3:57 PM
mood: resigned surly
So there I am in my office minding my own business watching my show. My charting was done; the ducklings had been sent on their errands; Wilson was over in onc with the outpatients. The hour was all mine. All I wanted was my little time to myself to think, surf a little on the laptop, put my leg up for a bit, give my hamstring a stretch, and grit my teeth in privacy. Really, is that too much to ask? I could probably hold out until 3:45, dose, onset of action just in time for the first patient, therapeutic peak in time to finish and get home.
3:40 -- five more minutes -- and then what do I hear but that click click click coming up the hall. That click click click being the dreaded sound of Dr. Lisa Cuddy's heels on the hallway floors. Keep going, keep going, I thought to myself. Just walk on by and leave me alone. But no, it stopped right outside the office door. Damn it all, I should have turned off the office lights.
So of course Cuddy looks in. "Hello?" she asks.
Go away, I'm thinking. She doesn't. I just give her a look and send her a telepathic command: Just retract your head from my doorway and keep walking. Just keep walking.
But then she COMES IN. Oh, Cuddy, leave me alone, please.
She pads over to where I'm sitting and looks down at me. I hold her gaze until she breaks eye contact. She glances out the window and then up at the TV. I knew I should have gone to the chapel.
"What's that?" she asks.
"Why, it's a continuing ed video on hospital management," I reply.
She crosses her arms and raises her eyebrows. "Oh really."
"Oh yes. I've decided that I want to assume more of a leadership role. I want to be... proactive. I want to be a change agent."
She looks up at the screen again. There's an ad on; some kind of electric-yellow liquid for cleaning floors.
She looks back down. She's trying to affect some kind of archly amused look, I can tell, and she's got the smile down, but her eyes betray something more like baffled disgust. "Hospital management," she repeats.
"Well, of course. I need to broaden my horizons. Learn about what puts the 'industry' in "health care." Doesn't every conference have some kind of corporate sponsor? Pfizer, Merck, Wyeth, Baxter? Whatever would we do for pens and sticky notes and little desk doo-dads without them?"
She nods towards the TV. "Lemon Shine floor cleaner?"
"Well, I'm sure I don't have to remind you how big a concern nosocomial infection is these days." (A nosocomial infection, for those of you not in the Secret Medical Club, is an infection acquired in the hospital. Like that one we had a couple of months ago with all those sick babies. )
Cuddy's eyes narrow. Yesss! I think. Now, get out! I press a touch harder: "And, after all, I am an infectious-disease guy. I need to be up on these things."
"Well then I'm sure I can count on you to give a presentation at Grand Rounds."
"Sure, one of these months. If I have time, of course. It's hard to prepare things like that, when all one's time is being taken up in the clinic."
3:45! Go away, Cuddy, go away! Cuddy rolls her eyes and says, "Speaking of the clinic, I'll be seeing you down there in a few minutes, won't I?"
I dig in my pocket for my Vicodin and start to rattle the bottle. Cuddy just stands there with that trying-for-bemused look on her face. I open the bottle with a flourish and peer in. "Is that all I have left? I could have sworn it was full this morning!"
I watch her out of the corner of my eye and am rewarded with a satisfying three-star eye-roll. I pop a tab -- is she going to sigh? YES! "Of course I'll be there. Wouldn't miss it. The summit of my professional life." I pointedly look back at the TV. They're about to spring the Friday cliffhanger.
She waits another moment but finally understands that I'm not going to walk down to the clinic with her. Doesn't she have anything better to do? "Okay, Dr. House. I'll see you there." She turns and leaves, pad pad pad click click click out the door and down the hall.
I am NOT going to treat her to the spectacle of watching me extricate myself from this comfortable, but deep, chair. She has already squandered five minutes of my precious time, almost ten percent of my hour. Besides, I want to catch the cliffhanger.
The actress makes that soap-opera "shocked" face as the camera pulls in. The credits roll, and I take a look outside. It's getting dark already, and the rain is pouring down in heavy sheets.
I think ahead to what the clinic's going to be like. This rain could be good -- all the mere whiners and malingerers will stay home. But that could also be bad.
All right, let's get going. Two hours of clinic, maybe talk to Wilson a little, and then off to home.
Grateful props to PipTook and her fic "Distractions."
So there I am in my office minding my own business watching my show. My charting was done; the ducklings had been sent on their errands; Wilson was over in onc with the outpatients. The hour was all mine. All I wanted was my little time to myself to think, surf a little on the laptop, put my leg up for a bit, give my hamstring a stretch, and grit my teeth in privacy. Really, is that too much to ask? I could probably hold out until 3:45, dose, onset of action just in time for the first patient, therapeutic peak in time to finish and get home.
3:40 -- five more minutes -- and then what do I hear but that click click click coming up the hall. That click click click being the dreaded sound of Dr. Lisa Cuddy's heels on the hallway floors. Keep going, keep going, I thought to myself. Just walk on by and leave me alone. But no, it stopped right outside the office door. Damn it all, I should have turned off the office lights.
So of course Cuddy looks in. "Hello?" she asks.
Go away, I'm thinking. She doesn't. I just give her a look and send her a telepathic command: Just retract your head from my doorway and keep walking. Just keep walking.
But then she COMES IN. Oh, Cuddy, leave me alone, please.
She pads over to where I'm sitting and looks down at me. I hold her gaze until she breaks eye contact. She glances out the window and then up at the TV. I knew I should have gone to the chapel.
"What's that?" she asks.
"Why, it's a continuing ed video on hospital management," I reply.
She crosses her arms and raises her eyebrows. "Oh really."
"Oh yes. I've decided that I want to assume more of a leadership role. I want to be... proactive. I want to be a change agent."
She looks up at the screen again. There's an ad on; some kind of electric-yellow liquid for cleaning floors.
She looks back down. She's trying to affect some kind of archly amused look, I can tell, and she's got the smile down, but her eyes betray something more like baffled disgust. "Hospital management," she repeats.
"Well, of course. I need to broaden my horizons. Learn about what puts the 'industry' in "health care." Doesn't every conference have some kind of corporate sponsor? Pfizer, Merck, Wyeth, Baxter? Whatever would we do for pens and sticky notes and little desk doo-dads without them?"
She nods towards the TV. "Lemon Shine floor cleaner?"
"Well, I'm sure I don't have to remind you how big a concern nosocomial infection is these days." (A nosocomial infection, for those of you not in the Secret Medical Club, is an infection acquired in the hospital. Like that one we had a couple of months ago with all those sick babies. )
Cuddy's eyes narrow. Yesss! I think. Now, get out! I press a touch harder: "And, after all, I am an infectious-disease guy. I need to be up on these things."
"Well then I'm sure I can count on you to give a presentation at Grand Rounds."
"Sure, one of these months. If I have time, of course. It's hard to prepare things like that, when all one's time is being taken up in the clinic."
3:45! Go away, Cuddy, go away! Cuddy rolls her eyes and says, "Speaking of the clinic, I'll be seeing you down there in a few minutes, won't I?"
I dig in my pocket for my Vicodin and start to rattle the bottle. Cuddy just stands there with that trying-for-bemused look on her face. I open the bottle with a flourish and peer in. "Is that all I have left? I could have sworn it was full this morning!"
I watch her out of the corner of my eye and am rewarded with a satisfying three-star eye-roll. I pop a tab -- is she going to sigh? YES! "Of course I'll be there. Wouldn't miss it. The summit of my professional life." I pointedly look back at the TV. They're about to spring the Friday cliffhanger.
She waits another moment but finally understands that I'm not going to walk down to the clinic with her. Doesn't she have anything better to do? "Okay, Dr. House. I'll see you there." She turns and leaves, pad pad pad click click click out the door and down the hall.
I am NOT going to treat her to the spectacle of watching me extricate myself from this comfortable, but deep, chair. She has already squandered five minutes of my precious time, almost ten percent of my hour. Besides, I want to catch the cliffhanger.
The actress makes that soap-opera "shocked" face as the camera pulls in. The credits roll, and I take a look outside. It's getting dark already, and the rain is pouring down in heavy sheets.
I think ahead to what the clinic's going to be like. This rain could be good -- all the mere whiners and malingerers will stay home. But that could also be bad.
All right, let's get going. Two hours of clinic, maybe talk to Wilson a little, and then off to home.
Grateful props to PipTook and her fic "Distractions."
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