House Euphoria (part two)

02-06-2006 13:42

Thursday June 8th 9pm

While Foreman waits in the isolation chamber with Joe’s dead body, House tells Cuddy they will be able to diagnose him from a sample of Joe’s brain. But she rules that since the mystery disease is so contagious, the autopsy must be performed by bio-safety professionals. The results will be back within three days, and although House points out that Foreman will be dead in 36 hours, Cuddy doesn’t budge. Desperate to save House slides an ice pick and hammer through the airlock and asks Foreman to perform the autopsy. But he can’t – he has developed Anton’s Blindness, the next stage of the disease. “Apparently I was wrong about the 36 hours,” House tells Cuddy. “Intractable, unbearable pain is up next.”

House starts treatment for everything he can think of and leaves to find another brain to biopsy. Taking his pet rat, ‘Steve McQueen’, to Joe’s apartment, he exposes it so he can kill and dissect it as soon as it gets ill. Back at the hospital, Foreman’s vision has returned – but the team have no idea which drugs worked. House wants to stop the medicines one at a time to find the one that seems to be reversing the disease. However, Chase reports Foreman’s pancreas is failing: they have to stop the drugs immediately or he will die.

Foreman’s father Rodney arrives, and Foreman lies to him, saying that his death won’t be painful. While House watches the rat for signs of illness, Foreman experiences the final symptom – uncontrollable agony. The infection has spread to the pain centre of his brain. Is time running out? House wonders why the disease is progressing faster in Foreman than Joe, then remembers that Joe had Legionnaire’s disease. It somehow slowed down the disease down – Joe didn’t die until they cured the Legionnaire’s. House wants Foreman to inject himself with the disease, and when he refuses, throws the vial inside his room, where it shatters. Bizarrely, it does reduce the amount of pain he is suffering – but they are still a long way from finding a cure. Wilson wonders what they can do if the rat never gets ill, prompting House to consider illnesses that affect humans and not rats, and comes up with the bacteria Listeria.

However, Foreman won’t take the antibiotics – if they cure the Legionnaire’s but not the disease, he will die in agony. He asks for another biopsy to be sure: “The first biopsy didn’t give us the answer because you didn’t dig deep enough.” House tells him that any slip will render him permanently disabled, but Foreman claims that he would rather be disabled then dead. House replies that it is not as easy as it looks and browbeats him into taking the pills. However, it’s not long before Foreman begins writhing in agony again. He begs Cameron to put him in a coma, and asks her to be his medical proxy, as his father is shell-shocked by his son’s condition, and is waiting in the chapel for things to be over one way or the other.

Cameron agrees, even though she has not forgiven him for trying to infect her in a bid to cure himself. Wilson tells House to perform the biopsy, pointing out that if it were any other patient, he would have drilled into their heads long ago. Cameron backs him up, telling House that they are going ahead with the procedure. “Who died and made you boss?” asks House. Cameron hands over the legal documents confirming her as his proxy and replies: “Foreman.” With Cameron now in charge, House asks her to wait one hour before performing the biopsy, and returns to Joe’s apartment looking for an animal that has also been infected.

Cameron warns that she can only give him until Foreman’s oxygen levels drop, as it will be too late after that. Will House be able to come up with a solution to prevent the dangerous biopsy? And even if they can diagnose the mystery infection, will they be able to cure Foreman before he suffers irreparable damage?