"I ought to have this framed." "My last bill from Princeton." "And I thought we were celebrating the fact that I actually graduated." "I always knew you'd be able to graduate." "What I didn't know was whether I would be able to pay for it." "Your mom, she'd be so proud of you." "You always say that." "I'm so proud of you." "Always was." "Come on, Dad, you're gonna cry." "You wanna be embarrassed?" "You got it!" "Look, don't party too hard tonight." "Your grandmother wants a picture of you getting that sheepskin, and it'd be nice if you didn't look completely hung over." "Oh, no, don't worry," "I've had enough alcohol in the past week to last me another four years." "Good, I think." "Drink!" "Drink!" "Drink!" "More!" "More!" "Drink!" "Drink!" "Drink!" "12:55!" "Man!" "You are the man!" "Tell me something I don't know!" "Hey, that's not funny, man." "What?" "Yeah, right, you shocked me." "With what?" "I got nothing." "Well, hey, whoever's doing that better cut it out!" "What the hell's going on?" "Maybe there's a short somewhere, the floor's covered with beer." "No way, no, the outlets are GFI, plus he's got rubber-soled shoes on." "Oh, my God!" "Somebody call 911 !" "Patient experiences shock-like sensations as well as headaches, nausea, and drowsiness." "Shocks?" "Excruciatingly painful shocks." "ER docs referred him to a neurologist, who referred him to five other doctors in the last seven days." "Shocks could be Lhermitte's sign." "Early symptom of MS." "No." "MRI showed no white matter lesions, and the shocks aren't accompanied by neck flexing." "Good morning!" "It's almost noon." "Really?" "That must be why I'm so hungry." "Who's up for lunch?" "What's with the jacket?" "It keeps me warm and cool." "How does it know?" "We're discussing your new patient." "Must be a boring discussion, seeing as I haven't accepted a new patient." "You accepted him the moment I loaned you 5 grand." "Oh, wait, wait." "When I said I'd do anything for the money, obviously I didn't mean it." "You're gonna like this." "The kid's getting shocked every few minutes." "Why would you need $5,000?" "Bad night at poker, or great night with a hooker?" "Thank you for saving me the trouble of deflecting that personal question with a joke." "College student?" "Nitrous oxide's fun at parties." "Caused the shocks, and drinking till we puke every night can cause everything else." "Give him some B12." "Been there, done that." "Also ruled out cancer, MS, pyridoxine toxicity, and all the popular neuropathies." "Cervical spondylosis." "Doesn't explain the low white count." "He's black." "I'm assuming he's not just really dirty, but is of African descent, which means he'd have a lower white count." "Not this low." "He's a wrestler." "Probably uses diuretics to cut weight." "That can also cause low white count." "Not this low. "Not this low."" "Behcet's." "No skin lesions." "Cervical herpes zoster, myelitis..." "No external outbreak." "Something's missing." "Find out what it is." "I don't even know what that means." "Well, figure it out." "Find it out, and then find me." "I'll be at lunch." "No ideas?" "Lots of ideas." "Too many ideas, that's why so many tests." "Have you used any recreational drugs?" "What?" "I'm gonna get mad at you for getting stoned?" "Not today, not here." "At Christmas, one of the guys had some ecstasy," "I mean, I..." "It was..." "Son of a bitch!" "ANA is negative for lupus, again." "House wants more information, not the same information done over again." ""Find what's missing."" "For all we know, the kid is dying and he's giving us riddles?" "Did a more detailed history, went back three generations." "And?" "His mom died in a car accident, his mom's mom had arthritis, and his mom's mom's dad served in an all-black tank battalion under Patton." "Fascinating." "If it's not a tumor, it has to be MS." "Wilson already ruled out..." "MRI can't rule out MS 100% of the time." "MS doesn't explain the low white count." "Alcoholism does." "On admission, his BAC was 2.0, liver enzymes off the chart." "It was graduation weekend." "He barely drank in the weeks before that, and he didn't drink at all during his wrestling season." "If you believe him." "I did a tox screen..." "It doesn't matter if she believes him or not, it's already in the chart." "We're supposed to find out what's missing." "Well, this..." "This is perfect." "Invite me to dinner on Thursday night." "Come on, we haven't had a nice meal together since..." "Yesterday, when I loaned you $5,000 to buy a new car." "My treat." "Two-wheeled vehicles that travel 150 miles an hour don't really go well with crippled, irresponsible drug addicts." "Actually, two-wheeled vehicles that go 180 miles an hour do not go well with healthy, responsible architects who don't know how to separate braking and turning." "Good news is, it brings the price right down." "You're taking it back." "Mom!" "How about we talk about this over dinner?" "Forget dinner, you're gonna kill yourself!" "Nice bike!" "Thank you." "See, that's how you do it." "Compliments, dinner." "What do you do with your cane?" "If he buys me dinner, he'll find out." "Evel Knievel had the same setup." "And he broke every bone in his body." "We went through all the imaging studies and redid the blood cultures." "I don't want hand-me-downs, I want brand-new stuff." "Well, there's nothing..." "There's nothing missing!" "Sorry, I didn't catch that last part!" "There's..." "There's..." "There's nothing else we can do." "Did you check the police report?" "On what?" "On his mom's car accident." "That was 15 years ago." "The kid wasn't even in the car." "She veered off a straight, dry road in broad daylight." "That doesn't seem odd to you?" "She probably got distracted changing radio stations or something." "That's what the police thought." "Of course, they didn't know that she has a family member who is frequently incapacitated by shock-like sensations." "A genetic component seems unlikely." "But it's interesting." "Type II neurofibromatosis could cause the shocks." "You knew this was missing?" "I knew something was missing, maybe this, maybe something else." "Get a DNA analysis of the long arm of chromosome 22." "You'd rather have dinner with your wife?" "Yes, I would." "If she were speaking to me." "Unlike her, I could make it worth your while." "Fine." "Shall I drive?" "No." "And I'm not letting you in my car until I see your wallet." "NF2." "It's an inherited disease." "It could cause abnormal growths on the cranial nerves." "It would explain the shocks and other symptoms." "DNA analysis will show whether your son has the specific chromosome mutation which causes the disease." "But if it's inherited, that means someone else in our family would have it." "We think your wife may have had it." "No." "She never had any sort of health problems." "No odd-looking freckles, nodules in the iris?" "Nothing." "I mean, why would you think she was sick?" "We think it may have been what caused her car accident." "Wait, what do you mean?" "My mom's car was hit by a drunk driver." "That's not what the police report indicated." "Well, you must have gotten the wrong report." "No." "They didn't." "When you started driving..." "I..." "You lied about how Mom died?" "I figured if her death could somehow mean something, it..." "How does lying about it mean something?" "How could you use her like that, Dad?" "Her death?" "I was just trying to protect you." "What else isn't true?" "She wasn't a teacher, you just wanted me to read?" "What's that smell?" "I don't smell..." "We're gonna need a nurse." "What the hell?" "It's okay." "We'll take care of it." "You didn't feel anything?" "No." "You feel that?" "Yeah." "But you didn't feel any of this?" "No." "Sphincter paralysis plus shocks equals Miller Fisher Syndrome." "Not if you add the stool sample, which is negative for C. Jejuni." "He lied to his son about how his mom died?" "He was just protecting him." "Manipulating him." "That's what parents do." "They lie to us because they love us." "Who's getting teary?" "Mom's death is irrelevant." "DNA revealed no NF2 markers or any other inherited disease." "Apparently, she really did fall asleep at the wheel." "So, what exactly are we talking about here?" "A little peeker, or did the prairie dog actually come out to play?" "Excuse me?" "Are we talking explosive?" "The hemoccult was negative for blood, and I wouldn't say he actually exploded." "More like gushed?" "Good, then we're getting somewhere." "Yeah?" "Where?" "I have no idea." "Of course." "Hello?" "Love the riddles." "Hi, Mom." "Look, I have a business dinner on Thursday night." "I can't get out of it." "I know, I really wanted to see you, too." "Actually, can I call you back?" "I'm in a meeting right now." "Okay, thanks." "Who was that?" "Angelina Jolie." "I call her "Mom." Who thinks that's sexy?" "So, explosive or gushing..." "She never calls here, is everything okay?" "Great, yeah." "My dad's taking her to Europe." "They got a nine-hour layover in Newark on Thursday." "If it's gastrointestinal..." "You lied to avoid seeing your own mom." "Are you kidding?" "I can't lie to my mom." "Seriously, I can't." "Wilson's invited me to dinner." "It'd be rude to stand up a guy who just loaned me 5 grand." "Transverse myelitis." "Could cause numbness, anal sphincter dysfunction, and the shocks." "Thank you for taking no interest in my mother." "But that begs the question, what caused the transverse myelitis?" "Well, we've ruled out cancer and MS." "Leaves infection." "If there was infection, there'd be a fever." "And his blood and CSF cultures are all negative." "Maybe the infection's gone but the memory remains." "Molecular mimicry." "Nice." "Okay, get an immunoglobulin level and electrophoresis." "You're good, my friend." "I'm sure we'll meet again." "Do you really think that was his mom on the phone?" "Probably, don't know why he'd lie about that." "Who cares?" "You're not the least bit curious what his parents are like?" "I'm sure his mom's a piece of work." "Only a mother could do that much damage." "My bet's he was born the way he is." "Probably tormented his parents, not the other way around." "Yeah, he was either a fast runner or one hell of a fighter." "Where are you going?" "You guys can handle the tests, right?" "Is there something important that you and House need to discuss over dinner?" "Other than the skyrocketing interest rates on personal loans?" "You know, this is the fourth time I've loaned him money." "Not lunch money, money-money." "House's parents." "They have a layover in Newark Thursday evening." "I'm canceling dinner." "No." "I thought maybe you could just invite a few more people." "An infectious agent's molecular structure can resemble the spinal cord's." "And when the immune system attacks the infection, it ends up attacking the spinal cord's as well." "So he has an infection?" "They just said I don't." "Even after the infection is gone, it goes right on attacking because the spinal cord is still there." "Is there a treatment?" "Depends on what the original infection was." "All right, you're done." "You need to lay flat after a lumbar puncture for about an hour." "I feel like I'm gonna throw up." "Hey, Dad, can you get me a Coke, please?" "Yeah, that usually helps." "You're done." "If you're nauseous..." "No, I'm not nauseous." "I just want him out of here." "He's your dad." "He's gonna be around." "Yeah, I know." "It's not that, it's..." "Are these people completely incapable of telling the truth to each other?" "He went to Jamaica with his friends." "No wonder he lied." "Children aren't supposed to have good times." "One of his friends flew them down." "Carnell's dad has this thing about him accepting stuff from rich friends." "He wants him to remember who he is, where he came from." "Where have you been?" "Making dinner plans." "What's up?" "The boys have uncovered the shocking fact that the patient has a crappy relationship with his dad." "They seem to actually care." "Well, I don't." "There's only one reason any kid with a plane flies to Jamaica." "It wasn't for marijuana." "He doesn't do anything but drink." "He said that to you or his pops?" "Tox screen was negative for THC." "Spring break was over a month ago." "Even pot would have washed out by now." "Even if he'd smoked, no way marijuana causes transverse myelitis." "True." "But the stuff they put on it does." "Pesticides." "Well, why would he come clean about the trip but lie about smoking pot?" "He wouldn't necessarily have to smoke to get pesticide poisoning." "He could have eaten fruit that'd been sprayed, or been exposed through his skin on a hike." "Or he could have smoked it." "A lot of it." "Then lied about it because that's what this family does." "Start him on IV pralidoxime." "Two grams per liter, and then one gram every eight hours until you see some improvement." "You have no evidence to support a poisoning diagnosis." "Which is why it's gonna be so cool when I turn out to be right." "Cameron." "Who are you making dinner plans with?" "No one." "You bastard." "You invited my parents to dinner." "Cameron's got a big mouth." "Not as big as yours." "Hey!" "You used me to avoid seeing your parents." "Well, what do you care?" "I don't." "I just thought it might be interesting to find out why." "You could've just asked." "You would've lied." "And you would've believed me." "Which would've kept us both happy." "You want your money back?" "Is that what this is about?" "No!" "Wait, have you got the money?" "If you have the money, then why did you need the loan?" "I didn't." "I just wanted to see if you'd give it to me." "I've been borrowing increasing amounts ever since you lent me $40 a year ago." "A little experiment, to see where you draw the line." "You're trying to objectively measure how much I value our friendship?" "Hey, it's 5 grand." "You've got nothing to be ashamed of." "So, what do you say?" "One little phone call, one big check?" "Fine." "Thanks." "Now, be a grownup and either tell Mommy and Daddy you don't wanna see them, or I'm picking you up at 7:00 for dinner." "What do you mean?" "You just said that..." "I lied." "I've been lying to you in increasing amounts ever since I told you you looked good unshaved a year ago." "It's a little experiment, you know, to see where you draw the line." "How's the patient?" "Haven't been in yet, today." "As long as he hasn't gotten any worse." "We're treating him for pesticide poisoning without any proof of pesticides." "I'm gonna have a hell of a time explaining that to our lawyer." "I told House not to..." "Wow." "Lawyer's not gonna believe this." "He's got his appetite back." "Whatever you did, it's working." "He's healthy, so all is forgiven." "Now I'm feeling nauseous." "He is not healthy." "Nausea and diarrhea were not his only symptoms." "The shocks have also decreased." "But not disappeared." "And he's out of the diaper, which is good news for everyone." "What about his low white count?" "Well, the little buggers need time to grow." "Don't worry, our wrestling Rastafarian will be back on his feet and sneaking around behind Pop's back again in no time." "Yeah." "Check it again." "I'll be right there." "What happened?" "Apparently I can save money by switching to another long-distance carrier." "Oh, I was right, wasn't I?" "Oh, yeah, it's always about you, isn't it?" "He has the chills and his temperature's spiking." "It's nearly 106." "What's that mean?" "I mean, what's happening?" "You want the truth, or you want me to make something up to protect you?" "We think a drunk driver broke into his room..." "What's happening to my son?" "The truth is I have no idea." "There's the fever that Cameron was looking for." "We knew if it was myelitis, there had to be an "-itis."" "This must be the infection that set it off." "Yeah." "Except in this universe, effect follows cause." "I've complained about it, but..." "Maybe the tests were wrong." "No." "The tests were right." "Yesterday he had no fever, no infection." "So he just happened to catch a bug while he was here?" "That's all this is?" "Yeah." "Because his white blood cell count was down, he was vulnerable." "Because it's really down, it might kill him." "That's all this is." "Is he still pooping his pants?" "It just started again." "Again?" "It stopped when he was getting better." "When he was feeling better." "He was never getting better." "So, all we have to answer is, what causes a 22-year-old kid to become immunocompromised with GI involvement and shocks?" "Just stop and start for no apparent reason." "And we need to find an answer before this infection kills him." "That would be the ideal." "You." "Intravenous broad spectrum antibiotics." "You get a cervical, thoracic, and lumbar T2-weighted fast spin-echo MRI." "And you, track down all those Richie Rich's who went to Jamaica, see if any of them have got the shocks, the trots or the hots." "The hots, it's the fever." "You guys gonna join us for dinner Thursday?" "Gotta do my laundry." "You're not curious?" "I'm curious about crocs, but I don't stick my head in their mouths." "I'm out, too." "Look, House is a freak!" "There's no virus that causes that, no DNA mutation." "You're gonna have one dinner with two people." "Sixty minutes, most of it spent chewing or talking about the weather." "Unless they say something like," ""Do you prefer the chardonnay or the merlot?"" "And, "Oh, we kept Greg locked in a closet for 17 years."" "You're not gonna learn anything." "Okay." "We'd like to talk to some of your friends, see if they have any similar symptoms." "The doctors in the ER already asked me that." "We understand, but they didn't have all the information that we have now." "What kind of information?" "Would you mind if I spoke with Carnell alone for a minute?" "Is this bad news?" "No." "It's just confidential." "Why is something suddenly confidential?" "I mean, if you know something about my son," "I need to know what's going on." "I'm sorry, I have to insist." "I'm his father, and if I'm going to take care of him, I need to know the truth." "Dad." "She wants to know who I went to Jamaica with." "You've never been to Jamaica." "Taddy's dad flew a bunch of us down over spring break." "You told me you had two papers to write over the break." "'Cause I didn't want to come home and work my ass off." "I wanted an actual break during a break for once." "I shouldn't have lied to you." "No, what you should have done is come home instead of partying with your rich friends." "I'm sorry, we need those names." "What do you want?" "To apologize." "I realize that my attention to the clinic has been somewhat lax of late, and I wanna make amends." "How about tomorrow night?" "I take the night shift." "The clinic's closed at night." "Yeah, but I'm sure there's plenty of things to be done, there's charts to be reviewed, supplies inventoried..." "Dinners avoided." "You're going, too?" "I love their Cobb Salad." "Give me a reason to get out of this, and I'll tell you who started the rumor about you being a transsexual." "There is no such rumor." "There will be, unless you get me out of this dinner." "No one's making you do this, House." "Just do what everybody else does." "Lie to them." "You lie to your mother?" "Only since I was 12!" "My mom's a human polygraph." "My dad should be taking her to Vegas, not the Louvre." "Trust me, your mom would much rather think you have a business meeting than you hate her." "I don't hate her." "I hate him." "We all had headaches, nausea, vomiting." "You know, we figured it was connected to the massive amounts of drinking." "What, you think what happened to Carnell has something to do with the trip?" "Don't know." "You haven't had any unexplained pain or strange feelings since you got back?" "No, except for a little athlete's foot, I'm fine." "Can I see it?" "See what?" "Your feet." "There's a common parasite in Jamaica that can resemble foot fungus." "It's not really my feet." "You know, I figured fungus is fungus." "It's my groin." "I'm going to need to take a look at that." "Now?" "Unless you wanna come down to the hospital with me." "No, no, I can't." "I mean, I just started two days ago." "We're right in the middle of a big merger..." "Then drop your pants." "Reilly, I need the..." "What the hell's going on here?" "She's a doctor." "I'm a doctor, he has a rash, and a friend of his is..." "Right." "Well, as soon as she's done treating your rash," "I need the numbers on D-Port Technology." "Yes, sir." "And, Doctor, why don't you leave a card on your way out?" "Except for one guy with a rash, no one else on the trip has any health issues." "What kind of rash?" "I don't know, I took some scrapings, it doesn't appear to be ringworm." "What did it look like, aside from "not ringworm"?" "Basically like diaper rash." "He's been working around the clock, he said he hasn't changed his clothes in three days." "Kaposi's Sarcoma can look like diaper rash." "Any discoloration around the edges?" "Get him in here." "We all wanna take a look." "Even if it is Kaposi's, it's not related." "Our patient doesn't have any skin symptoms and we've already ruled out cancer." "What are the odds of two friends who just returned from a trip outside the country coming down with unexplained but unrelated illnesses?" "Get him in here." "He won't come." "Just started a new job after graduation, they're working on some big merger." "Tell him his friend's life hangs in the balance." "That's what I told him the first time." "Still wound up driving into Manhattan." "Tell him his life hangs in the balance." "Tell him the rash is flesh-eating, and the next course on the menu is his frank and beans." "Where's Stacy?" "Speaking at a conference in Baltimore." "Why, what do you need?" "Can I subpoena a patient?" "House wants me to lie to the kid to get him in here." "Well, then you'll be the one getting the subpoena." "Well, we do need him to diagnose his friend." "Take the test to the kid." "There is no test, House just wants to look at it." "Then take House to it." "Yeah, like that's gonna happen." "Tell House his parents called." "Said they were coming in early." "He'll go anywhere just to avoid them." "So, it's okay to lie to House but not to a patient?" "Yup." "What's wrong?" "His stomach's getting a lot worse." "It's rigid!" "He's bleeding into his abdomen!" "What's going on?" "We need a surgeon and an OR, stat!" "On it." "Try to hang in there, Carnell." "The infection caused a perforation in his sigmoid colon." "It's repairable." "But it means the antibiotics aren't working." "Double the dose, and add Tygacil to the list." "Soon as he's out of surgery." "Where's Richie Rich?" "He said he can't leave work." "Yeah, you told me that two hours ago." "I'm not gonna lie." "Why, 'cause it's wrong?" "Or because you're a coward?" "Tough choice." "You'd be wasting two hours of the kid's time." "Is that deeply and unforgivably morally wrong?" "No." "Because it's not a waste of his time." "Unless we're wrong." "Unless his condition's got nothing to do with his friend's." "You're just afraid of being wrong." "Your parents called." "They had to catch an earlier..." "You don't have to lie to him." "Kid's on his way here." "He got off work?" "Yeah, by vomiting blood." "Ambulance is 10 minutes out." "You Taddy?" "Why?" "Love the name." "If I ever had a dog." "Take off his pants." "Hey." "Don't talk to her, listen to me." "He's vomited in excess of three units of blood." "He needs to be admitted before..." "If you wanted to be a doctor, maybe you should have buckled down a little more in high school." "Bite me." "What are you doing?" "Exactly how close were you and Carnell?" "Not so close." "Spend a lot of time together in Jamaica?" "Share a room?" "Wait, you don't think..." "Look, we're not gay." "I'm not saying you're gay." "I'm saying you had sex." "Look, we're not gay." "We hardly even hung out." "Right." "Guess you just flew him down to Jamaica 'cause he won a contest." "No, he's in my frat." "All right, between school and wrestling and going home every break to work in his father's junkyard," "Carnell didn't have any time to hang out with anybody." "It's not fungus." "I already told you that." "There's no pustules, it's not staph." "His dad's what?" "His dad owns a scrap metal salvage yard." "Carnell worked there during breaks." "You lied." "What are you talking about?" "Oh, yeah, of course, in this family, you probably need more specifics." "You told us you owned a construction company, not a salvage yard." "I know the way things work." "The better my job, the better my son gets treated." "Right, that's why I'm mad, we wasted all that filet mignon on you." "Did your kid find anything unusual the last time he worked for you?" "No." "Braided wire?" "Metal weights on each end, a lead canister, maybe just a lid." "Probably used it as a doorstop or a paperweight." "Why would he wanna..." "Okay, here it comes." "I gave him an early graduation gift, an old plumb I found, looks like a fishing weight." "Put it on a keychain, so he'd always remember where he came from." "So he could lie about it later?" "Where's the keychain?" "I don't know, he never used it." "Just kept it as a good luck charm." "Kept it where?" "I don't know." "Why?" "Why does it matter?" "Where are the kid's clothes?" "In the bureau back in his regular room." "You two, get it to radiology." "His clothes?" "The bureau." "Don't open it." "You, come with me." "Set it down there." "Now get out of here, this thing's radioactive." "The chances of radiation causing CNS symptoms?" "Whoa." "Call the boys in the lead pajamas." "The radiation measurements weren't high enough to cause central nervous system damage." "It mightn't have caused nerve damage, but it definitely destroyed his immune system." "And caused tumors." "We don't know that." "None of the MRls showed anything." "Do a PET scan." "Check his cervical spine." "It's not gonna be good news." "Mr. Hall, it's not good news." "The piece of metal you gave Carnell was from an industrial device used to test wells." "People aren't supposed to just dump radioactive material." "But they do." "So, what now?" "I mean, what do you do?" "Anyone who's had contact with the source will have to immediately get treatment for radiation sickness." "Taddy carried it on his lap on the flight." "So there is a treatment?" "Transfusions." "And we try to get the fluids and electrolytes balanced." "Carnell, he's had much more exposure." "The equivalent of about 70,000 chest X rays." "His ability to create white blood cells has been completely destroyed." "And that's why he can't fight off this infection?" "Yeah." "He's gonna need a bone marrow transplant." "And we did another PET scan." "There's a cavernous angioma within his spinal cord, it's a tumor." "That's what's been causing the shocks and CNS symptoms." "He has a tumor inside of his spinal cord?" "The cord is made of strands put together, sort of like a kite string." "The surgeon should be able to pull the strands apart and excise the tumor." "But surgery on someone who's as hemopoetically compromised as your son is extremely risky." "And, if you don't do the surgery?" "I mean..." "The tumor could cause his breathing to stop." "Possibly his heart as well." "There's no way you could have known." "Now, you're gonna have to come with us." "You need to start treatment yourself." "No." "No, no." "I can start my treatment later." "But he can't." "He needs to be in a sterile isolation room to prevent further infections." "Mom." "We're early." "It's great to see you." "Oh, Greg, don't lie." "We came at a bad time, didn't we?" "Actually, yeah, I think I have to take a rain check." "Oh, plans have been made." "Wilson made them." "I asked him to cancel." "I'm dealing with a kind of a complicated case right now so..." "Well, we'll just come back when things aren't so out of control." "My team is busy." "You don't wanna see us." "Mom, don't make me feel guilty." "No, no, of course not." "Sorry." "I've got a patient who's probably gonna die of radiation poisoning." "So that means you can't eat?" "Come on, let's grab a bite in the cafeteria." "I'll buy you a Reuben." "Well, I guess I got time for a sandwich." "Good." "Yeah?" "I just wanted to let you know that Carnell's prepped for surgery." "Thank you." "Hi, I'm Allison Cameron." "I work with your son." "Greg's told us all about you." "Really?" "New, huh?" "Nope, just gullible." "I'm sorry, I was just making fun of my son, not of you." "We were just about to go to get something to eat, would you care to join us?" "You don't have a lot of time with your son." "Maybe another time." "Do you like the Beatles?" "They're all right." "My 12-year-old just turned me back on to them." "McCartney's gotta have more money than God." "I think that's all of it." "Reverse him." "How's he doing?" "Looks pretty good down here." "Do I rock, or what?" "His pressure's dropping!" "Give him another two units." "I did already!" "His heart rate's falling." "He's hemorrhaging." "They're talking about Mom's last trip to the dentist." "Grown children talking to their parents, nothing gets talked about." "Trust me, you're not missing anything." "So, besides work, what you been up to?" "Not much." "You always say that, "Not much."" "It's always the answer." "Any new babes you might wanna tell me about?" "Leave him alone, John." "Got a new motorcycle." "Might have seen it out front, it's orange with a gigantic scrape." "Is it the one in the handicapped parking?" "Yeah." "Looks like crap, but it drives great." "Well, you'll be careful, right?" "Last I checked, you still have two legs." "Actually, three." "You know what your problem is, Greg?" "Shifting gears?" "You just don't know how lucky you are." "Where's the head?" "Well, good thing we got that cleared up." "Oh, he was just trying to help." "I don't need help." "I know." "You're absolutely perfect just the way you are." "Thank you." "So, how much longer do you think he'll be in surgery?" "It's hard to say." "You know, he just started school when Ann died." "I was a mess." "Still adjusting to being a parent, much less a single parent." "You know, I used to put cold pancakes in his lunch box." "I mean, that was the only thing" "I could make that he would eat." "You did okay, he's a good kid." "Yeah." "Hey." "So, how is he?" "Well, the surgeon has removed the tumor without damaging the spinal cord." "But, the infection has caused another intestinal perforation." "We stopped the bleeding, but his white count keeps falling." "Okay." "So what now?" "Another drug, antibiotics, what?" "I'm sorry." "The reality is, no matter what we give him, it's unlikely he's gonna be able to fight off the infections." "Okay, okay." "The father and the friend are responding well to treatment." "Things aren't looking so good for Carnell." "Thank you, for not eating." "It was none of my business." "They seem perfectly pleasant, don't they?" "They are." "He was a marine pilot." "She was a housewife." "Married 47 years, they had one child." "Mom is just like everyone else, she's nice enough, no great sense of humor, hates confrontation." "My dad's just like you." "Not the caring till your eyes pop out part, just the insane moral compass that won't let you lie to anybody about anything." "It's a great quality for Boy Scouts and police witnesses." "Crappy quality for a dad." "Hey." "How you doing?" "I'm hanging in there." "I'm sorry I lied to you about Mom." "I'm sorry I lied to you, too." "There was nothing good that came out of her dying." "I'm not mad." "I know why you did it." "It worked." "I never drink and drive." "I'm scared, Dad." "Come on." "There's nothing to be scared of." "You're gonna be just fine." "Don't play me." "I wanna know the truth." "I'm telling you the truth." "You're gonna be fine, I swear." "I love you, Dad." "I love you, too." "Why does he hate seeing his parents?" "So his dad tells the truth, he can't handle that?" "He hates being a disappointment." "He's a doctor, world famous." "How disappointed can they be?" "You know what I figure is worse than watching your son become crippled?" "Watching him be miserable."