Watching House

Did everyone get a chance to see the latest new episode of House? Well if you didn’t here’s a recap for you.

The show began with two teens, boy and girl talking and making out in a car. Suddenly there’s a knock on the window as a policeman shows up and tells them to move on in a bit. After he leaves, they go at it again but the boy, Stevie, has respiratory distress and the girl Leah first calls for help then drives him to the Hospital.

The following day House arrives at the hospital to find that his cushy handicap parking spot near the entrance has been given to another doctor. He must park across the lane with the long line of other handicapped vehicles. I was shocked at the amount of handicapped parking- Weren’t you?

House walks into the hospital determined to figure out why this other doctor got his space. Foreman vies for his attention and begins to tell him about Stevie’s case - but House is distracted as he keeps asking questions about the doctor - Dr. Whitner, who stole his parking space. Finally when Foreman tells him that tests show that Stevie has a pleural effusion House pays attention and orders a battery of tests - MRI, CT and a test to look at how the blood is being distributed through the boys lungs.

As the tests begin House hunts down Dr. Whitner in the Lab and discovers that she’s in a motorized wheelchair. She doesn’t want to give up her spot and explains to House that she needs to be close to the enterance because cars can’t see her as she travels through the parking area. House tries to explain that he can’t walk far, and also that he could slip on black ice. She isn’t budging.

Foreman needs Stevies parents consent to perform some of the tests since the boy is only 16, but they can’t reach the parents on the cell phone numbers that Stevie provided. Stevie and his girlfriend try to convince Foreman that he can do the tests with his own consent or even with the girls parents consent. Foreman won’t accept that. Unfortunately for Stevie that’s when he takes a turn for the worse and becomes sicker. Foreman decides to get the correct permissions later and takes the boy to the diagnostic area for his tests. As Foreman is performing the venous test on Stevie he discovers that Stevie is quite bright and very knowledgable about Science and anatomy. Even the boy knows when he views the diagnostic screen that he doesn’t have a blood effusion. Obviously the problem is not his lungs any more- even though Stevie is still having trouble breathing.

Chase and Cameron go to Stevie’s house and find it exceedingly dirty. Chase finds a couple having sex in the bedroom, but it turns out the couple are having an affair and Stevie gave them the wrong address. Stevie admits that he’s Romany -gypsy -and they don’t share information with outsiders. He admits he smoked pot but he refuses to give them his address as they would “contaminate�? it if they go in. Cameron suggests the pot might have a pesticide or fungus that caused the bleeding, but Leah, the girlfriend was the one who gave it to him.

House speaks with Cuddy about getting his handicapped parking spot back. They end up making a bet that if House can stay in the Wheelchair for a week she’ll give him his slot back. She feels this is a bet she can’t lose because she doesn’t think House will be able to stand being in a wheelchair even for a full day, let alone a week.

House meets with his team again- with them questioning if his leg is worse since he’s in a wheelchair. He’s pretty straight with them as to why he’s in the wheelchair, so they have no sympathy for him after that. House is sure that Stevie has some kind of leak in his system -a blood leak of course. They know that they need to find the problem so House suggests thinning Stevies blood which will cause him to bleed faster. It’s dangerous but worth a try.

He’s brought into the diagnostic area again, presumably after being given a few blood thinning treatments and they decide to go into Stevies femoral artery to inject a dye that will let them see how the blood is flowing in his abdomen and lungs. However, just as Cameron is about to start injecting the dye Stevie starts to have a lot of pain in his abdomen. Chase tells her to inject the dye anyway since his blood is thin and it’s the best chance to see what might be going on. Unfortunately the dye gets to his liver and doesn’t go any further. Something is blocking blood flow. They believe Stevies liver is shot.

Meanwhile, House is busy working in the clinic without any complaint. That’s a new one. He’s in a wheelchair of course. He exams a young boy who’s mother brought him in because he was complaining of a sore throat. The mother admits that she thinks he’s faking but she told her boy either he goes to school or the doctor. The boy chose the doctor. House doesn’t think the kid is sick either and thinks the mother is an idiot for wasting a doctors time. TRUE. He pulls out a large syringe of saline and says he’s going to inject the boy with it. The mother doesn’t want him to do it and House says something to the effect- “well if I make him scared of doctors he’ll like school again”. I think the mother and the boy learned their lesson.

As Foreman and Cameron are giving Stevie an MRI - actually just as they spot what they believe is a granuloma on his liver- his parents burst into the MRI room. They don’t really believe he should be treated and think that the girl, Stevies girlfriend, is what’s throwing him off and making him sick. Foreman and Cameron convince them to let them continue the test and Cameron leads them out of the room.

Meanwhile House is working to get back into his car when Foreman says it’s Wagners and wants a biopsy, but House warns the liver will be gone before they can complete it, and recommends medical treatment.

The next day Stevie’s parents provide him with food, clothing, and special treatment much to Foreman’s distaste. The parents arrive and insists on providing “balance,�? while not happy with Leah the outsider who has left. Wilson argues with House about his stubbornness in staying in the wheelchair. Leah returns and Stevie’s parents insist on her leaving, but Stevie starts bleeding from the bladder.

Tests reveal Stevie’s liver is improving but now his bladder is bleeding out and the treatment for Wagner’s is making him worse. House believes the treatment is wrong and they need a more precise treatment, immune modulation. It’s not FAA approved and House says to claim it’s something that it’s treatable for. Stevie’s parents refuse to allow him to receive an experimental drug. House suggests Foreman work on his salesmanship technique while House faces off with Whitner who thinks he’ll back down.

Foreman returns to Stevie’s room to find his relatives present and reluctant to leave. Foreman manages to get them out and then tries to get Stevie to agree to the experimental treatment as they’re out of options. Foreman gets him to believe him by saying if his parents find out he’ll lose his license, but before Steve can take the pills his spleen ruptures. Foreman checks for Wagner’s but can’t find the granulomas confirming Wagner’s. House wants them to check his bowel but when the surgeon ignores him, he’s forced to wheel his way into the operating theater. When the surgeon still ignores him, House gets up out of the chair and checks out the bowel looking for granulomas. As Stevie’s blood pressure drops, House is forced to have Foreman take over and he finally realizes he doesn’t have Wagner’s, and the parents were right.

The parents won’t let the staff near Stevie so House draws the paths of the symptoms and suggests they check the colon. Since he’s in the ICU and the parents have limited visiting privileges, Foreman suggests they sneak in there when they’re not looking. While waiting to go in, House admits to Wilson he hasn’t got a legal leg to stand on… but is going to get the spot anyway. House then insults the parents to get their attention while the staff check Stevie’s colon and spot a toothpick. Stevie accidentally swallowed a toothpick and it penetrated his intestinal wall while he and Leah were making out and since it was the same density as the tissue they didn’t spot it on the previous tests.

Foreman shows the toothpick to Stevie and suggest he can get him onto the staff as a lab technician, but Stevie admits he doesn’t want to give up on his family, and that the staff doesn’t have any family. Later House confronts Cuddy who notes he got out of his wheelchair and he lost. House points out Whitner knew she was going to win and Cuddy was never going to give him the space. House guilts her with the fact she was never going to honor her agreement, and then plans to take advantage of it to get his spot.

Later Stevie leaves with his family as Foreman looks on, then spends the night alone. And House limps out and sees that Cuddy has given him back his parking spot.

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