house, Sex Kills

13-04-2006 10:58

The doctors treat 66-year-old Henry Arrington following a seizure that indicates a serious brain condition. When Henry also reveals that his right testicle is almost twice the size of his left -"Cool!" says House - Chase thinks it's a simple case of testicular cancer.

But the MRI scan comes back clean, apart from revealing a minor brain infection. House theorises that Henry either has a sexually transmitted disease or advanced lymphoma, and wants to start him on treatment for the former as there is nothing they can do for the latter. But Henry denies having had sex with anyone since his wife left him, and refuses to take the drugs.

Despairing of Foreman, who asked Henry about his sexual activity in front of his daughter, House makes an unusual trip to his patient's bedside: "I hear you'd rather die than admit that you had sex!"

With his daughter out of the room, Henry confesses that he recently slept with his ex-wife after a chance encounter at a cheese-tasting party. As Henry laughs about his reluctance to confess the truth, he begins coughing up bloody foam, which rules out an STD.

"A disease that attacks his brain, heart and testicles," House muses to his team. "I think Byron wrote about that." Although the junior doctors are nonplussed, House realises that the cheese must have been riddled with bacteria, which has since developed into a violent infection.

House starts Henry on a cocktail of drugs, and heads to the clinic to deal with a patient who claims to be infatuated with cows, hoping they have caught Henry's infection in time. But later, while House is counselling Wilson on what he suspects is the imminent break-up of his third marriage, Henry goes into cardiac arrest. Chase shocks him back to life, but the damage to his heart is severe.

Although the infection has been treated, he will die of heart failure in less than a week without a transplant. However, the transplant committee think that Henry is too old, and refuse to add him to the list. Undaunted, House begins scanning through the list of patients on the critical list, and is delighted to discover an overweight woman who has been brought in after a car accident.

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