House – Episode 23 (Season 2): “Who’s Your Daddy?”
An underwhelming episode of House this week. There are spoilers below, but not the “big one” (is he or isn’t he?) so you can still watch the episode. (Feel free to mention it in the comments though, as it is an interesting situation.)
I didn’t particularly care for this episode of House. The main plot — House’s old friend and whether or not he was the girl’s father — did little for me. The medicine was uninspired as well. The team just lurched along from diagnosis to diagnosis with little reason, like a drunk stumbling down the street. That’s not to say the episode didn’t have its charming moments. The sperm donor scenes with Cuddy were good and seeing Wilson jealous over the fact that House actually has another friend was quite enjoyable.
Let’s start at the beginning: Crandall, one of House’s old friends, is flying on a plane with Leona, a teenage girl who claims to be his daughter. She was a victim of hurricane Katrina and has basically been living on the streets until recently. On the plane, she suffers a sudden intense hallucination and then collapses.
House and the team are called in to assess Leona. They are told that she has suffered cardiogenic shock (but it’s never explained how this conclusion was reached), but that it was not caused by a heart attack. The ER also managed to rule out toxins, infections, and Wolff-Parkinson White (a heart condition that can lead to a potentially dangerous heart rhythm). The team settles on the diagnosis of an arrhythmia. Leona must have experienced a bad heart rhythm which led to her hallucinations as well as her collapse.
An electrophysiology study (which looks at the electrical conduction within the heart) is performed and they find a spot in Leona’s heart that induces both an arrhythmia and a hallucination. The abnormal area of the heart is frozen to prevent the arrhythmia from recurring and the team believes that they’ve solved her problem. However, we know better as it’s only twenty minutes past the hour.
Despite the treatment, Leona suffers another hallucination. House wonders if it might be an atypical seizure or post-traumatic stress disorder. Then he decides that it must be an autoimmune disease that is causing her to interpret pain as hallucinations. The team straps her into a PET scan machine and House hurts her until she has a hallucination. He is now absolutely convinced that she must have a bad autoimmune disorder. Never mind which one, just know that it’s really bad! And it needs treatment now! Not the normal treatments like steroids or immune suppressants but instead she must have a bone marrow transplant at this instant! Anyway, as she’s undergoing radiation therapy to burn out her bone marrow so she can receive a transplant, House notices a black slime oozing from her mouth. It turns out that this is a combination of feces and partially-digested blood. This means that Leona has some gastrointestinal bleeding as well as a lower intestinal blockage which is causing things to “back up.”
House and team immediately decide that this means Leona has liver failure and she needs an immediate liver biopsy. Just as Chase is ready to perform the biopsy, House tells him to stop. Leona’s grandfather was a great jazz pianist and House has been in his office listening to one of his old jazz sessions. From this recording, House is able to determine that her grandfather had mental problems, hearing damage, and a history of liver disease. Putting this together with Leona’s presentation, House and Cameron deduce that Leona has hemochromatosis, and inherited form of iron overload. She is started on deferoxamine, an intravenous medication that removes excess iron from the body. Strangely, this treatment causes severe lung damage and Leona is placed on a ventilator. The team suspects the iron must be combining with something in her lungs to cause problems; they consider bacterial infections and neurodegenerative diseases, but then settle on fungus. First they suspect Aspergillus, but it doesn’t respond to therapy, so they realize that it must be a different fungus and finally diagnose Zygomycosis. Some IV therapy with Amphotericin B and Leona is ready to start her new life with her “father.”
The criticism: Medically, the arrhythmia diagnosis makes good sense, though the hallucination aspect is reaching. But to jump from that to a super-severe yet vague “autoimmune disorder” makes no sense. (I suspect the writers know this too as they never name the disease and just leave it vague). And then even if it is an autoimmune disorder, why jump to bone marrow transplant, an unproven (though apparently promising) treatment? The risks/benefit ratio is just too high. Now suddenly we’re told that it’s liver failure. Gastrointestinal bleeding and blockage could be due to many other conditions and Leona’s shown no other signs of liver failure. How about at least running some blood tests or an abdominal CT before a biopsy? Now the diagnosis is hemochromatosis. This one is at least logical, and diagnosing it through her dead grandfather is clever. But suddenly the treatment causes lung damage. Notice how the writers tried to pull this off: When deferoxamine is first introduced we’re told (correctly) that it is processed through her kidneys. Later, when the script demands, Chase reminds House that it is processed through “waste” (his vague term) and House then mentions that her waste system is messed up. No, her liver is messed up — her kidneys are still fine, and this bad plot-convention medicine hurts my head.
A few nitpicks too: Why is Chase performing the electrophysiology study? That takes a specially trained cardiologist. Why is Leona wearing EEG leads on her head the entire episode? Phlebotomy (repeat blood draws) is the recommended treatment for hemochromatosis, not deferoxamine. Deferoxamine is only used in very rare instances (when phlebotomy is not feasible or there is severe heart disease). If the team had used Amphotericin B for the Aspergillus — which is the recommended first line treatment — they would’ve covered the Zygomycosis too. And finally, Cuddy needs subcutaneous shots, not intramuscular ones, at this stage in IVF.
This episode gets a C for the mystery (just average) and a B+ for the final solution. The medicine earns a C-, below average and just plain wrong in several places. The soap opera aspect (at least the scenes with Cuddy and Wilson) redeemed the storyline somewhat and earned a strong B+.
Still want more great medical reading? This week’s Grand Rounds — the best medical blogging of the past week — are being hosted by Dr. ibear over at Doc Around the Clock. As usual, there’s an incredible amount of fascinating reading. And did I mention the art?
May 16th, 2006 at 11:15 pm
I couldn’t help but be reminded of that episode of “South Park” where Cartman learns how to eat through his butt and crap out his mouth.
May 16th, 2006 at 11:34 pm
No comments on the business with House’s leg and pain, or are you waiting to see where they go with this?
May 17th, 2006 at 12:06 am
I’ve been a huge fan of House since discovering it about midway through season one, but only just found your site last week. Great reviews, thanks!
One comment about tonight’s episode: I’ve personally undergone an electrophysiology study and radiofrequency catheter ablation to cure an arrythmia, and none of my preliminary research indicated that either was “crazy dangerous” (as I believe Dr. House described it). Did I miss something in the dialogue there, or is cryoablation a lot more risky than RF ablation? Was it perhaps more dangerous because of her condition?
May 17th, 2006 at 8:06 am
One point that continually comes up in the comments and in the reviews is that of the House team performing every procedure and being experts in basically every field imaginable. While medically incorrect, I think frankly everybody needs to get over it. It’s part of the show on purpose because it makes it more entertaining — the main interactions in this show are among the physicians serving as detectives unraveling a diagnostic puzzle. Them gathering results from various sources and watching a veritable herd of different specialists perform a plethora of procedures would not be as fun. This keeps the main characters in their roles as detectives, and that’s why the writers do it.
The show IS sacrificing realism for drama. It often does. At the end of the day, it is a television show, aimed at entertaining the masses. No, House could never peform a brain biopsy, that’s just silly. The only reason they did that was so Foreman could tell House “get out of my temporal lobe, House” (which was surpisingly unfunny, actually). No, Chase, Foreman and Camron can’t perform MRIs or ultrasounds, and so on.
You might argue I’m suggesting we ignore ALL medical inconsistencies in the pursuit of drama — turn this show into a regular Gray’s Anatomy, why don’t we? Nonsense. I’m suggesting that this specific recurring plot device be accepted or rejected wholesale, bringing it up continually seems redundant to me. At the end of the day, the show is about medical mysteries and indeed any *diagnostic* errors should quickly be pointed out.
Great review Scott — you basically summarized my thoughts of this episode. This was one of the few episodes that didn’t really keep my interest, save for the soap-opera parts.
May 17th, 2006 at 8:06 am
Official Comment
MB,
Waiting to see…
Viscous,
EP studies have risks, both with the catheter, the testing, and the ablation, but I wouldn’t say it’s as dangerous as they implied. If this arrythmia was pushing hwe into cardiogenic shock, then the risk/benefit ratio seems to support the ablation.
Vincent,
I’d hate to sit on the Credentials Review Board of that hospital. “You want credentialed to do what?!?”
May 17th, 2006 at 9:59 am
Scott, I have been enjoying your reviews for a while. Thank you for doing them.
I like House for the characters and the mystery ailments of the week and the weekly scramble to solve them. Most of the medical stuff goes over my head and I’m glad that you are pointing out the flaws in the diagnosis, treatments and methods employed by the characters on the show.
I do understand that liberties will be taken in order to present the story in interesting and dramatic ways, and I hope no one is relying on House for the medical information.
The problem, I think, is encapsulated with the scene with the little boy and his mother. I thought it a bit absurd that the mother brought him in not realizing that all that was wrong was that dye of some sort was rubbed off him. Does she not bathe him? Does he watch tv with his shirt off? However, House’s interaction with him was CUTE! So I can live with the absurdity.
One thing I’ve learned on this show is DON’T LIE!
May 17th, 2006 at 10:16 am
Official Comment
Elais,
The rash = dye complaint is actually fairly common (but not to the extent shown on the show). The most common culprit is new blue jeans. Here’s a recent case that Dr. ibear encountered (posted at Doc Around the Clock).
May 17th, 2006 at 10:44 am
Scott, Cuddy may need subcutaneous shots, not intramuscular ones, at this stage in IVF., but then I assume we wouldn’t get to see Cuddy’s lovely posterior. Sure, it was a little bit of obvious fan service, but I’m not complaining.
I like it when shows have attractive, strong, and intelligent female characters with depth. I find myself liking Cuddy’s character more and more this season for some reason beyond the occasional fan service (poker night outfit, intramuscular shots in the posterior, etc). Though I really like Cameron’s character, she seems to be regressing this season, and doesn’t seem to be strong enough (or pragmatic enough) to be a practicing physician at times.
May 17th, 2006 at 11:58 am
Hello Scott.
I just recently discovered this site and it’s nice to see a medical professional’s point of view that isn’t always critical of the show. I just finished my first year of pharmacy school so I tend to focus more on the treatment or drugs they use (though I try not to analyze things too much because I know realism isn’t the show’s top priority).
To comment on this episode, I can normally stand looking at the close-ups of the organs, blood, etc.. that they love to show on each episode but I had to look away whenever House was trying to induce the hallucinations. That’s just torture right there.
BTW, did anyone notice the sparkle in Cuddy’s eyes when she approached House to ‘thank’ him for the injections?
May 17th, 2006 at 1:01 pm
The episode snapped my suspension of disbelief with the torture scene, and every time House pointed out “see, my friend is _really_ gullible,” it annoyed the heck out of me. I saw the ending coming a mile away. All in all, a disappointing episode.
Next week, however, looks good.
May 17th, 2006 at 2:43 pm
How, exactly, does a short-circuited patch of heart muscle cause hallucinations? That was the main thing I didn’t get, but was also fascinated by.
May 17th, 2006 at 2:56 pm
Viscious, I think it was part of him messing with D.B. Sweeney. “It’s perfectly safe.” “It’s crazy dangerous.” He’s trying to get Mr. Gullible to pay attention and make better choices.
I agree with Vincent, and was going to post more or less the same thing. We all need to just get over it with the House Scoobies doing everything. It’s wrong, it’s stupid, it sticks out like a sore thumb, and we all know it’s not going to change.
May 17th, 2006 at 3:19 pm
With regards to the “absurdity” of the little boy with the red dye–something similar actually happened to my sister. And yes, it had to do with blue jean dye. She had had a blood clot in her eye during her first pregnancy, so when she noticed that her hands seemed to be turning blue, she was understandably worried. And she did try to wash it off, just to make sure that it wasn’t anything on the surface of her hands–it didn’t come off. So she ended up going to the emergency room, with our mother and her husband (both of whom were worried and really thought her hands were turning blue), where she waited for around two hours and had several nurses examine her hands and come to the same conclusion, that something was seriously wrong. Finally, just a few minutes before the doctor came in she realized somehow that the colour was coming from her jeans–my mother rubbed her hand on them and the dye came off on her hands too.
May 17th, 2006 at 5:23 pm
Shanna,
Thank you. The scene comes across better now.
May 17th, 2006 at 6:49 pm
When they were considering a bone marrow transplant and tested the patient’s and her possible father’s blood, House could have looked at their HLA antigens to see whether it was possible that the man could be her father. Like ABO blood types, HLA antigens can’t prove parentage but they can rule it out.
(I was almost a bone marrow donor, and have an interest in the process.)
May 18th, 2006 at 12:00 am
Elais–Glad to help.
May 18th, 2006 at 2:37 am
thanks for the review as always scott!
this episode, i found it weird how house kept on saying how they had no time to the (gold) standard diagnostic test and then do some weird way of verifying dx ‘A’. of course that dx is wrong…
altho this ep was subpar, i’m sure the next will make up for it!
on a side note, i was glad to notice that chase finally cut/trimmed his shaggy hair… and cameron’s hair style seems a bit more mature than usual (of course no mention on foreman’s progress at all… i guess he’s back to 100% in house-clone track)
May 18th, 2006 at 5:31 am
I didn’t much care for this ep, either. It bothered me that a Katrina victim was so poorly served–whatever else is wrong, PTSD is a given and needs to be addressed. And it bugged me that she was presented as a “con artist” rather than a desperate kid in need of someone to look after her and somewhere to go–not for “politically correct” reasons, but rather for reasons of respect and humanity. And as a person with an auto-immune disease, I couldn’t help but feel that the jumping to bone marrow transplant without bloodwork, diagnosis, or even the usual device of “let’s throw meds at it and see if it works and proves our theory” was pretty irresponsible. As a bone marrow transplant is excruciatingly painful, the idea of putting a freshly traumatized kid through one on nothing more substantial than a hunch is unforgivable. In fact, even House deliberately hurting her more than absolutely necessary and yelling at her repeatedly was genuinely cruel. Didn’t any of them see the news during and after the hurricane? Where was Cameron’s famous compassion? Why did they even bother to make her a Katrina survivor? The only way in which it was relevant was as a plot point for introducing a 2nd House friend and explaining a fungus, both of which could have been done in other ways. I didn’t enjoy the writers taking such a catastrophe, demeaning a kid who survived it, and ultimately reducing it to a giant petrie dish.
A couple of things also irked me because when they don’t get even basic stuff right I get thrown right out of the story: A Morphine Sulfate multi-dose vial is never clear, but always made of brown glass to keep light out, at least in america. It’s virtually never injected intra-venuously with a tied-off arm, junkie style, except by junkies. Generally it’s injected intra-muscularly or in a slow push into an IV that’s running into the body. House drew what looked like 1 cc or possibly more, into a 3cc syringe with a long IM needle which would be too thick for an easy IV shot (it’s more common to use an insulin-sized needle on a small syringe for them). 1cc would probably be 15mg of MS, and mainlining that could be dangerous to the heart (his daily Vicodin chewing is irrelevant). And such a high dose pushed straight into the vein would make him nod out. I had to self-inject the stuff during a very long (2 yr.), painful recovery from a bad injury and multiple surgeries, often several times a day at varying strengths, and even I would fall asleep if I was in sufficient pain to require 15mg (no, most doctors don’t let patients do this at home, but I’m a Midwife, had demonstrated no abuse or addiction after a long PCA time in-hospital from which I hadn’t even needed to taper off–just stopped when the pain did, as I did with the home shots, so I was deemed trustworthy).
Why couldn’t Cuddy give herself the shots? I got the feeling she was was meant to be inviting House’s attention, or that the writers wanted us to admire her bottom as much as House was (that long caress with the alcohol wipe was practically foreplay), but I couldn’t tell if she was flirting with him or they were flirting with us. She is certainly capable of twisting to the side a bit, or using a mirror, or choosing a more convenient spot. If I could do it injured, she ought to be able to do it uninjured. And I thought regular women were doing these at home now, so certainly a doctor should be able to handle it. If not, why not ask a nurse instead of one of your top docs? I don’t think I’ve ever been given a shot by a doctor, always by nurses, but then this hospital doesn’t seem to have any of those, nor radiologists, nor techs of any kind…yes, we’ve all know why this is so, but sometimes it’s a bit much.
And is anyone else noticing that House is getting less funny/sarcastic and more mean/sarcastic, and that his leaps of logic are getting rather extreme? Tonight’s was really out there–Sherlock Holmes himself couldn’t have managed this one. But at least we were spared the usual teaser red-herring as it’s getting tiresome. At this point we know that if there are two people in the teaser, even if one’s head has just fallen off, it’s still the other who is about to die.
I did like seeing Hugh Laurie enjoying jazz piano. It’s his real-life first love–I wish we could have seen him play again tonight. It might have made up for the messiness of the episode.
May 18th, 2006 at 2:55 pm
I just got directed to your reviews and I just love them. House has become one of my favorite shows (mention ergot around a classics major and it’s bound to happen), but it’s easy to see how they gloss over a lot of medical fact. I’m only sad that I found you an episode away from the end of the season and hope that you’ll be continuing in season 3! They’ll probably get up to even worse medical practices as the show goes on.
May 18th, 2006 at 3:45 pm
Awi, I agree with most of what you say. However, I think they are fairly consistent with tying House’s ratio of mean vs. funny, and his leaps of logic, to his pain level. One thing this episode was a very apparent increase in pain.
But you’re right about Cuddy. I have no personal experience with fertility treatment, but they can’t possibly be prescribing something to thousands and thousands of American women that you can only do if you have a doctor around.
May 18th, 2006 at 6:32 pm
You need to do a survey through the episodes on which has doctors doing tests, examinations, and procedures that they should not be doing, e.g. are not qualified to perform or supervise or are less qualified than the actual specialist which should be on hand…
May 18th, 2006 at 10:01 pm
3 nitpicking (the episode was so bad I just had to trash it to death) details:
1. You can’t phonate when you’re intubated (the girl did just that when woken up)
2. She would have almost died even with Ampho B if the fungal infection was severe enough to cause respiratory failure (would have taken weeks to recover)
3. The needle was already in the liver by the time House called so the risk was already incurred.
May 19th, 2006 at 4:40 am
So does House ever get a case that isn’t incredibly obscure and unusual? Or are his team some kind of specialists who only take on cases that mystify anyone else? Just once I’d like them to diagnose something straightforward right away and be right.
Of course that would make for a short episode…
May 19th, 2006 at 6:58 am
It drives me crazy how House is so obviously undermedicated. I cringed through the entire episode. Grrrrrrrrr.
r
May 19th, 2006 at 12:48 pm
So does House ever get a case that isn’t incredibly obscure and unusual? Or are his team some kind of specialists who only take on cases that mystify anyone else?
That’s exactly the premise of the show. They’re diagnostic specialists that only take difficult or unusual cases. That’s why you have the scene in the beginning where Cuddy is proving to House that it’s interesting enough for him to take.
May 19th, 2006 at 6:24 pm
This was my least favorite episode. The fact that Foreman is back to his old self so quick was, in my opinion, a complete waste of a side-plot that could have carried over into next season. They could have used the brain damage as a vehicle to salvage weak episodes like this one. Maybe having him continue to be somewhat warm and fuzzy but making minor mistakes or oversights that could make him a liability. Just an idea on how they could have taken things further than ‘curing’ him after one episode.
As far as all of them doing all of the tests and procedures, it’s season two of a fictional tv show, can we please get past it? Beside the fact that it would be incredibly boring if all they did was their true job of sitting around diagnosing the patients for an hour, it would probably cost a ton of money to pay an additional extra each time a specialist or nurse is needed on camera.
just my humble opinion.
May 19th, 2006 at 10:12 pm
I thought of Cuddy’s request to House to do the shots was because she just couldn’t bring herself to give her own shots -I know some people who have a big problem with it. Plus the whole flirtation factor. Why is it that on TV whenever someone needs a shot they have to give it in the butt? I know some injections are still given that way, but for vaccinations, you are not supposed to use the gluteus because the vaccine may not be absorbed properly. But I guess giving someone a shot in the arm isn’t as titillating….
May 21st, 2006 at 7:08 pm
As far as House giving the shots rather than a nurse or someone else, I felt that was self evident: House is the only other person who knows about her planned pregnancy.
Awi: I know it seemed in the past that people react poorly to you and your comments. I would believe that could be because of the lengths of your posts. The whole second paragraph, for example, could be summed up in one sentence: “I don’t like all those little minor errors in the injection scene.
And as for the Katrina victim, there are numerous con artists coming out of this, it is sad but true. Making her a victims was to attract the same kind of instant sympathy that you gave her. It makes House more shocking.
May 21st, 2006 at 10:30 pm
“That’s exactly the premise of the show. They’re diagnostic specialists that only take difficult or unusual cases. That’s why you have the scene in the beginning where Cuddy is proving to House that it’s interesting enough for him to take.”
This also explains why they do all their own tests. The show usually has four doctors treating one patient.* Running their own tests give them something to do other than sitting around waiting for test results.
*(None of the younger doctors treat any patients other than the case-of-the-week, from what I’ve seen. I’ve missed plenty of episodes, so I might have missed any scenes of them treating regular patients.)
May 22nd, 2006 at 8:54 am
I really think this ep was more about human drama and character development than the mystery procedural. I really enjoyed the character interactions and developments and for that I think it’s one of my favourite episodes. But think a lot of things are prob setting up for the finale – like the increasing leg pain.
Thanks scott for pointing out the medical mistakes – I really enjoy your reviews!
May 22nd, 2006 at 3:21 pm
I’m new to this site and am as of now finishing up watching Season 1 of House, I just started watching at the beginning of Season 2. I wanted to add one more comment about the idea of Cameron, Chase and Foreman doing all of the work. In the episode in Season 1 “Control” Chase is to do an angiogram on the patient and we find out that he ended up doing the wrong leg. In his chastising of Chase, House says “Or maybe it was Jenny! How come some resident signed this radiology form? Were you even in the room?” This would lead us to believe that indeed he is forcing them to do the proceedures themselves because, not only for the show’s entertainment value, he does indeed only trust his staff. His anger comes not from the fact that it’s the wrong foot but that it is signed by a resident student and not Chase. It is not the mistake itself that’s the problem but Chase’s apparent lack of involvement in the proceedure which led to having an angiogram of the wrong leg. He then denies Chase’s attempt to redo it and orders Foreman to redo the angiogram. I very much agree that it is important for the show that the three of them be seen more often but it also seems to be an insight into House’s chronic lack of trust in people.
I will be sure to check back after tomorrow’s show!
May 23rd, 2006 at 2:20 pm
*(None of the younger doctors treat any patients other than the case-of-the-week, from what I’ve seen. I’ve missed plenty of episodes, so I might have missed any scenes of them treating regular patients.)
The other docs have Clinic hours (this is mentioned several times) but I believe we’ve never actually seen it.
May 23rd, 2006 at 2:30 pm
Official Comment
We’ve seen Foreman in clinic at least once, when he had the African-American patient who wanted the (pretty much useless) blood pressure medication marketed specifically to African-Americans. Foreman refused, but House eventually gave the patient the medicine.
Chase was seen in clinic re-evaluating Kayla in the episdoe The Mistake.
A few of the “patient of the weeks” have been patients the Young Guns picked up in clinic and admitted to the hospital, thugh we’ve never actually seen them evaluate the patient in the clinic in these instances.
May 29th, 2006 at 10:22 am
Say what you will about this episode – perhaps the drama and the medicine were crap *shrug* – but me and my friends laughed harder at this one than we have at any other one all season. Since comedy is a big part of the whole House experience and it’s been taking a backseat to the drama as of late, I didn’t at all mind an episode that was a little more concerned with making me laugh.
May 31st, 2006 at 6:01 pm
Zach, you’ve been at me since my first post, which wasn’t the longest for that ep, but rather one you didn’t agree with, so would you please just back off? If Scott has a problem with any of us he’ll say so, and as it’s his site, his gets to be the only chastising voice.
August 4th, 2006 at 10:41 pm
What exactly is the SQUID exam House calls for?
November 17th, 2006 at 10:11 pm
Could someone explain Cuddy’s look @ House towards the end? Why did she show up at his office??
December 19th, 2006 at 6:59 pm
I find it weird that during the hearing of Grandpa’s jazz music, House said “something is interfering with his oral intake.” Surely that was a gross mispronunciation and was supposed to be “audio intake.”
December 26th, 2006 at 6:37 am
TTS-No, you’re thinking of the wrong homonym. He meant “Aural”, meaning the way something is heard.
April 23rd, 2007 at 3:27 pm
I wonder about your opinion, but in my eyes the girl is too young to have hemochromatosis. I have never seen a women having hemochromatosis before menopause.
May 19th, 2007 at 5:07 pm
well youll probably never look at this but all the problems this girl had are about the same as i have and im taking the iv method to get rid of my iron and yes i have hemochromotosis and yes it can cause all those problems. right now im in bad shape as im typing this im a male 29 with no problems until i gave blood one day after that all hell broke loose
May 19th, 2007 at 5:09 pm
and one last thing if you would like to know the thousands of problems this causes http://www.americanhs.org
August 11th, 2007 at 2:19 am
I haven’t watched the episode – but something else seems shoddy.
Musicians frequently sustain hearing loss. It’s part of the job, especially jazz musicians (being one myself) and it’s a matter of environment… I myself wouldn’t chalk it up to a genetic disorder (but I’m no doctor – just a veterinary student)
Secondly… He’s a musician with hearing problems? That’s a paradox.
And from an old record, one could probably hear that the man had hearing loss, and maybe mental issues – but liver problems? What? I guess it’s because I haven’t seen the episode.
Though it is cool to see it come full-circle in a way: Katrina victim with a Jazz Musician grandfather. Heheh.
February 29th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
I think that is Hugh Laurie playing piano for the Jazz Musician grandfather. Just a guess based on hearing him play on other episodes.
March 2nd, 2008 at 9:46 pm
I love this show, but like so many other House episodes hemochromatosis would have been spotted as soon as they did a routine blood count (which nearly every patient gets when they come into hospital). Would have made for a very dull episode though.
May 28th, 2008 at 6:47 am
I’ve begun watching all the episodes of House, as I only recently got into it, and I found this website shortly after beginning my viewing. I love reading each of these immediately after watching the episode.
I really only did this so I could point out, Scott, that in your comment you said the man WANTED the African-American blood pressure medicine, when he actually refused it, because he thought it was racist and that all people, regardless of race, reacted the same to medicines and treatment.
August 7th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Steph: the grandfather supposedly died of liver failure, that’s how they got to liver problems.
August 25th, 2008 at 9:43 am
Zygomycosis usually affects sinuses, not lungs. And it´s very rarely seen in immunocompetent patients. The biggest risk factor is diabetes.
February 1st, 2009 at 4:25 pm
>Deferoxamine is only used in very rare instances (when phlebotomy is not feasible or there is severe heart disease)
Does the heart issue the patient has count as severe?
February 24th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Cuddy’s Booty…
– That’s all the time we have, thanks for playing.
November 14th, 2009 at 11:02 am
Why let they play a 16-year old by a 32-year old?
And is House suggesting in the ‘Chicken Mole’ scene with Wilson that he had a ‘conversation’ with the girls mother and that he himself could be the father, or is that just my dirty mind?
November 23rd, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Daniel:
I was diagnosed at 36. There is also adolescent HH. EVERYONE should get a complete iron panel; if ferritin is above normal DONATE BLOOD!!!!!!
November 23rd, 2009 at 2:44 pm
SQUID is a newer method of determining how much iron has collected in your organs. Non-invasive. EVERYONE is at risk of Acquired Iron Overload. Most of us get 100% of our iron just by eating our cereal. As little as 1/2 cup can have our daily allowance of iron. Also all flours and breads are iron fortified. Excess iron is POISON to your system. Check out
ironoverload.org for great information and be pro-active with your health!
December 4th, 2009 at 10:31 am
What the name of that jazz song? It musta came form somewhere… I’d like to find out what it is outside of this episode…
thanx!
March 3rd, 2010 at 1:10 pm
“but like so many other House episodes hemochromatosis would have been spotted as soon as they did a routine blood count (which nearly every patient gets when they come into hospital)”
Actually, no. Most hospitalized patients receive a CBC and CMP and neither transferrin saturation nor ferritin are part of those panels. The CMP does have liver enzyme tests, though. I have HH and *I* had to request the iron panel when my liver enzymes came back high.
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