September 20th, 2006
Proud of me. He says he's proud of me. What does that mean, exactly? If he'd said it last year, even six months ago, I'd have thought I knew. Now? I'm not sure it matters. I didn't do it for him. I'm not even sure I did it for the patient.
I think maybe I did it for myself.
House is wrong about me. I'm not attracted to damaged people. Not in the way he thinks, anyway. I just want to ease their pain, is that so wrong? It's the reason we become doctors, after all, to heal the sick and ease pain. Even if sometimes those two things are mutually exclusive.
Maybe that's what House wanted me to learn from this, that you can't always do both. You'd think I'd have learned it when Tom died. I thought I had learned it. But I couldn't do anything for Tom; only hold his hand and wait. It almost destroyed me, the waiting, the not being able to help. But this time, I had a choice.
Powell may not have deserved my admiration for the things he did in life, but he was still my patient. He deserved humane treatment. He deserved some dignity. I hope I gave him that. But still, that wasn't why I did it. Maybe I did it because of what I needed; what I thought I deserved: not to have to watch someone suffer needlessly, ever again. Or, maybe, I needed to prove to myself that I didn't need to make him suffer; that on some fundamental level I'm not like him.
And I'm not sure how I feel about that. On the surface, it's a simple transaction: he got what he wanted, and I got what I wanted. The maximum good was served. When no more healing was possible, I eased his pain. A rational decision, in despite of the rules. That's what House is proud of; that's what House sees.
Only I know how irrational a decision it really was; how much of it was driven by my needs, rather than the patient's.
And so now I know something else. Something that House has been saying all along: I have to stop taking on other people's pain, pain that I can't ease. Which means that I have to stop taking on House's pain. He should appreciate the twisted logic of that.
Because if the ketamine wears off, it's back to square one. If the ketamine doesn't wear off, well, House and pain are old friends. They're much too intimately acquainted to let go of each other now. And I can't be friends with pain anymore.
I have to make some new friends.
--A. C.