House

Take it, Sarge. Take it. Oh, I'll take it.

Yeah.

Yo! Yo! Turn that back on.

Yeah, man, what'd you do?

Don't look at me, 'cause you know I didn't do it. All right?

Hey! You better have put fresh batteries in that thing like I told you.

No. I did, Sarge. Right when you gave them to me. I did.

I put them in. Well, then hit it or something.

Otherwise you all are gonna have to listen to me sing!

Here.

Don't panic. Don't shoot us. Don't die.

You got it, G?

Go! Go! Go!

Up and at them.

You're supposed to be in clinic duty.

Yeah, like I can sleep down there with all the crying and coughing.

Here.

Ex-Marine thinks he has Gulf War syndrome.

There's no such thing. So he's been told.

It hasn't stopped the unexplained fatigue, rashes and joint pain.

And just so you know, he's the nephew of a benefactor I owe a favor,

so you're gonna take this case whether you like it or not.

Why wouldn't I want to take the case?

The guy's tired and sore. It's gonna be chapter one in my...

Don't panic. Don't shoot us. Don't die.

You know him?

Never met him before in my life.

Okay. Well, you're about to. He's on his way here.

Get your ass up and get your team together. You have work to do.

That's amazing. No, it's not.

It's not? I can play the harmonica with my nose,

make a penny come out of a child's ear, or any other orifice for that matter,

and given the right circumstances can bring two women to simultaneous ecstasy.

The right circumstances being their agreement

to bill you on the same credit card.

But what I absolutely can not do is dream about someone I've never seen before.

Well, just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it can't happen.

True. It can't happen because it can't happen!

Well, maybe you didn't dream about this guy specifically.

Right. Just some other guy who looks exactly like him.

No. You imagined some generic Marine,

then you placed his face in the dream after you saw the picture.

Sort of a coincidence mixed with a little déja vu.

There's no record of him ever coming into the clinic,

so I must've seen him before somewhere else.

Fine. You've known him since Cub Scouts.

The more interesting question isn't what you dreamed, but why.

I'm guessing you're longing for either a renewed relationship with your dad,

or a new relationship with one of the Village People.

He was in the Navy, not the Marines.

I thought your dad was in the Marines.

The guy in the Village People.

Actually he's only in the Navy when they sing In the Navy.

The rest of the time he's just in generic fatigue.

What?

You brought it up!

You didn't flush. I didn't pee.

Male, 34, just got out of the Marines after two years in Iraq.

Admitted complaining of chronic fatigue,

joint pains, intermittent rashes and sore throats.

Thinks he has Gulf War syndrome.

Why is he here instead of the VA?

Because he has a rich uncle Cuddy's trying to avoid fellating,

who doesn't buy the VA's diagnosis of nothingswrongatosis.

The VA's right.

There's no such thing as Gulf War syndrome,

especially in veterans who've never served in the Gulf War.

Different war, same place.

Whatever was there in 1990 is still there.

What's there can send you home in a pine box

but it can't make you sick three months after you've gotten home.

What, so thousands of soldiers are lying about their symptoms?

You send 700,000 people on a vacation to Hawaii,

some are gonna come back sick.

Doesn't mean it was caused by snorkeling. He's right.

The studies all show the same pattern of symptoms in veterans

who were sent to the Gulf and those who weren't.

That's it?

You believe her but not me?

Stick to your guns, Chase.

Just 'cause there isn't a single unifying symptom

doesn't mean there isn't something going on.

It could just affect everyone differently.

You think this guy has Gulf War syndrome?

Of course not.

He's depressed and he's looking for a disability check,

most likely because he's just realized that knowing how to barter for sex

in six languages and open a beer bottle with your eye socket

are not the most marketable skills.

Why did you take this case?

'Cause a good scientist continually questions

his own theories and assumptions.

Cuddy's making him. And now I'm making you.

Do a full physical and recheck his blood for HIV, hep C,

malaria, schistosomiasis, and T strain A. Baumannii,

just to make sure the VA's dotted their I's.

And find out every hospital and clinic he's ever visited,

every city he's ever lived in and whether he's ever been on TV.

TV?

Problem could be neurological.

Everyone knows TV rots your brain.

Well, it's usually the worst on my palms and the bottom of my feet.

I get these black dots all over.

I don't see anything. It comes and goes.

You're sure it's not just scrapes and bruises.

I know the difference between a rash and a bruise.

Sometimes it's harder than you realize to distinguish between the two.

You obviously exercise.

My problems aren't caused by my workouts.

But you do work out.

And by the look of you, pretty strenuously.

That's not usually the case with patients

whose principal complaint is chronic fatigue and joint pain.

I was in the Marines for 12 years. I'm used to doing PT every day.

Just because I can push through the pain doesn't mean it's not there.

We're not saying we don't believe you.

The hell you aren't.

We just need to be specific about what exactly the problems are.

I sleep 10 hours a night but I feel tired all the time.

I constantly get coughs, rashes, sore throats.

My knees and hips feel like someone poured sand in my joints.

Get these weird tingling sensations in my legs.

Sometimes they're cold. Other times, feels like my blood is boiling.

Specific enough?

Look, I don't care what you guys call it.

Gulf War syndrome, Iraq fever, or just crappy sickness X.

I just want someone to figure out what it is so they can cure it.

Except for the supposed pain in his joints,

none of the other symptoms he's complaining about are currently evident.

And besides low potassium, probably caused by him

over-hydrating after working out.

His blood work's all normal.

Low potassium could also probably be caused by the experimental vaccines

and anti-chemical warfare pills he was given before he deployed to Iraq.

Not to mention the fact that whole country is littered

with hundreds of tons of radioactive shrapnel from depleted uranium munitions.

You go to medical school in France? There's no trace of uranium in his urine.

And he was given the vaccines and meds two years ago

without any allergic or adverse reaction.

Has he ever done any modeling?

We forgot to ask.

We should send his urine to the University of Leicester.

There's a professor there who's developed

a more advanced screening technique for uranium.

If the levels are too low for us to detect, they're way too low to cause any damage.

Where are you going?

This way.

You find out about any television or other media exposure?

Do you really care or are you just trying to waste hospital resources

to get back at Cuddy for making you take the case?

Of course, I care.

What a horrible thing to say.

Do a Lexis-Nexis search and get a copy of his credit report.

Before or after we tell him to eat a banana and discharge him with a psych referral?

I say before.

And I say in between give him a polysomnogram.

Sleep apnea could cause chronic fatigue and paranoia.

And find out where he went to summer camp.

You okay?

Yeah. Just a little too much coffee this morning.

Were we walking you to the bathroom?

I wish.

Wilson was just in there. These guys know what I'm talking about.

That's his third REM cycle and his breathing's completely normal.

There's obviously nothing wrong with his sleep pattern.

If it's not the uranium, it's got to be some other sort of toxin.

Or nothing at all.

You really think there's something wrong, or you just want Foreman to be wrong?

Both.

Well, it's not his sleep pattern.

If you really think it's a toxin, you can do a liver biopsy in the morning.

We can't leave.

If we don't monitor the whole test, House won't accept the results.

He'll just make us do it over.

It doesn't take two doctors to monitor

what's clearly gonna be a normal polysomnogram.

Oh, so you want me to stay?

You're the one that thought there was something wrong.

I never said it was a sleep disorder.

You wanna flip for it?

Just go.

Oh, come on. Don't be a baby.

Fine. I'll stay.

You know what we could do?

Here? Why not?

We're surrounded by empty rooms with beds in them.

Yeah. And video cameras, too.

So we turn them off. Yeah, that's all I need is

House or Foreman walking in on us.

We have the keys.

No. What if he wakes up?

All right.

Suit yourself.

Damn it.

Hello? Is anybody out there?

I think there's a problem in here!

What's wrong?

What do you mean, "What's wrong?" You don't smell that?

Nothing smells, John.

Oh, are you kidding me? It's disgusting.