It is, perhaps, not the best idea, when home sick in bed for a week, to use that time to catch up on the first season of “House.”
It seemed like a good idea at the time. There we were, my wife and I, both laid up with hacking coughs and fevers, enjoying the irascible Dr. Gregory House as he solved all problems with keen observational prowess and inexhaustibly acerbic wit. Not that we put it that way, of course. Mostly we said things like, “Funny. (coughcoughhackcoughhack) Please kill me.”
By the third day, when I went to a doctor, I knew full well what to expect. He would limp in, grumbling and bleary-eyed, and find some way to offend and utterly ridicule me while complaining about clinic duty. But then he’d cure me by diagnosing some obscure Malaysian muscle disorder before he even put his cane down. Let him mock my weight, hairline, or fidelity. I was ready.
“So, what seems to be the trouble,” my doctor asked, smiling.
Already I was suspicious. He was clean-shaven. And cheerful. He read my chart, clucked at my temperature, and listened, with every appearance of sincerity, to my chest. Then he told us it was bronchitis, gave me a prescription for amoxicillin and told me to take it easy.
I exchanged fearful glances with my wife. This was all wrong. He hadn’t even commented on my obvious moral shortcomings. Clearly this was one of the underlings, the one who would prove to be brilliantly wrong about my ailment, and who would also be discovered to have a deep-seated personal connection with me that would disastrously cloud his judgment. No problem, we were still on track.
We went home and rushed upstairs to the television for a consult. The first question to be answered was if I should take the antibiotics. Teres argued for no, since everyone knows the first medication is always wrong and causes more damage. I thought I should take it and get the near-fatal reaction over with because otherwise we’d never find out what was really wrong with me. I even got into a fetal position and bit down on a bedroom slipper to prepare for the inevitable seizures. I think Teres just didn’t want to intubate me, even after we practiced on the dog.
As it turned out I didn’t even thrash about or flatline, which confused us. My left arm did go numb, cheering me about the possibility of a neurological disorder, but Teres pointed out that I was lying on it.
The next step was to talk it out. We set up some posterboard and began to list my possible conditions.
“Pneumonia?”
“Fever’s too low.”
“Pertussis?”
“‘Whooping cough’? Possible, it’s on the rise in the southeast regions. But it usually targets younger patients. Also, you’re not whooping.”
“Vasculitis?”
“Would that make you cough?”
“No, but they always say it. Viral croup?”
We quickly decided that we needed more information. After taking a swab of mucus from my nasopharynx — despite the ready availability of samples on most of the surfaces in my immediate area — we ran some simple tests using a “U Can Learn!” chemistry kit and a centrifuge we built out of a spinning spice rack and a lawn mower battery. Eureka!
It was mucus. To be honest I really couldn’t evaluate it clearly because I was still dizzy from the home-MRI we performed with the microwave.
The next step was to investigate my living area because obviously I had been lying at the clinic when they took my history. We looked carefully for any empty cans of fertilizer or bacteria-encrusted food. Nothing. No asbestos under the floorboards, no rare African insects trapped in the screen. Exhausted, we went to bed.
The next morning I felt a bit better, which naturally meant I was due to code at any time. We didn’t have any adrenaline so Teres filled a long syringe with Red Bull and kept it ready. But, despite a lot of coughing, I remained conscious and alert. This was a terribly subtle disease that would require more research.
Sinusitis, ear infection, emphysema, gastroesophageal reflux disease, cystic fibrosis, allergic rhinitis, lung cancer, larynx cancer, tuberculosis, histoplasmosis, Legionnaires’ disease, scarlet fever, Wegener’s granulomatosis. . all of these were suggested, tested for, and abandoned as being insufficiently dramatic.
There was no other choice. My time was coming. I updated my will, said long and tearful goodbyes to my loved ones and my closest creditors, and relaxed to the inevitable. At least I could be the tragic death that spurred the staff on to save others.
And then I had it. It came to me in a flash, the breakthrough, the intuitive leap that allows Dr. House to collate seemingly unrelated data into an insight of sheer genius:
It is, perhaps, not the best idea, when home sick in bed for a week, to use that time to catch up on the first season of “House.”