to go and sin no more. Venerial disease can be so tricky. Still, I don't judge.

Actually I totally judge, that's a lie in every respect.

My sneetches have been hard at work and I suppose they want to be patted on the head and allowed to get a decent night's sleep. I'm going to order Chinese and watch reruns of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 (they're such amateurs, but it's fun to criticize their technique) and crank call all three of them at two in the morning pretending to be some enraged Italian. French is the language of love, Italian is the language of fury. Don't believe me, ask the Romans.

I must be cracking under all this pressure. Chick Sneetch brought me dinner tonight and I actually thanked her. Well, I told her she could have a Star upon Hars, but she knew what I meant.

Denial

2006-06-28T02:54:44Z

No. No, no, no.

I will not go through this again -- the tests and the denials and the suspicion. I will not wait three days, until I am dying, before someone figures out what this is. My head isn't clouded this time; I'm in the least amount of pain I've felt in six years. I will not fight club with Death again. He's a nasty motherfucker and he cheats.

I had one respiratory episode. One. I shouldn't care, everyone says I shouldn't care, even Chick, and she cares about everything. If I had one heart attack I'd be on eight kinds of medication before the damn thing had ended. Nobody seems to care about the fact that I stopped breathing. I'm sort of addicted to oxygen, I get really cranky without it. Watson believes me but unless I have brain cancer, which I don't, there's not much he can do.

I backtrack through it a hundred times an hour. I was listening to The Hitman Blues Band at the bar. I was supposed to do a set in an hour with Burke on trumpet and this stunning redhead, Allison, with a fiddle, and Crandall on the electric guitar. Crandall's an idiot, but he can whale on the electric guitar. So I was at the bar, I'd had a whiskey neat, no drugs all day. Some cigarette smoke, not enough to choke on. I said I wanted to dance, Crandall bet me ten bucks I wouldn't ask the hot blond with the tattoos. That was just taking his money, so I left my cane with Burke and walked across the floor, testing the leg a little, and sidled up, trying to get next to her near the window.

Clinically, my temperature was slightly high just from being in the bar, and my pulse and heart-rate both increased. My throat closed up halfway through a breath. I had some dizziness and just -- for this one moment I thought I still hadn't left the hospital, like it was some kind of hallucination I was stuck in. I asphyxiated and passed out, knocking my head on the way down. As you do.

There's no medical evidence as to why it happened. My scans are clean, blood's normal, nothing's wrong with me beyond the usual.

There must be a reason. Dehydration or heatstroke or something. There's probably a stupid reason. But I will know what it is before it risks me another limb. I haven't got any to spare.

Filtered: Oncologeewhiz

2006-06-26T03:09:21Z

So. I'm in the hospital. I mean not THE hospital, A hospital.

No, it's cool. You know how I miss wearing gappy bathrobes and having needles stuck in the back of my hand when I haven't been hospitalized in a while. I should do a tour of American hospitals, like those Fodor's Guide people. PPTH is NOT in the Zagat book.

Last night I was at this concert and I may or may not have encountered a little respiratory distress, and I may or may not have passed out and had to have EMS called out. So I may or may not have spent the night in the hospital and had a couple of blood tests and an MRI done to me. But it's cool, okay, don't freak out about this like you do. It's just a respiratory problem, probably some tissue damaged that got missed when they worked on me after I got shot. Maybe some scarring and I was just overdoing it.

So I'm in the hospital but I'm fine and I'll be out tomorrow morning for the end of the festival and then I'm catching an airplane home. I'm paying this drummer I met $100 plus expenses to drive the bike back. My leg's okay, I'm just a little bruised up where I fell.

All I need is a ride from the airport tomorrow night. I'll call you. Bring Steve.

This Doesn't Suck.

2006-06-24T13:57:56Z

Well, I'm here.

I arrived late on Thursday evening, checked in and went out. New Orleans may have more music, but nobody has better blues than Memphis. I've been back to the hotel for about five hours total since I got here -- two to sleep on Thursday night and another three to sleep just now.

The festival is awesome. Most of it's being held in various bars, so nobody's brought their kids, and nobody under the age of thirty is really interested in blues, or if they are they keep the hell quiet when they're not playing. We jammed last night around two am and blues-reinvented a handful of old hymns so hard even God shouted amen.

John Henry Giles is here and I jammed with him. He introduced me to this classical trumpeter, too, smooth player -- guy named Burke. You can't really get the blues if you live in Seattle, but he adds a good sound.

They're doing a tent breakfast this morning with rotating bands playing what are clearly the I Ain't Got No Goddamned Coffee Blues, then concerts in the park until three. And then I've been invited to a crawdad feed. Hey Watson, how come we don't have crawdad feeds in Jersey?

After we eat, we go home and sleep until it's decently dark outside and then there's blues and dancing.

And then we get up on Sunday and do it again, except tomorrow morning there's some kind of pass-the-hat concert for New Orleans.

I could dance this year. If I'm careful today and don't walk too much, I could dance tonight.

He was famous for his bluegrass piano.

2006-06-21T16:12:46Z

Yesterday's journey.

I was going to finish the trip and get to Memphis today, but I got a late start and the war wound is giving me grief, so I'm trapped in Knoxville until tomomrrow. The blues festival doesn't start until Friday anyway. I'm walking it off, ogling the legs at the Womens' Basketball Hall of Fame. Then I'm going to buy some popcorn and watch the crippled kids. Good times.

My hotel looks out on the World's Fair Park, including a big fucking statue of Rachmaninoff. No. I don't know why. Rach-fucking-maninoff. In Knoxville.

Day One

2006-06-20T02:03:34Z

I'm up for the night in Charlottesville, not too far from Shenandoah National Park. I took the scenic route.

I stopped in DC around noon, since I once treated a Senator and I figured it was time he returned the favor. If you pay taxes, I just lunched on your dime. Too bad I don't put out on a first date, Taxpayers of America.

Before I left I set up a webcam on Steve, who's living on Watson's dining room table. Watson, stop walking around your apartment in your boxers, I don't need a peep show when I'm trying to make sure my rat isn't wasting away.

There isn't a lot to do in Charlottesville, unless you count the motel's pay-per-view channels. The motel owner sized me up and said he thought Club 216 was what I was looking for, but if I wanted to spend my nights crammed in a dark room full of sweaty twentysomethings I'd just go to the gym sauna more often.

I asked about music; he said French Quarter was the place to go. The name's about right.

The motel room has ESPN.

GO OILERS.

Whole different Blues

2006-06-17T19:50:44Z

I'm not sure whether to be pleased or annoyed that Chick noticed the new saddlebags on the Repsol.

The paperwork is in, thanks to Stan the Mole Man, and I'm leaving town on Monday. As I do not yet trust my Ducklings to keep Steve McQueen alive, let alone a patient, he's been placed in Uncle Watson's custody while I find ways of entertaining the kids. Pretty's been packed off for another stint in NICU, Black's going to a Surgical Neurology course in Massachusetts, and Chick is being lent out to the CDC for two weeks. If nothing else, the CDC will teach her proper appreciation for the speed and efficiency of the Fourth Circle diagnostics office.

Dragon Lady, I expect you to babysit them when necessary. They're ducklings, they can't survive in the wild on their own.

First one to correctly guess where I'm going gets to lord it over everyone else:

(Watson is not allowed to play.)

i_blues_joo @ 2006-06-14T18:58:00

2006-06-14T23:58:05Z

OOC Note: I almost forgot I'd written this!

In House's "privatelocked" self-analysis he mentions Wilson witnessing him disposing of his bottle of morphine. It inspired a little fic in the ibluesjoo-universe, which I thought I'd share with House's loyal readers. *grin* Enjoy!

Title: Everything Changes
Rating: PG
Summary: Sometimes you need a witness.

***

The metal box clattered as House set it on the coffee table.

It was battered and scratched around the corners, a sort of military-surplus olive green, and one of the edges was beginning to show signs of rust. It looked like something a kid might keep their baseball cards in, or maybe a particularly beloved model car.

Wilson looked at it curiously.

"This is what you had to show me?" he asked, indicating it. "I hope you bought dinner too."

House eased himself down next to him on the couch, wincing slightly. He'd walked into the hospital that morning without his cane, but he'd needed it again by afternoon, especially after rehab. Wilson wondered if any of it was real, or if House simply believed in it so hard that it was true to him.

Wordlessly, he leaned forward and lifted the lid, flicking it back. The rim landed on the coffee table with a metallic click.

Wilson pulled the box forward, deeply concerned now. Several narrow syringes, a handful of rubber tourniquets, disinfectant alcohol swabs...

And a very scary glass bottle.

He picked it up. It looked mostly full, but the seal was broken.

"Morphine," he said. He turned to House. "You've been taking morphine?"

House's eyes were on the bottle, not on him.

"House," he said sharply. The other man's eyes flicked to his face. "You've been taking morphine? For how long?"

"Not anymore," House said.

"That isn't what I asked."

"Four doses in the past three months." He offered no explanations or excuses, which was at least something.

"Why are you showing me this?"

"Wanted to see if you wanted in," House answered, rolling his eyes.

"House -- "

"I'm getting rid of it. I want a witness."

Wilson glanced at him. "A witness? Why?"

"God, how did your parents not drown you when you learned how to talk?"

"Hey, the junkie doesn't get to take the high tone here."

House took the bottle out of Wilson's hands. He held it with his fingertips, lightly, as if it were a glass ornament.

"Life has to mean something," he said.

"All right," Wilson agreed. "Sink or toilet? Toilet's delightfully undergraduate..."

"Kitchen sink," House said. "For that housewife-going-sober feeling."

House pushed himself up out of the couch and began to walk. He moved slowly -- the slower the pace, the less noticeable the limp -- but he was walking.

"Are you coming, or are you just going to watch my ass the whole way?" House asked over his shoulder. Wilson grinned and followed him to the kitchen sink. He held out his hand for the bottle, but House ignored it. Instead he unscrewed the cap and set it on the side of the sink. Wilson saw him glance away, sidelong, and waited patiently.

House's fingers held the bottle by its mouth, dangling over the drain.

"I didn't think you were big on symbols," Wilson remarked.

"Shut up," House retorted. His little finger and ring finger slid down the side of the bottle and levered it up, swiveling the throat in his grasp and slowly tipping the clear liquid into the drain. It pooled a little where it touched the sink, thicker than water, slightly viscous. House set the bottle down and turned on the tap, rubbing his thumb in the remaining liquid to wipe it away with the water, down the drain.

Wilson reached for the bottle but House took it out of his reach a second time, carrying it to the trash on the other side of the small kitchen. He took a knife from the knife block and with one expert motion brought the back of the blade against the glass, shattering it. He dropped the shards into the paper bag inside the trash can.

Wilson leaned against the sink and crossed his arms.

"Everything changes," he said.

House shook his head, knocking the knife blade against the side of the can to make sure all the glass was on the bottom.

"Everything stays the same," he replied. "I change."

END

No Reverse Gear

2006-06-14T23:36:57Z

I've spent the past two days wrapping up the paperwork for Spinal Tab and meeting with a hospital lawyer about the Wrongful Health suit, which is being settled out of court by means of us not informing everyone he knows and the handicapped-placard officials that he is no longer handicapped.

Inbetween times, I've been watching the Ducklings watch me.

I know that Chick once asked Herself what I was like before the infarction, and Herself said I was essentially the same, though Watson has been less charitable than Herself on that score, and perhaps accurately so. Regardless, the way I think is not the product of an injury, unless birth counts. I'm not some kinder, gentler Holmes because the cane is an aide and not a necessity now. People have this idea that you can't have a physical change without a mental one, which is very Roman, but not necessarily true. So the Ducklings are waiting and watching. And every so often Chick looks triumphantly at the other two, which makes me wonder if I'm losing my edge, because the only time she wins against the boys is when someone reaffirms her faith in humanity.

Change does not exist on a scale of better-to-worse. Change exists on a scale of same-to-different, and there's no reverse gear. So, if I don't go backwards to who I was before the infarction, and I'm not idling at who I've been the past five years -- does it make me different? Which part? Knowing I trust my team professionally? Having been shot? Being able to go five, ten, fifteen hours without the drugs?

My mind is intact. I'm not incapable of shouting to get what I want. I don't believe that I've lost perspective. I'm proven.

My mind rebels at stagnation, as said my namesake. I know I can solve his abstruse cryptograms and intricate analyses, but a sensible man looks to his own house first. And it may be past time.

Hey oncologeewhiz, how do I put in for vacation time? I don't think I've ever done it at Fourth Circle before.

Crank it up to eleven.

2006-06-13T02:50:27Z

Done.

I haven't done actual surgery since the infarction made it impossible. I can't -- couldn't -- stand still for that long without having tremors in my leg. Today I scrubbed in on exploratory spinal surgery and took over when the surgeon quit, because he didn't want to cripple the guy for life.

You and I both know how worried I was about that.

The surgeon walked away because he didn't want to fuck around with anything that close to the spinal cord. We could see it there, pushing into the cartilage between vertebrae, distorting everything around it as the body calcified the tissue protecting it. What we didn't know was whether it was a bone growth that needed cutting, or some kind of freak embolism, or what. Just because it comes up on the metal detector, children, doesn't mean it's a bullet.

And he wouldn't mess with it. Just jiggle the cord a little and see what happens, I said, and he said Holmes, human beings aren't television antennas, which is stupid because if you hook us up right we're actually really good antennas.

So he left, and his assistant went to close, and I said no, let me have a whack at it first. Nice of the ducklings to run interference and block off the assistant while I gave the thing a few easy taps.

It came right out into my hand. Light. Just dropped like snow.

"Now," I said, "You can close."

We ran a biopsy needle into the mass, but it -- well, it hit metal. And I'd had just about enough of not knowing what the hell was wrong with this guy. So, while my ducklings were off running tests on the tissue, I decided to get rid of the rest of it. A pal of mine once walked me through the process of removing tissue from a bullet, and while I didn't have specialized enzymatic fluid on hand, I do have access to a vibrating water bath in the lab. It was all very exciting, watching the tissue shred up into little tiny pieces and reveal the metal underneath.

I'm not sure how a person actually gets an aluminum pop-top tab stuck in their back without noticing. I think I may need to contact the Mythbusters, in fact.

I may not always have all the answers, but I do know one thing.

This...

Is Spinal Tab.

Testing for The Gay

2006-06-12T01:53:11Z

I had clinic today, despite my best efforts to be incarcerated for theft.

A woman brought her underage son in to see if I could circumcise him. So that he wouldn't be gay anymore. Apparently foreskins make you gay. There's a winning family situation.

I told her we can test for gay now. Very simple test, she didn't even need to leave the room. I drew a square in marker pen on her kid's arm and dropped some Betadine onto it.

"Oh, it's orange," I said. The kid looked like he thought I was nuts.

"What does that mean?" she asked.

"He definitely has gay," I told her. "But it's the surgically resistant kind. There's nothing we can do, I'm afraid. Still, many people manage to live very fulfilling lives while gay. You should get your other kids tested..."

I can't believe she bought it. God, that was more fun than crushing her soul. I should have told her I had "the gay" too. That would have been awesome. I wish I'd thought of it.

Mr. Wheels goes into surgery tomorrow. There's something in his spine. We'll see what there is to see.

Hell on Wheels

2006-06-11T13:52:47Z

Okay, so preliminary surgery didn't find anything. I bet Jesus had to practice a few times before he made cripples walk too.

We're on the right track, I know we are. It's got to be some kind of growth inside the spinal column. It's compressing the nerves and the body's finally decided to attack it. But it belongs to the body, so we're getting the immunological symptoms. It's there. Just because we can't see it doesn't mean it isn't there. And I am not nuts for thinking it's there.

Mr. Wheels needs a psych consult, but I'm not going to inflict a psychiatrist on anyone who isn't actively trying to kill themselves. You need to meet this guy to believe him. He likes having no function below his waist, including sexual, because it means people are nice to him. You know what, I may be an asshole but at least I'm not an asshole who also craves society's approval. You can't have both. Actually you can, as long as you have a wheelchair, but you trade in sex and independent bowel function for it, and I'm not buying that bridge.

If he could walk again he'd be normal. Unoriginal, not particularly noticeable. I will never be normal. Which at least means I don't have to be afraid of not being crippled anymore.

If he'd been shot, now, we wouldn't be asking these questions. We'd know his handicap was probably bullet related.

I wonder. He's certainly the type...

not_cuddly, if anyone asks, I am not the one who stole security's metal-detector wand.

Bore on Wheels

2006-06-11T04:36:56Z

Filtered: oncologeewhiz

Okay, you don't need to actually reply, just pretend you read this so that I can feel like I'm throwing ideas off at someone else.

His body acts like it has AIDS. Some form of immunodeficiency condition, anyway. The tests are all negative, but tests fail. I'm re-running them. And that doesn't explain the "hysterical paraplegia" which I don't think is hysterical at all, as much as he enjoys his wheels. He says he doesn't want to be cured -- not of the paraplegia. I was treated to a ten minute monologue on the subject of how great it is to be a cripple. This is what I want to hear, yo. Preach it, brother.

I hate patients.

I've never hear of cancer presenting with AIDS-like symptoms, but it's possible the paraplegia is some kind of compressed nerve damage done by a tumor at the same density as

You know what, forget it. I know what's wrong with him. I'll be at the hospital tonight if you get this message and want to come see me make the lame walk.

Case Notes: Future Reference

2006-06-09T17:04:34Z

Security Level: Private

Case notes
G. House, Primary Physician

"Physician, Heal Thyself"

Patient is a forty-five year old male in good health, moderate drinker, nonsmoker, on a long-term course of opiate painkillers for nerve damage to the right quadricep muscle caused by embolism (c 5yrs ago). During previous surgery, Patient reports vivid hallucinations of leg injuries, ranging in severity from full amputation to full rehabilitation.

Patient was involved in an altercation where he was shot twice at point blank range (through and through abdomen, graze jugular). Patient experienced momentary loss of consciousness, approx. 5 mins.

Patient reports that while unconscious he experienced a series of vivid hallucinations. Outline follows:

Discussions with Ducklings:
Awoke in ICU --> AC. nearby, has not left bedside. Full report of injuries. Insignificant. Expected.
Patient demanded status of pending -- patient demanded status of his own patient (henceforth "Harpo"), status had not yet been determined.
Extensive discussion of trash and sanitation. What the hell?
Extended allegory. If not a purge reference, then what? Projection? Patient's own flaws projected. Re AC, serious business: "fixing damaged people". Patient insists fixing people NOT reason for medicine.
F & RC debate re: lumbar puncture. RC speaking as rational voice. AC/F/RC some kind of demented greek chorus? Freudian imagery: Id/Superego/Ego. More like Ego/Ego/Ego.

RC chosen as most accurate reflection of self. Longest-running collab. Most suited to own temperment. Father issues parallel. Also prettiest.

RC rides exercise bike. Wheels spinning (versus treadmill: see GENERAL, JW treadmill)
Surgical Robot procedure -- test on AC. 2nd sensation sexual arousal. (Occured when painkillers administered?) Robot used to sexually harass employee. Good time had by all. Distancing mechanism? Flirtation versus relationship. On conclusion of demonstration, patient asked Harpo (patient's corollary to self) if he had seen enough. Harpo replies "no." May not have been referring to robot.

Harpo:
"Harpo" cannot speak --> subconscious subversion, indirect lack of comm. with patients? Choked on his own tongue. Choking on tongue. Loss of speech. Choking on words. Lack of words. Self-destruction via spoken word.
Patient observed Lumbar Puncture procedure for Harpo. Unrelated trauma: swelling in the ocular orbit, causing displacement of left eye, loss of vision. Symbolic blindness, ignorance. Half-blind. Muted and blinded. Missing something.
During procedure, patient engaged Harpo's wife in conversation. Wife seems aware of patient, had "friend" treated by patient.

"You only talk to people if you have to, and then you insult them while showing off how insightful you are."

Harpo is declared widower. Loss of significant female figure. Caused by blindness/silence.
Exploding testicle. NOT SYMBOLIC CASTRATION THAT IS A STUPID IDEA. Loss of self. Loss of wholeness.
Doubts as to Harpo's humanity. Fuck you, Freud.

Moriarty:
Patient's attacker installed as roommate in ICU. Henceforth "Moriarty". Direct confrontation. Big surprise. Patient removed self from vicinity of Moriarty --> attempted to contact employer. Stopped momentarily in Hallway by AC. Sensations of sexual arousal. First flush of endorphines post-trauma?
Informed that he was not expected to die, merely to suffer. Increased suffering/torment post-unconsciousness, recalls immediate events after coma 5yrs ago. Displacement, repetition. Unconsciousness = trauma. Possibly reason I the patient experiences insomnia.
Extensive conversation w/Moriarty re: motivations for assault. Casefiles indicate discrepancies in situation:

TRUE
Moriarty was patient
Married
Clinic intake
Unfaithful to wife
Venereal Disease
Undiagnosed --> masking as allergic reaction
Actual allergic reaction
Uninsured
Lost everything...?

HALLUCINATION
Wife was patient
Married
Intake status unknown
Unfaithful to wife
Genetic predis. brain aneurism
Diagnosed --> also informed of infidelity
On information, committed suicide.
If I were diagnosed with a genetic predisposition for high-death-risk arterial swelling in my brain that required potentially painful and invasive surgeries to correct, I might consider it too.

RESULT: Sensations of shame, guilt. Husband's infidelity was irrelevant, thus uncharacteristic of patient to share this information with wife.
Broad application: guilt/shame re invasive quest for/sharing of information; consciousness of consequences but self-gratifying lack of concern.
Fuck you, my subconscious.

M. accused patient of hypocrisy, takes responsibility for wife's suicide, asked patient to do same. Patient declines.
M. observes Patient makes his own rules: "Tell the blunt, honest truth in the starkest, darkest way, and what will be will be -- what will be should be. And everyone else is a coward." M. disagrees, cites concept of humility, actions = consequences. Self-evident. Self doubt.
Resolution: Over Mexican (comfort food) M advises trusting team, taking no action, allowing team to guide. Guiding the symbolically blind?
Long lecture from M. re life philosophy: accuses patient of wasting life, believing life has no meaning, devaluing one meaningful thing in life. Sunshine and puppies everywhere. Screw this.
Patient felt urge to apologize for behavior. Patient is clearly an idiot.

General:
Patient experienced increased pain centralizing away from old trauma site. Gating mechanism at work.
Patient believed himself to have pulled out stitches from recent trauma. Poss. transfer floor-to-gurney; sudden flare of pain.
Patient was chained to bed by handcuff, right hand. "My hands are tied."
Cactus Mexican Food. Comfort food. Who the fuck's car was I sitting on?
Patient witnesses best friend (JW) walking treadmill. Same old ground. Poor Wilson.
Patient discovers Ketamine was administered in place of anaesthesia. Experimental process (confirmed: exists; NEJM article, late 2005). Dissociative coma allows for "reboot" of brain, significant red. of pain. Fears loss of faculties.
JW: sermon ala Moriarty, states physical has become irrelevant, only logic matters. This is a good idea, actually.
Argument with employer: "What do I have? My brain." Accusations of shooting morphine. Not unfounded. Subconscious concern. Patient knows he is an addict, manages addiction. Management slipping. No more morphine.

JW PUNCHED IN JAW. V. SATISFYING.

Attempt to leave case results in disbelief re: employer. Trapped by job.

Resolution of Hallucination:
Patient determined that entire experience was hallucination. Could not escape without altering "his" reality in such a way as to make it nonsensical/surreal. Patient chose to achieve this goal through drastic measure. No real surprise. Patient makes use of surgical robot to eviscerate/murder Harpo. Harpo, deceased, drops bullet from fingers.
Destruction of old self-corollary. Purge -- re-reference to trash/sanitation metaphor. Destruction of "old, crippled" self? Rebirth via death.

Desire for meaning.

Post-Operative:
Ketamine treatment requested on awakening from hallucination, administered with no negative side effects. Patient's older trauma improved (see NEJM); reduction of pain/reliance on opiates. Patient has ceased to use walking aides during mornings and early afternoons. Claims to have poured morphine down the sink; confirmed by JW.

Physical and neurological exams show no signs of lasting damage from trauma or Ketamine treatment. Patient is still experiencing self-doubt re: mental abilities, but is obsessed with the idea of testing this through his work. Expect positive results shortly.

From time of recent trauma, no noticeable alteration in patient's behavior has been observed. Patient claims that one life-threatening surgery in life makes the next one boring. Patient has refused professional rehab, supervising private rehab personally. Patient was eager to return to work. Showing no acute signs of depression or grief.

Relative to mental/physical/emotional status pre-trauma, patient appears to be improved.

Conclusion: More people should be shot.

My Destiny To Be The King

2006-06-08T17:42:25Z

The one consolation for being the king of the baffled is when you look around the room and realize that everyone else is more baffled and thinks you're just waiting for the right moment to reveal how brilliant you are.

I'm going to have to take a history from him myself. He's a mean sumbitch, nearly made Black Duckling cry.

This is gonna be fun!

I love mean patients. They're so much easier to goad.

To-do list:
1. Replace icons now that I've found them again.
2. Vengeance upon Watson.

i_blues_joo @ 2006-06-07T16:03:00

2006-06-07T21:03:05Z

I have a case.

Oh shit.

I've had my examination by Watson for general health and Black Duckling for neurological health and the rest of my team and Dragon Lady when they thought I wasn't looking and I've shown off the scar to the nurses. And now I have a case and I have to try not to kill my patient. Or make his testicles explode.

Forty year old male presenting with symptoms of immunodeficiency disorder but without underlying evidence. Tests are clean. Nonsmoker, moderate drinker. Paraplegic, cause unknown.

Yeah, let's repeat that part. Paraplegic. Cause unknown. He's in a wheelchair and nobody knows why.

Let the real exam begin.

I'm pretty sure this Yanni At The Acropolis CD is yours.

2006-06-06T00:19:15Z

Wow. You should have been here for the fight this morning, Watson. You think you and I are loud. I might actually get evicted for that one. Which figures, he's a Marine. He's louder, but I know bigger words.

So, my parents are gone.

I'm bored. I've done crosswords until I'm blue in the face. What's a six letter word for "asshole who took my car keys"? Starts with a W. You dent my car, I'll fracture your parietal plate.

I've sorted and catalogued my entire CD collection, gone through and properly re-jacketed the LPs, built a jungle gym for Steve out of popsicle sticks and jello pudding cups that he's now gleefully chewing to shreds, and cleaned out my Tivo.

Can I come back to work now?

No wait, let me put it this way: If you don't let me come back to work, I'll sue. I'm looking at YOU, Dragon Lady.

I don't get either of them, actually.

2006-06-02T04:07:07Z

I came home this afternoon. I walked into my apartment under my own power. Mom started crying. I don't get her.

Dad came to get me from the hospital and he drove my corvette, even though everyone knows that Watson is the only one allowed to drive my car and then only if he grovels properly. Mom stayed at home; she's really good at that. My fridge is just ridiculously full of food, she put all my books in some kind of arbitrary parental dewey decimal system order, and there was pasta salad for dinner.

Chick's been chaperoning them around the hospital, I can tell, because they know what I did to my patient to make him want to shoot me (nobody really thinks that I didn't, in some way, deserve this) and they know way more than they should about what I've been up to for the past year. And Dad's giving me those looks, and sooner or later he's going to ask me about Chick. Or, worse, he's going to ask Watson, and Watson can't lie to Dad for beans. It's why Dad likes him so much.

If I could stay in my office and work, I would. I don't have to move to think, and when I move around too much is the only time I really feel like an invalid. Instead they're hustling me home, where I fall asleep on the couch when Mom leaves the room to get a lemonade and wake up to hear my parents talking about me, as if I'm ten years old again. I hated being ten years old. At least at work my ducklings would treat me like an insane adult, instead of an insane preadolescent.

I didn't think they worried about me. Not really. Mom says she does because all moms say they do, but I have no illusions that I'm the center of their world. Besides, I'm long since grown. But they do. It's all they talked about, when they thought I was sleeping. It's weird.

Not just the shooting; worries that I was going to throw another clot and stroke out after the infarction, worries that I've become a drug addict, worries about the motorcycle, worries because I'm alone, because I live alone, and what would happen if I fell and was hurt? Worries when I was in med school that I was going to ~~get thrown out~~ drop out like I dropped out of ROTC and run away somewhere to play in a blues band, and was it their fault for teaching me the piano.

My parents are way more messed up than I ever gave them credit for.

Mom invited my ducklings and Watson to breakfast out somewhere tomorrow morning. I'm a sick man. I shouldn't be forced to witness that horror.

At least there will be waffles. And Mom will make Chick eat something, which should be fun to watch.

OOC POST

2006-06-01T13:24:38Z

I perhaps should have announced this sooner, but i_blues_joo will be continuing on this summer as an AU. Events from now until the premiere will go ambling off into their own little world, and then when the season starts up again, things will snap back into canon.

So -- if things wander a bit in the next few months, and there are some surprises, bear in mind that in September it all fades away...

*evil grin*

i_blues_joo @ 2006-05-31T08:15:00

2006-05-31T13:15:46Z

OKAY WHO FUCKED WITH MY USERPICS.

WATSON, THIS MEANS WAR.

You can't prove I watch Ouran High School Host Club. You'd like to, but you can't.

And a long-forgotten lonely cairn of stones.

2006-05-31T13:12:30Z

It's one of the great myths of Fourth Circle Hospital that the nurses all hate me. The clinic nurses do, and for good reason, but my floor nurses and the ICU nurses can't understand why so many people don't like me. I'm such a lamb, they say. I'm like a little kid. I bring them suckers from the Clinic's candy supply!

This is a cunningly constructed illusion because I know how useful nurses are and I know that, like lab techs, one wants them on one's side in any battle with the hospital, the patients, or the disease. And look how useful they are, turning their backs and not noticing that my bed is empty and I'm wearing scrubs instead of a hospital gown. The error most people make is in assuming that I can't be charming when I want to be. I just don't want to be. It's too exhausting.

The deal with the devil-with-the-pink-scrubs-on is that I'm not allowed to go far. I keep my end of the bargain, too. I don't go past my office door, but then everything I need is in my office. My computer, for a start. Balcony access to Watson's office. The scrubs. My whiteboard. My Magic 8-Ball. My cane.

My cane.

A week ago a former patient of mine, whom we'll call Moriarty for drama's sake, walked into my conference room, asked for me, and shot me twice. The first bullet perforated my abdomen, did some minor damage to my internal organs, and lodged in my back. It was removed in surgery. The second bullet was, we believe, intended for my head. Pretty Duckling, who wins the Fellow of the Year Award, attacked Moriarty and the bullet nicked my jugular instead, lodging in the floor of my office. It's still there. One of the Ducklings has moved the bookcase forward a few inches to cover the burn mark in the carpet.

Going into surgery I requested, and was given, a drug called Ketamine instead of the usual anasthetic. Ketamine is vicious stuff; it causes dissociation, which is an unpleasant effect if you're not shooting for it. You may know it as Special K. Studies in Europe, mostly in Germany, have linked Ketamine to long-term relief from chronic pain.

Yesterday I got out of bed for the first time in a week and walked without significant pain for the first time in nearly six years. I walked to my office, where my cane was. I got down on my knees to study the carpet burn. That hurt the bullet wound like a motherfucker, but not my leg. I walked back to my hospital bed without my cane.

I had a teacher in high school who used to say that he never did drugs because the brain is such a delicate chemical entity already that interfering with it without the proper training seemed like madness to him. Even with the proper training, eight times in ten we mess up somehow. We get the dosage wrong, or use the wrong drug. I don't know what other problems the Ketamine might have brought me; if it blocks pain, what else is it blocking?

But it blocks the pain. And I don't reach for a pill every three hours. And I don't want to.

I go a little bed-crazy from not having anything to chew on, no puzzles to play with, but Watson brought me some novels to read and there's always physio if I get bored as Cuddy never fucking ceases to remind me and why the hell does she even bother visiting me, she gets my daily status updates.

Tomorrow I go over the wall and break out of this medical Alcatraz. My parents have been stalking me and living in my apartment THANKS WATSON REALLY APPRECIATE YOU GIVING THEM A KEY so it's really just trading one prison for another, but hopefully they'll move out and go home. Otherwise I'm going to have to go crash on Chick's couch, and that will be hideously awkward. Normally I enjoy awkward, but not when it's at the expense of my beauty rest, and Dad might make Remarks. Surviving his Remarks about Herself was the worst part of that entire relationship. Except for the bit where she told someone to cut out part of my leg.

I'm not whole. I thought, because I used to be an idiot, that losing a part of your body was -- unspeakable. A nightmare. The worst possible outcome. But six years of constant pain...mathematically quantifying your chances of living past sixty when you know you're self destructing because twenty years of pain is unimaginable...that's worse. So now I weigh the odds of losing part of myself, part of my mind, against stopping the pain.

It was the right choice. Even if the pain comes back, even if I'll still never walk normally again, it was the right choice. Even if it cripples me mentally, it was the right choice.

A little freedom. A few more inches on the leash.

It's pathetic, but I don't care.

THESE ARE MY DEMANDS.

2006-05-26T17:54:26Z

1. More pudding.

2. MY PATIENT'S CASE FILE. I'm not fucking around here. WHAT IS HAPPENING TO MY PATIENT. I WANT HIS FILE AND TO KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON RIGHT NOW.

3. Macadamia pancakes for breakfast. What the shit do they put in their Breakfast Burrito Surprise?

4. My computer. A computer. Some computer that isn't some random nurse's Blackberry that I lifted from her pocket.

5. My Pirates of the Caribbean DVD.

6. MY GODDAMN SHOES. You took my shoes? What is this, Stalag Luft III? NO WAIT, THEY GOT TO KEEP THEIR SHOES.

7. No more peeing into a tube. I have done the peeing into a tube thing. It has lost its appeal.

8. Wee Free Men. If Chick Duckling is going to read Children's Fantasy Lit she's going to read Terry Pratchett, dammit. JK Rowling doesn't need her money. She killed Sirius Black. Also, someone needs to forcibly remove Chick from my room and wash her before returning her. I'd do it myself but I've been shot. Where's Pretty? He can do it, he's seen her naked already.

9. Steve McQueen. Someone better have been feeding him. What the hell day is it? He gets peas and peanut butter three times a week and Tuesday night is pizza-crust night.

10. The name of whoever sent all these fucking flowers. And whoever told my parents.

Until these demands are met I will be really cranky.

Thought you should know

2006-05-24T15:56:11Z

Holmes won't be posting for a while. He's—well, he's been shot*.

More news once I have it.

– Watson (oncologeewhiz)

* Not by me or one of the ducklings. Miraculously.