House – Episode 4 (Season Three): “Lines in the Sand”
Much better medicine this week on House, as well as some fun character moments. Not a great episode, but certainly not a bad one. It’s a perfectly enjoyable middle of the road episode, which still makes it better than much of TV. House medical review and spoilers follow.
A ten year-old severely autistic boy is admitted to House’s service because he won’t stop screaming (though I noticed that he didn’t really scream much for the rest of the episode). Initial medical concerns include heart problems, allergies, and toxins. House orders stool studies, an ANA (to check for lupus, of course), blood cultures, and a lung ventilation scan (which looks for a pulmonary embolus — a clot in the blood vessels of the lungs).
The initial studies are all normal, though they can’t obtain the stool studies because Adam is constipated. When Foreman goes in to get the study, Adam starts gagging and spits up a large amount of fluid. He is diagnosed with a pleural effusion (a build-up of fluid around the lung). The effusion could be caused by heart failure so an echocardiogram is obtained to assess the heart. Foreman notes that the echo shows an abnormal heart rhythm and an EKG confirms it. Still, this isn’t heart failure and does not explain the pleural effusion. The team is now convinced Adam might have cancer — Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, to be precise — and corrals Wilson into performing a lymph node biopsy. The biopsy shows no cancer, but it does show liver cells in the lymph node.
The differential diagnosis still includes cancer, but now also has liver failure and cirrhosis added. A liver biopsy is normal. Meanwhile, Adam goes into ventricular fibrillation and needs to be shocked back into a normal rhythm. He ends up with first degree AV block.
Looking at the high mineral content in Adam’s stool sample, House determines that Adam has pica (the ingestion of non-nutritive substances such as paint chips, ice, dirt, or sand). He could have gotten lead poisoning (from eating paint chips) or arsenic poisoning (from snacking on treated lumber). Foreman cases Adam’s house and yard and manages to find some Jimson Weed. Could this be the cause of the problem? House attempts to question Adam but in the midst of questioning, Adam’s eye rolls back into the socket. The differential now includes multiple sclerosis, stroke, or almost microscopic microtumors of the heart, liver, and eye. Foreman wants to locate these tumors even if he has to remove Adam’s eye to find them. In the end House determines that Adam does not have microtumors, but instead is infected with Raccoon Roundworms. He was infected when he ate sand from his sandbox that raccoons had used as a bathroom. These worms have invaded his heart, lungs, liver, and eyes causing his wide array of symptoms. Antiparasitic medication and laser therapy for the eye should take care of the infection.
The medicine was better this week. The authors still managed to confuse pleural effusion and pleural edema (fluid is coughed up in pleural edema, not pleural effusion), though not to the extent they did last week. I was pleased to see that they discussed the make-up of the pleural fluid and whether it was an exudate or not. It’s an important distinction because it helps a clinician distinguish between the various causes of the effusion (though they didn’t show the needle in the back to obtain the fluid this week — and it would have been the right procedure this time). Most of my complaints are of the more nit-picky variety this week. Such as, if Adam was eating so much sand, why didn’t a great deal of silicon show up in his stool sample? If the liver cells that ended up in the lymph node were “damaged” why did no one notice the damage when they were looking under the microscope (and why weren’t any lymphatic cells present)? What’s the connection between the ventricular fibrillation and the first degree AV block — two very different heart rhythms? If the liver was infected by the worms, it should have been enlarged, and why didn’t the damage show up on a liver screen? The ultimate solution was clever, particularly the way House discovered it through Adam’ drawings. Still, it’s a stretch to say the worms could cause all those symptoms without being noticed; they’re pretty big worms.
There were some clever character moments in this episode. I loved it when House barged into the wrong operation (I sure hope they scrubbed up again, starting with the main surgeon who pulled his mask down with his sterile glove). I also liked when House was quoting Casablanca to his stalker and she was buying every minute of it (and as for Coccidioides immitis, it causes coccidioidomycosis which leads to respiratory and sinus problems, but not the personality changes House mentions – well , at least not without causing a dangerous meningitis first).
I give the medical mystery a B and the ultimate solution a B-, it was clever, but too much of a stretch. The medicine was better this week and most of my complaints were minor so I award it a low B. The soap opera/non-medical content earns an A this week for the carpet, the zen garden, the mouse toy, the wrong OR, and Casablanca.
Last week’s House review
A list of all previous House reviews
September 26th, 2006 at 10:03 pm
First! Booya. Nice review dude.
I like the show alot, i just have one question. Was he lying to the chick the whole time about the that stuff just so that she would leave him alone?
September 26th, 2006 at 10:08 pm
Gliberhers:
Yes House was lying to the 17 yr old, the entire time.
September 26th, 2006 at 10:11 pm
This episode was very lackluster and the season thus far is disappointing. House used to “hook” me and I’d look forward to each episode. Normally they would deliver, but lately this is not the case. I’m not sure what it is that is missing, but something definitely is…
September 26th, 2006 at 10:11 pm
are you sure? the whole thing about the earthquake was fake?
September 26th, 2006 at 10:19 pm
No no, I don’t think he was faking the diagnosis at the end. He listed milky tears as a symptom and that’s what she had.
September 26th, 2006 at 10:38 pm
Miss Jailbait turns Dr. House into an even better doctor than usual. He diagnosed last week’s patient by staring at her butt. Then he looked into her eyes, diagnosed her, then turned around and diagnosed the autistic boy.
September 26th, 2006 at 10:59 pm
I liked this weeks episode. I thought it was interesting. The soap opera parts were funny. I also found the ending very touching. Mabye that’s just me being a sap. Question. I know that whenever I go for checkups my doctor always looks at my eyes. Shouldn’t they have run such a routine thing on him to check for any kind of abnormalties? Or would the racoon worm be hard to spot if you didn’t know what to look for? But you said the worm was big so it couldn’t have been that hard to spot. I have no medical training what so ever and I’m asking this based off of my experiences. I’ve never been in a hospital for any kind of emergancy so I don’t know if they would check the eyes like they would with a normal check up.
September 26th, 2006 at 11:06 pm
Official Comment
Sara,
If a full fledged fundal exam (using an ophthalmoscope to look at the retinas) was performed, it would have caught the worms. A quick “are the pupils working” exam would not have. It would be rare to perform a fundal exam on a child of ten (and hard to perform on one who squirmed so much).
September 26th, 2006 at 11:18 pm
Yeah, I also wondered about the coccidioidomycosis dx. If the infection was causing neurological symptoms, the treatment surely would have required something more urgent than handing her a script and sending her out into the world, no?
September 26th, 2006 at 11:19 pm
Dr Scott: would any of the things Adam had going wrong as a result of the worms cause the heightened senses, as evidenced by the lighting and sound changes when shot through his point of view? I ask because, as someone with Asperger’s, I assumed that the changes to lighting/sound were to simulate how the world looks and sounds to an autistic – and I have to say, the lighting bits were eerily similar to how I FEEL when I’m overloaded, even if I can’t say they look the exact same! – but someone else suggested that that was because of his illnesses.
Also, I reminded myself of something: if I already perceive the world differently from everyone else, but I do not know it, how can I tell if a representation of someone else’s perception is an accurate (or possibly just exaggerated) version of mine, shown for others? I think of it as “if a guy is colorblind, how can he know if something is made to look like what he sees for other people, or if he is ‘blind’ to the actual colors?”
I figure this relates to my question, and perhaps you or other readers of your blog might have ideas. I’m not sure if it’s scientifical or philosophical, but possibly worth pondering.
(PS: I’ve been reading your blog since early this summer, and this is the first time I’ve commented, because of my burning question about Adam’s pov scenes. I’m particularly fond of your PSA Mondays.)
September 26th, 2006 at 11:28 pm
What about the 17 year old with spores that made her lose her inhibitions and judgement? Cloudy tears? I think that was the first time a B-side illness has run across multiple episodes.
September 26th, 2006 at 11:38 pm
The San Joaquin Valley is notorious for coccidiomycosis, which causes “Valley fever”. I was wondering when the Fresno angle would crop up, because I figured the writers meant to do something with it. Valley fever leaves lung scarring behind (assuming you survive it, which my father did) and thereafter screws up all of your chest X-rays, esp. if you forget to remind the doctors about your history.
Valley fever does not make you amorous, though. It makes you as weak as a kitten and you’re a long time recovering. Then Dad got Guillan-Barré. How the old guy made it to 80, I’ll never know (and still going strong).
September 27th, 2006 at 12:13 am
I do have to ask though, was it just me being mistaken and missing it, or was the plant that Foreman picked up under the play tube clearly /not/ Jimsonweed? The picture that Chase brought in was, I know, but the plant Foreman picked up didn’t look it.
Not to mention, from the moment they mentioned it as a cause, there was no way it could’ve been. According to my poisons book, Jimsonweed causes nothing that the kid seemed to have, save the blurred vision and involuntary movement, but that could just as easily be effects of the autisum…I wouldn’t know though…Paralysis isn’t on that list either…
Sorry, me = not a doctor, but I just thought I’d throw that out there…
September 27th, 2006 at 1:09 am
I enjoyed this episode. I’ve liked nearly all the House + Kid episodes, because they seem to see through his BS in a way adults don’t.
September 27th, 2006 at 1:48 am
How much sand would cause there to be a lot of silicon in the stool, I wonder? And how easy is it to be infected with racoon roundworms? My guess is that the kid perhaps just ate a sandy turd – enough to get roundworms, but not so much sand. I know when I was a kid I’d pour drops of water into my sandbox to get little sandpatties to play with – they were much more interesting than the plain old sand. By the same logic I’m guessing a racoon turd looked tasty? I don’t know!
September 27th, 2006 at 5:32 am
Whew! I can now rest easier. I was so convinced last week that House was revving up to jump the shark with a “November/June romance” subplot – removing any tension between House and his other female leads. “Damn damn DAMN!” indeed.
I’m interested to see what Dr. Scott makes of the Asperger’s syndrome diagnosis for House. As a father of an Asperger’s syndrome kid, I’ve read a bit on it, and Dr. Wilson’s layout of symptoms were both accurate, and dead on for House himself. Even though the syndrome was first “discovered” in the 40s, widespread diagnosis seemed rare until recently. It’s alleged to be hereditary – and I’ve been accused of being a jerk a time or two, much like House. Is it possible House is our new Asperger’s poster child, or was Dr. Wilson jumping on the newest fad of current psychological diagnosis? He takes it back right after leaving Cuddy’s office, but I don’t see why.
Your thoughts, Doctor?
September 27th, 2006 at 6:47 am
A raging Kanner’s autist with a perfect haircut is even less credible than him giving up his video game in the final scene.
September 27th, 2006 at 7:14 am
Did anyone catch what kind wristwatch House wears? I saw it briefly, but did not record the episode.
September 27th, 2006 at 7:25 am
The best part was when House shouted “YOU CAN’T STOP OUR LOVE!” into the board room with Cuddy. So damn funny.
September 27th, 2006 at 7:26 am
Does anyone know the location of House’s hospital. He stated two weeks ago NJ, and last night references the lab in Paterson.
September 27th, 2006 at 7:29 am
I’m a teacher of children with autism, so I watched this episode with a close eye. The show started off great in its portrayal of a boy with autism, but really dropped the ball at the end. First, the good:
- the lack of eye contact & meaningful communication were spot-on.
- This is the first t.v. show I’ve seen that shows someone using the Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) with a non-verbal child.
- The rigid daily schedule, and various sensory activities (sandbox, water table, etc.) would be great for a child with autism.
- Pica: a child will eat anything, no matter how nasty, if he or she has the urge.
- The child actor did an excellent job portraying a boy with severe autism.
But…
- A child who does not make eye contact with his parents (or others he sees on a regular basis) would not notice House all of a sudden.
- “Monkey see, monkey do,” said House, as he got the boy to put the face-mask on by showing him how. True, many children with autism learn through imitation (the idea of imitating has to be taught to many), but a child who is frightened of a new, unknown thing will not allow it over his face just because someone else does, especially a stranger. I’ve worked with students (with whom I have had established teacher/ student relationships) on trying new foods, tooth-brushing, and even going to the dentist. There were more meltdowns than successes, and the kids never did the required activity on the first try.
- The idea that House envies people with autism is stupid. Why would anyone want to be unable to properly communicate, have difficulties with sensory input, become frightened or enraged by change, etc., just to escape responsibility for their actions?
- The ending: There is no way a child with autism will give up his Gameboy, let alone voluntarily, let alone to a stranger. The magic eye-contact moment may have been touching, but a child with autism going back to make eye contact ith a person they just passed is absurd. The idea that the child saw House as a “kindred soul,” and wanted to communicate with him, is also ridiculous. I’ve had classes in which the six students were like six islands.
I give the portrayal of a boy with autism in the first 2/3 of the show an A, but the last 1/3 gets a D.
September 27th, 2006 at 8:02 am
Somethng is definitely different this season, but I can’t quite figure it…the acting is ok, could it be the editing? The show just doesn’t hold together as well as it used to, and it’s darned distracting for me. It’s not as fun.
I did enjoy House’s discomfiture at finding out he wasn’t the chick magnet he thought he was…there he was, being all noble, and then he has to find out it’s all medical! I felt for him.
September 27th, 2006 at 8:29 am
Hi Scott. Great review as always. Thanks.
Non-medical parts of this episode were excellent IMHO. Had me ROTFLMAO literally :p
Have no idea about the medical parts and i trust Scotts verdict :-)
I just want to point out that this is a drama, and a damn good one at that. Its enjoyable to both non-medical and medical people ( as long as everything is right )
That being said, it would be impossible to be medically accurate.
Who wants doctors sitting in their office twiddling their thumbs waiting for test results ? Not me. Let them search the patients home.
Re: last episode, would it have made better TV if the patient had his heart chemically stressed, instead of stumbling on the treadmill? No, it would’nt. It wouldnt lead to the scene where House injects him with epi twice to get his heart racing, which leads to him asking to be put out of his misery….
Oops, soory for the long rant.
Anyway, catch you next time scott.
September 27th, 2006 at 8:46 am
Keith, I’m with you. Something is off. The colors seem different, so I think the filming, and the writing seems different.
I’m going to weigh in on autism, too. My Asperger’s child is now 16, so we’ve been through a lot, I’ve spent a lot of time with books, therapists, neurologists, and other kids with PDDs (Pervasive Developmental Disorders, of which one is Asperger’s).
Dolphus is right, Asperger’s is considered hereditary. If you read up on it, some of what you find is that both parents, or perhaps an uncle or other near kin on both sides, have mild personality defects; they’re “nerds,” socially awkward, smart but off-putting, etc., add up to a kid with Asperger’s. Not that straight line of course, but PDD exists on a continuum, and parents with low-level PDDs, say “Asperger’s-like”, can have a kid with a more dramatic impairment.
House is textbook in some ways; more than Wilson delineated. I’d note poor use of social space, which is especially visibile in the volume of his voice, antipathy to being touched, inability to remember names, comfort through repetetive motions (bouncing the ball is not far removed from classic autistic rocking behavior), the ability to make unusual connections; all these are Asperger’s-like.
In other ways House is definitely not Asperger’s-like. He understands how to elicit reactions from people, a social nuance that eludes Asperger’s people; House is so good at it he manipulates it all the time. He’s got excellent vocal intonation; no monotone, no audible speech pathologies. His fine and gross motor coordination are both very good. He doesn’t have the peculiar cant, accent, expression, or posture that makes Asperger’s so obvious to those of us who know it well. He doesn’t appear to have OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder).
So I’d say that Wilson was just f#cking with Cuddy. House doesn’t have Asperger’s.
So, back to the patient:
*Why did House insist that Adam would eat anything, even wood, and ask him what he’d eaten, and then fail to recognize he’d eaten sand when the kid handed him the sandbox card?
*Why does Adam allow so much touch? Why do Adam’s parents touch him so casually? Maybe people with severe Kant autism don’t notice the touch, but most autistic people have real rules about that.
September 27th, 2006 at 8:51 am
Does anyone know the location of House’s hospital.
House’s hospital is the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, located in the non-fictional Princeton-Plainsboro area of NJ (not sure which of the two towns it’s in). Has to be a pretty specialized test to need to be sent 60 miles away to Paterson, I have to say. Philly is closer.
September 27th, 2006 at 10:18 am
So I’d say that Wilson was just f#cking with Cuddy. House doesn’t have Asperger’s.
Near the end there, he actually did say to House, “You don’t have Asperger’s.” That’s what (my memory says) I heard, anyway.
House’s need for the stained carpeting has been bugging me since last night. Does anybody else think that maybe, just maybe, he regards it as a gift from a patient? That was a running theme throughout the episode, after all. House tossed some of Wilson’s gifts into the trash, just as Cuddy had (indirectly) tossed that bloodstained carpet into a dumpster…
September 27th, 2006 at 11:36 am
I’m glad a few people have posted more thorough explanations of Asperger’s. My sister teaches autistic children, so what little I know about it I’ve learned from her.
Mike asked why anybody would envy the autistic. Although I doubt House would, unfortunately there are many people anxious to claim to have Asperger’s. The appeal is a combination of factors – an “excuse” for being socially awkward, the possibility of being more intelligent than average, relatively few truly debilitating symptoms (as far as they know). Having met a few autistic children and witnessed the extreme difficulty their parents and teachers have communicating with them, I find this current fad of self-diagnosing Asperger’s offensive.
September 27th, 2006 at 11:42 am
Yes, really my name, so adds to my fascination with House/Holmes and Wilson/Watson. I’m not in the medical profession, so don’t be too hard on me!
First, is there a treatment for 5 weeks of no House? Baseball? Who wants to watch that?
Is it me, or has the background location changed? Was there always a second-floor balcony in the hospital lobby? Is someone going to do Romeo and Juliet as the season finale? Always kind of assumed that the hospital location was Princeton.
Am so thrilled when I think I might know the answer, like last night. As soon as I saw the sandbox picture, I thought poo! Check his eyes! All thanks to my 90-year-old Dad’s time in Africa in the 1940’s and story of a worm (water-borne, I think) that was removed from its host by waiting for it to pass across the eye, and then plucked out.
And Cameron, hate the new haircut.
September 27th, 2006 at 12:10 pm
was the spore diagnosis accurate or just to throw off the stalker?
September 27th, 2006 at 12:12 pm
One wonders why so many movies and television productions go 90% of the way towards accuracy, and then stop for no reason. Sometimes it makes sense from a dramatic perspective to have unqualified main characters performing various and sundry procedures, but this is different… WHY NOT get the Pleural Effusion/Aedema thing right? Why stop just a teensy bit shy of accurate on that count?
I can’t stand CSI because of this problem. They seemingly make no effort to be scientifically accurate, even when it would not hurt the plot or characters to do so. “House MD” is not AS guilty of such transgressions, but many inaccuracies, including the Effusion/Aedema example, indicate they have the same ‘writers’ disease’. Why? Whom would it hurt to ensure the script contains the correct phrase, especially if it won’t damage the final product?
Or do they just assume the television audience is just too stupid to bother with?
Despite the minor nit-pick, I enjoyed this episode, but I couldn’t help getting the erie sense that there is something ‘different’ about House. He doesn’t seem to be acting normally. Is this a clever, subtle plot line, or merely the result of a different writer/director? Would House NORMALLY make a space beside himself for Cameron to sit down? Someone who avoids physical contact, patting the desk in a welcoming fashion, seems.. odd… Out of character…
Maybe he was high?
September 27th, 2006 at 12:15 pm
I believe it was just to throw off the stalker. Unless you think a doctor of House’s caliber believes that an earthquake can release spores that act as love potions…
September 27th, 2006 at 12:16 pm
Deborah: Excellent post! Thanks!
September 27th, 2006 at 12:22 pm
Canton, you’re right, Wilson said that. But it leaves us a little unclear as to what Wilson actually thinks. He was persuasive enough to convince Cuddy that House has it, and persuasive enough to convince House he doesn’t. I think he doesn’t.
September 27th, 2006 at 12:25 pm
House Fan:
The dianosis was meant to be accurate, hence House’s dismay in finding out that her infatuation was not ‘real’, so to speak. He was flattered that a young woman, 30 years his junior, found him attractive; a nice ego-stroke. It was a bit of a blow to discover her amourous advances were caused by coccidioidomycosis, instead of his rugged good looks. Bummer!
I’d hate to think that if someone is attracted to me, it must be because they are, in fact, sick. From stroked ego to shattered ego in 8.5 seconds flat. Ouch.
September 27th, 2006 at 12:26 pm
*why was the kid not sedated during the medical thingy with wilson? looking at the lymph nodes for cancer??
September 27th, 2006 at 12:53 pm
Regarding the diagnosis of the teen stalker… House may be on to something in the medical diagnosis that something is wrong with her. But… maybe it’s just how I’m reading Hugh Laurie, but it seems that House took the slight medical malady and blew it up to get her off his case. His delivery was just a bit too emotional and emphatic for his character. Perfect for the Casablanca delivery… but not truly Housian.
I figure House ididn’t want to deal with the frisky teenager, and took the mild medical trouble as an excuse to blow his already silly “breakup speech” up into something that the teen couldn’t ignore, if she accepted his medical authority.
September 27th, 2006 at 2:18 pm
Another great episode.
At the very end, when the boy gave House his gameboy, I was very disappointed. I think the directors were aiming for the usual “touching ending”. But it destroyed the real autistic character of that boy, which had been masterfully done the entire episode. As if the boy was faking his condition all along.
It seemed to me that the Teen girl really cast a spell on house. He was so paralized that he coulnd’t even be his own jerky self. Good to see House can still fall in love or be stunned by such seduction. Unfortunately for Cuddy and Cameron they failed at that ;-)
Anyone who has a really good theory about his old carpet? Besides OCD or a powerplay ;-)
September 27th, 2006 at 2:37 pm
House’s need for the stained carpeting: I would hypothesise that it evokes a bit of an adrenaline rush, an emotional stimulant for House. It’s an echo of his visit to the edge of the abyss. I suffered a skydiving accident 15 years ago and I still own the rig I augered in with, despite the fading blood stains upon it. Normal people think it’s a ghoulish momento, similar to the reaction of House’s co-workers to the carpet. House’s attachment to the carpet is a nice, subtle touch which adds depth to the character.
September 27th, 2006 at 3:35 pm
I had a problem with the “monkey see monkey do” – scene, when House shows the boy how to put on the mask. I’m not a doctor, but since the boy was screaming so hard, couldn’t they just sedate him? Give him a shot of something?
September 27th, 2006 at 3:40 pm
Stalker diagnosis – I am in the camp that believes it was either exaggerated or concocted to stop her from continuing the stalking. I don’t believe that coccidioidomycosis could cause the amorous behavior witnessed in this episode, not even in the fictional HOUSE MD world.
September 27th, 2006 at 4:42 pm
As someone with Aspergers who didn’t find out that such a thing even existed until relatively late in life, and who prefers to treat it as an interesting explanation instead of an excuse, I just want to make a quick response to Deborah’s conclusion that House couldn’t possibly have Aspergers because of his ability to manipulate others. I think that’s a reasonable conclusion to draw, but I sort of disagree that it necessarily precludes the diagnosis.
Someone sufficiently “high-functioning” can LEARN all of those things in the same way a normal human would learn to play a musical instrument. It’s not natural and it’s not hardwired, and it never will be, but it’s doable, and with enough practice and effort possibly doable even better than “normal” simply because one pays more attention to it. The same thing goes for vocal intonation, etc. Also, being manipulative isn’t something that all “normals” can learn, either.
I do, however, concur with Deborah’s final conclusion. I think House doesn’t have Aspergers because he doesn’t seem sufficiently stressed by going to the bother of processing human emotions, and he doesn’t seem sufficiently sensitive to sensory input in general. But then, it’s not experienced the same way by everyone. (Along the same lines, Temple Grandin and Donna Williams have very different ways of experiencing being autistic, as I understand it.)
My two cents, which may or may not be worth anything depending on the exchange rate and prevailing inflation…
September 27th, 2006 at 5:16 pm
i’d really like to place the blame for the overall lull in the new season on cameron’s hair, but realistically it just feels like the team isn’t really “clicking” (or being allowed to by the writers). less in-fighting, less competition, less interesting. i also feel that the episodic formula is wearing thin, but that shouldn’t be an excuse seeing as how CSI has managed to spawn seven seasons and two spin-offs by basically remaking the same episode ad nauseum…
so, yeah, gotta be the hair.
September 27th, 2006 at 6:48 pm
I think House has Schizoid Personality Disorder.
September 27th, 2006 at 9:43 pm
Having not seen the episode yet….sad I know (I’m in New Zealand and thus being a season behind in everything i have to wait and download each episode which sux ALOT)all i’m going to comment on at this point is the constant barrage of abuse being hurled at poor Allison’s hair,(admittedly i am very much pro Cameron) I for one have no problem with it, she still looks just as gorgeous as always.
I’l be back after i’ve watched the episode :)
September 27th, 2006 at 9:50 pm
The show implies that the hospital is one or more of the Princeton U. buildings that are frequently shown from the air. The one most shown is the First Campus Center. Look at princeton.edu and find Campus Map in the Quick Links menu. The building is just a bit up and to the right of the center of the map. It is near the unique building with the two rounded projections – the McCosh Health Center.
September 27th, 2006 at 10:03 pm
Chiming in with another “parent of kids on the spectrum” view. People have accused my daughter of manipulative behavior because she would throw a temper tantrum when things didn’t go her way. This is not manipulation – this is the inability to handle when life does not follow the script. Mike and Deb had some great points (deb, do I know you from OASIS?) and in the end, I agree that Dr. House is not ASpie, even though he has some red flags. I’d say he does register on the Eccentric Genius scale, though. I remember reading a paper comparing gifted students to AS students, and many of the idiosyncracies are similar.
Scott – thanks for your reviews. I only found them this summer, so haven’t really read them all yet. I was laughing through the Casablanca scene – you’d think a romantic kid would have seen that movie, though!
September 27th, 2006 at 10:17 pm
I know exactly what the problem with the recent episodes are…: There’s simply not enough Wilson! *laughs* Sorry, I had to put that one out there…he’s my favorite character…besides House that is…
But seriously, there is serious Cuddy and Wilson shortage in most of S3 so far and whenever they actually are in, they’re plotting something…This has got to stop…
Other than that…I don’t think the cases are really interesting enough… I mean, I’ve already been able to catch two out of four already this season when I’m usually stumped as to the final diagnosis…it makes it fun to be in the anticipation…oh, the other catch, and I’m not even a stinkin’ doctor!
Last season was full of risks, you could say, in between doing the brain shut-down for the autopsy, to House getting high on LSD to combat a migraine, to various other little points… S3 doesn’t quite top that yet…I hope the writers get to that point soon though…
September 27th, 2006 at 10:31 pm
I found the ending to be very touching. Maybe it is inaccurate but it really is a ray of hope for the parents (they were crying) who gave up so much just to help the child.
On a lighter note, I think the writers are setting up for a possible House/Cameron romance this season.
September 27th, 2006 at 11:36 pm
I hope your right Gigi about the House/Cameron thing, I think i’l die if the programme ends without them together, maybe the will do what friends did with Ross/Rachel, leave it till the last minute.
Im Glad there’s another loud and proud House/Cameron fan out there, good work Gigi
September 28th, 2006 at 4:43 am
Hey, I was wondering. . Is it just me or do they test for Lupus in every single episode?
September 28th, 2006 at 5:45 am
G’day
Just discovered your site and read through all the episodes. Fantastic. Although I’ll never be a doctor I have interest in the medical side of things and after every episode end up with a zillion Firefox tabs after having looked stuff up. At least now I won’t have to stumble around with the ridiculous spelling :)
September 28th, 2006 at 7:45 am
Loved the Casablanca scene – I kept wondering how far he would take it, and he took it all the way! House was particularly brutal this week. I think the writers are having trouble this season maintaining his curmudgeonly acerbic character, and at the same time have the character “grow” – which usually involves becoming more sympathetic and “human”. My wife, who is not a regular watcher of the show, was slightly appalled at some of House’s comments about the parents and living with an autistic child – as I would have been had I not been a House fan and laughing hysterically.
I agree with other comments about the end of the show – while it’s impossible to make a statement that “no autistic child would do …..” it is highly unlikely that a child exhibiting the behaviors displayed in the episode would make deliberate and extended eye contact with a stranger, or give away his game system. But then we don’t know what the child does when he’s not being affected by Racoon Roundworms – the fact that they have apparently been at least somewhat successful using the picture board, and getting the child to indicate his wants and needs in some way (”He has to *ask* for more juice”) indicates that he may have a greater level of connection/communication than shown while he was sick. But I don’t really believe it…. I think it was just “happy ending” writing.
After all the posts here about how the staff does things themselves that would normally be done by specialists I was amused by Foreman’s going to Wilson to do the biopsy…
September 28th, 2006 at 9:35 am
Kat – well, at least no one was *seizing* in this episode…I was starting to think of the show as “House’s Seiz-o-rama.”
September 28th, 2006 at 10:52 am
frank; I agree, Aspies can learn behaviors not natural to them. I liken it to color-blind people learning to read traffic lights by the position of the light. My son, who had a disturbingly “Red-Rum” monotone until about age 12, had extensive speech therapy and now, at 16, speaks beautifully (except when tired). I just don’t buy that House is working at it. Reading people is a fundamental part of House’s nature; his diagnostic skill set. I really don’t believe an Aspie could ever have reading people as a savant talant.
trishpip; I doubt it. I was briefly involved with OASIS after my son’s diagnosis at age 8, but gee whiz my schedule was tight enough without running around Jersey for meetings!
September 28th, 2006 at 12:12 pm
Anyone else notice House wearing his stethoscope upside-down when examining his patient?
Aside from that, I actually thought the soap opera elements this week were a bit weak, resorting to the the odd contrived bit of humour (House “preaching” in the chaplaincy and the whole Casablanca bit), neither of which seemed to be up to the usual degree of intelligence. I also thought that House seemed particularly spiteful towards Cuddy and Cameron in particular, even by his standards. I can only assume this was played up to emphasise the whole quasi-autistic angle.
September 28th, 2006 at 8:12 pm
My opinion on the carpet thing?
It’s not so much that he loved the carpet itself, before or after the bloodstain–though he may indeed have, but that’s a side point. If I’m reading him correctly, it’s that he cannot tolerate having his physical space and the items in it disarranged or removed without his consent. That’s perhaps why he so deliberately invaded Cuddy’s and Wilson’s private workspaces–House is a firm believer in object lessons. Maybe he would have eventually gotten tired of the stained carpet and demanded to have it replaced–but he would have initiated that action on his own terms. (And, what the heck, I agree on this one–since Cuddy was trying to be nice, what would have been wrong with asking first? His office, his floor.)
The irony of this for me is House has no problem committing far worse acts against others. He can break into people’s private homes, steal their personal files, take prescription pads, interrupt important business, all without a twinge. But let someone encroach even mildly upon him and he’s enraged. Remember how he reacted when he thought the maid that Wilson had hired to clean his townhouse had moved his wooden chest when he himself had done so and forgotten about it (from the gold dust poisoning episode)? That’s unusual and highlights his amusing lack of empathy. (Usually, when someone is “like that,” he or she is punctiliously careful about showing respect for the property of others.)
September 29th, 2006 at 6:13 am
A couple of up-poster mentioned that something seems a little off and I have to agree. The lead writer for the show left in the summer. I think the loss of that writer really shows in the poor quality of the medical mysteries and the lack of emsemble acting by the cast. Two reasons that I used to love the show.
September 29th, 2006 at 6:23 am
Product placement much with the PSP? It got called a ‘Handheld’ and not a ‘Game Boy’ this episode, so you know they are getting some money for it. Anyway, how come an autistic kid’s PSP is 100% pristine? I’m as careful as possible with mine, but every single one gets dusty and greasy the scratches just build up, it’s possible that an autistic is obsessive about cleaning it, but I somewhat doubt this 10-year-old would be. My cousin’s autism is nowhere near as severe is the kid in the episode, but I wouldn’t let him have my PSP for long. Actually, I wouldn’t let any greasy-fingered 10-year old have it for long, hehe. Little details like that get me, same as the ‘resolution = screen size’ problem in episode 2. The HDTV I could just about go for (even though House has a very nice flatscreen monitor), but the theatre? Come on, House, break out the IMax!
I felt the Autism was acted very well though, in the final scene, his expression and jerking about like a madman was the first time I was aware that it was an actor.
September 29th, 2006 at 7:31 am
Regarding the girl, is it not possible that the spores could have been concentrated in her frontal lobe? If so, would that not be enough to affect her judgment and sexual behavior?
September 29th, 2006 at 1:03 pm
AH – HAH!!!
Different writer!! That must be it. That must be the reason for all the characters, expecially House, acting so strangely out of character.
Deborah, do you happen to know why the head writer left the show??
September 30th, 2006 at 2:23 am
Raccoon roundworms (Baylisascaris) have a diurnal migration cycle, at least while they live in raccoons. I can’t say if that still holds true for infections in humans. But in raccoons, the female roundworm lives in the large intestine during the day, and only moves to the perianal region at night to lay eggs. If you are looking for them at the wrong time of the day, you might very well be looking in the wrong places. The eggs are microscopic, eating a small number could be sufficient to cause an infection. The parasite itself is often difficult to diagnose in humans.
September 30th, 2006 at 5:09 am
oh my god
what was up with the preview for the next episode, was is it just me or was house being arrested ???????
Is he going to take the fall for Cameron over ezra, why ? because he bloody LOVES her that’s why
What do you guys think ????
September 30th, 2006 at 11:25 am
Chris-
I don’t see how it’s any more product placement than House’s DS last season. The fact that they never identified it by name is a pretty clear indication that it’s not product placement, and I imagine there’s some legal liability involved in labeling one product with the name of it’s competitor, hence not calling it a “gameboy”
Basically, I don’t see any indication that they are getting paid for it. Although I will concede that it seems odd for them to get a PSP instead of using the same prop they used for the last couple handheld video games.
September 30th, 2006 at 12:35 pm
Why did nobody recall Dog Day Afternoon? Does “Attica!” ring a bell?
September 30th, 2006 at 2:36 pm
I found the eye contact a lot less believable then giving House a present.
I mean, giving somebody a gift is a concious act with fairly clear social ramifications.
Making eye contact is a largely unconcious thing, and wouold the kid even be aware that he was supposed to do it?
Two things nobody mentioned:
1. I thought there was an interesting parallel between the last scene and the one where House throws out the gift Wilson got from his patient. Unlike the ceramic cat, House would probably get a lot of use and enjoyment out of a handheld game system.
2. A PSP costs $250. Dialogue mentions that both parents quit their jobs, so it seems to me that buying a new one would be prohibitively expensive.
I wouldn’t let a completely normal 10-year old give away a PSP, just because I know he’d end up wanting to play with it later and I wouldn’t have the money to get another one.
There’s no way in hell I’d let an Autistic kid who gets some of his only joy in life from the thing give it away.
September 30th, 2006 at 5:33 pm
Hey, sorry I’m late.
I found the episode to be great in many ways. Not only has it been one of the funniest episodes of House but it was also a sweet episode. Now, I am no expert in autism, so I am no way accountable to my thoughts on it, but I try to make the best out of everything with House. I believe the ending scene was to suggests one of three things: Either Adam was falsely diagnosed with Autism, Adam is Autistic but not as severe as they thought, or Adam is recovering from his severe Autism. All was to give the parents good hope knowing that their kid is still inside there when they were giving up on him. Now, I know people who are autistic or people who know someone with autism is going to say the last scene was very unrealistic, but House isn’t realistic. Never has House ever put realism before drama: the medicine for once (And thanks to Scott, we know which parts were sacrificed and which were real), Richard from “Meaning” recovering that quickly after 8 years of paralysis as well as every other patient who recovered too quickly, the Cottage’s running their own lab works and doing tests they are not authorized to do… House is a TV show, and even though they try hard to keep reality, they will have to fake stuff in order to help with character development (Like House in this one) or to make a touching scene for people, like me, who don’t care if things are real in a “TV” show. Documentaries are supposed to be realistic, not TV shows.
And Scott, great reviews like always, I am wondering how realistic the Magic School Bus Cam (What Sara M calls the body graphics) is because to me it looks a lot better than other TV shows graphics but then people say it isn’t. For someone who’s a doctor and knows how things look in the body, is it realistic looking or is it something any video game designer, who’ve never been to medical school, could cook up. Thanks Scott.
I can’t handle all these breaks FOX makes House go through. Doesn’t FOX have it’s own sports channel for the World Series.
September 30th, 2006 at 5:36 pm
Anyone catch the reference to season 1 and house’s leg in this episode
go watch the opening scene where House and the crew are talking in the elevator again
Chase talks about the possible reasons for the kid’s chest pain
Foreman says the ER checked the kid out and all tests came back normal
House look at Foreman and says “Don’t be so quick to dismiss pain”
September 30th, 2006 at 7:35 pm
The carpet deal is not that complicated and it does not relate him being OCD or on a power trip. Remember when House dumped Stacy because he feared chaging himself meant losing his gift. He did the same thing with Cameron and his team when Vogler wanted to fire them. House keeps his life static to prevent the lose of his genius. Cameron walks up to House at the end of this episode and says something to the point of “some change is okay.” House wants to stay House. That’s all the carpet is about.
October 1st, 2006 at 4:53 am
Scott – Thanks for making such a great companion to watching House.
The Carpet – I think it’s kind of like Bill’s experience above. House wants to keep the carpet because it’s a reminder to him of what happened when he got shot. And, is it not in a way part of a form of grief over what he gained (Via the Ketamine) and subsequently lost? Like not wanting to part with an seemingly innocuous item that belonged to a deceased loved one?
Season 3 – Yes, there’s definitely something missing and, as a few people say, it’s evident in the rapport of the team other than House – they don’t seem to be interacting like they usually do. Not enough conflict. House himself seems like he is not back to ‘normal’ (Well, normal for him). Either the shooting has changed him or he’s in recovery from it. You can’t help feeling closure can only be provided by an eventual real-world confrontation with the shooter, Moriarty.
October 1st, 2006 at 6:50 am
Just watched the episode
Thought it was possibly one of the funniest yet, could just be my sense of humour
Also there was a nice House/Cameron moment at the end, when the guy was putting the old carpet back
October 1st, 2006 at 2:52 pm
Exactly, that’s what House is about. If he changes anything in his life he feels that he’ll loose his gift, which is exactly what Wilson psychoanalyzes House with at the end of Need To Know, “You don’t like yourself. But you do admire yourself. It’s all you’ve got, so you cling to it. You’re so afraid if you change, you’ll lose what makes you special. Being miserable doesn’t make you better than anybody else, House. It just makes you miserable.” And your right, Cameron said in the end, “Old change is bad, it’s not true, you know.”
30 days, 6 hours, 7 minutes, 20 seconds to go till “Fools For Love”.
October 1st, 2006 at 4:13 pm
Just want to say that I’m a fan of your medical reviews; every time I watch an episode of House, I race here afterwards to check for medical validity. (Okay, not race, but check for it a day after the show). Damn the World Series. This episode was definitely much better than I originally thought it would be.
October 2nd, 2006 at 9:13 pm
Shouldn’t the doctors have detected an eosinophilic reaction to the parasites?
(Asks my sister, who is an actual doctor, unlike me.)
October 3rd, 2006 at 5:37 pm
Ah-HAH!
This must be the real-life case that inspired this “House MD” episode. Ironically, they even mention the ‘House-like’ mystery surrounding the case:
http://www.workopolis.com/servlet/Content/qprinter/20051008/ROUNDWORM08
It makes for a fascinating read. Unfortunately, the patient in the Toronto case did not fare as well as the boy on House.
Sometimes, reality bites.
October 4th, 2006 at 1:09 pm
[...] Polite Dissent medical review of this episode [...]
October 6th, 2006 at 10:59 pm
I just wondered, House has three direct interactions with the autistic child and in the first two his eyes are bright blue to the kid but at the end of the show when he has the last interaction (with the gameboy thing) his eyes are now normal. Think this is intentional or just an error?
October 22nd, 2006 at 11:32 pm
Just curious –
Where do shows like House get their ideas for scripts? Where or how do they cook up these medical plots?
October 25th, 2006 at 4:15 pm
Bob: Define ‘normal’. Hugh Laurie has blue eyes. Variations in lighting can make blue eyes take on vastly different hues.
Heather: If you click on the link 3 posts above yours, you’ll see one case where the source of the ‘Patient of the Week’ was obvious. Medicine is so tremendously varied, and the human species so complicated that finding obscure medical conditions is pretty easy. I don’t suppose they will run out of ideas for an awfully long time. Keeping the format fresh and reducing the medical mistakes present rather more of a challenge, I suspect.
…I wonder if they’ll ever learn the difference between ‘effusion’ and ‘edema’…
October 30th, 2006 at 8:39 pm
I have a question I don’t see answered in the season 4 recaps, and I missed the episode that may have answered it:
Why did that man shoot House?
If House’s conversations with everyone, including his ICU shooter-neighbor, were hallucinations, then what was the shooter’s motivation for bursting into House’s office and aiming so badly from a mere arm’s length? (Sorry to rehash an old episode…)
October 30th, 2006 at 8:56 pm
Official Comment
I don’t think the hallucinations started until after House was shot, so I suspect the shooters stated reasons for shooting House were the real ones.
October 30th, 2006 at 10:55 pm
Thank you for your reply, Scott. (Thank you, also, for this very interesting weekly medical review that adds to the pleasure of watching House.) However, weren’t the shooter’s motivations revealed during House’s hallucination? If I understand properly, the only ‘real’ moments of the episode included House being shot in his office and then House being rolled on a gurney down the hall, concerned Young Guns in tow. All the rest, including the shooter’s name (Moriarty…nice touch) and his reasons were House’s fantasy, yes? (In addition to the opening and closing shots that contrast with the hallucinatory story, when the man enters the office, he doesn’t know which man is House. On the other hand, in their ICU conversations, it appears, he had spoken with House when his wife was ill — “You convinced me…” — and not his Young Guns, even though House often avoids patients.)
November 1st, 2006 at 2:45 am
Great episode for the humor — really showed off Laurie’s skill (one of the best actors ever)! I figured that while the girl really did have something from Fresno, that whole ‘decreased inhibitions’ thing was House BS to get her off his back. Not that, I’m sure, he really *minded* being lusted after by a 17-year-old TV actress (I mean, who wouldn’t?)… However, in what was supposed (I assume) to be a humorous bit, I thought that House’s dropping the little clay figure from the dead cancer patient was way *too* heartless, even for him! I mean, really! :( I’m sad just thinking about it!
November 29th, 2006 at 10:06 am
All the doctors here answer me this: As for the stalker girl, I don’t understand the diagnosis of Valley Fever. If her brain was already infected with the spores, wouldn’t she be on the verge of dying? I’m from Arizona and I had a bout with that stuff when I was around twelve. I was nowhere near having brain damage and yet I was sick as a dog. My lungs hurt so bad I could hardly stand up straight. My doctors were afraid I would get encephalitus and kept me in the hospital for a week. I cannot believe a teeneage girl could be that sick and strutting around in a thong and only complaining of cold-like symptoms. Is it possible for coccidio-whatever-it-is to bypass the lungs and go straight for the brain?
January 12th, 2007 at 11:26 am
It’s just such a pity they cannot do a more interesting story about people with autism. Like one that occurs every day, such as a teen who is sick of doctors using them to play Diagnosis Dartboard coming to House and begging him to get them to stop before it destroys their life as has occurred in my case. I do not quite follow what the intent with the site is, but regardless of what you might think of the fact-checking, the world needs more doctors like Gregory House. Doctors who will not sit on their hands and let their patients go to hell just because that is the expected norm. Finally, the POV shots really only demonstrate how flawed outside understanding of autism really is. It is considered incredibly likely that Albert Einstein was autistic, and no less an expert than Tony Attwood has found good reason to believe that Steven Spielberg is on the spectrum, too. Subtlety might not make the lives of the film crew easy, but it sure does tell a better story (vis Blade Runner).
January 22nd, 2007 at 8:26 pm
There has been a thread building behind the scenes about Cuddy’s desire to have a baby. House, in one episode, says to Cuddy, “when is our dinner.” Cuddy comes up to his office to thank him for the shots, and House asks her if that is all she wanted. She says no. In a later episode, House comes into Cuddy’s office and says, “alright, I’ll father your baby.” House interviews a sperm donor and looks at other donors genetic make-up and tells Cuddy she should have someone she knows to father her child, to have a designer baby. IN THIS EPISODE, House is in the garage with the nymphette, and after Cuddy shoos her away, she says to House, “I’m ovulating, lets go.” House dutifully follows her. The only reason I can think of for her to ask him to go with her is that she needs a fresh sperm donation for an implantation. House has been teasing Cuddy about being pregnant in some of these episodes.
Does anyone else think that this is going on in the background, with some hints along the way for us to follow? If you are not paying attention to this theme, these incidents will not mean much. Put it all together, and it appears that House will father Cuddy’s baby. Will it happen by donation or the natural way?
April 12th, 2007 at 4:09 pm
Why is it that whenever the Aspie is succesful suddenly they no longer are (aspie)?
I’ve been diagnoised Aspie but I (and most of my friends that are on the spectrum) are generally ‘nicer’ than house.
Or maybe he is just a brilliant jerk ;)
April 21st, 2007 at 7:12 am
If this has already been addressed, sorry, but the fine sand on pacific island beaches is calcium carbonate from coral reef skeletons digested by parrotfish; very fine sand could be CaCOv3 due to being easier to grind, unless the kid just doesn’t like silica sand.
On the carpet and chest tantrums making his B&E orders hypocritical, I think that House (if he invites a woman to see him taking a leak) doesn’t mind people seeing his personal areas but I think he objects to people changing them; I think Wilson may have moved the chest assuming the timecourse works, which could have been a good excuse for deleting the message. I think for him privacy means control, and I bet when he runs across two people “in the closet” later in the series, he lets them go on as if they can now that they’ve have their privacy drastically violated, because to him, it probably seems they didn’t.
May 10th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
Did anyone else notice that the carpet being refitted was the wrong size for the room? I assume standard practice when removing a carpet from a large room is to cut it into pieces, which would render it pointless to attempt to re-lay, but certainly doesn’t *increase* the size of it.
May 29th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
House is INTP, his personality traits/quirks shown in the serie have been quite accurately consistent with typical INTP. Especially when it comes to his way of thinking and diagnostic method, i.e. how he after storing all information possible manages to correlate them by a seemingly unrelated detail. Any INTP such as myself and all my INTP friends recognize immediately the character, and as well as our (very few) close non-INTP friends have noticed the similarities. As only quite an extreme minority of the population is INTP, we are very rarely understood. Thus certain personality disorders may be associated with quite a few personality quirks of INTP’s, such as SPD and autistic traits (an INTP friend was in fact suggested to be possibly autistic when he was a child). Of course INTP’s are not all “jerks”, quite on the contrary most of us appear to be very easy-going, that is until our principles are violated (the carpet?!!). It does however make perfect sense for INTP’s that House has chosen to be a jerk.
August 1st, 2007 at 7:20 pm
I realize there hasn’t been a posted reply for this episode for quite some time, so I’m not sure if anyone will even get to read this, but I just thought I’d throw something out there, something that’s been bugging me. It might more appropriately be placed on a website dedicated solely to Autism spectrum disorders, but…
As a child, I was very different from other kids. I was extremely creative and bright, but socially inept – but it wasn’t that I didn’t like social interaction or human contact, I was actually a bit over-enthusiastic, like a puppy. But I couldn’t understand boundaries. I never knew what was appropriate to say or to do, and was often completely shocked or taken aback when someone finally lost their temper with me. As example: I often rough-housed with the other kids, but I always took it too far and they wound up in the nurse’s office and I wound up in serious trouble. I just couldn’t tell when I had hurt someone. When I had ‘gone too far’.
On the other hand, I had very little interest in interacting with other children in a ‘real’ capacity, and was mainly only happy when we were playing make-believe with each other. If I wasn’t in a situation where I could play make-believe with others, I would retreat into an imaginative situation of my own construction regardless of where I happened to be. I was on the softball team, and many games I sat off to the side of the bench playing with sticks and dirts and rocks, making elaborate little worlds. I’d even sit down in the middle of the outfield and play in the dirt.
While all my friends outgrew the need to substitute their real lives and personalities with those of their own creation, I didn’t, and as a result became more and more removed and isolated. I had, maybe, two friends, and that was because both of them continued to ‘pretend’ with me. When I hit middle and then high school, it became a real problem. I became antisocial, bitter, cynical, and arrogant.
I was very very good at reading people, however. In some ways I still didn’t know boundaries, but it ceased to be an issue because I no longer cared about violating them. All of my teachers loved me because I was very charming and an extremely good communicator – I’m an active listener, I make eye contact, I laugh when appropriate and read the subtle nuances of people’s faces and body language. I know when they’re upset before they even say anything. For those who earned my trust and respect, this meant that I offered them keen insight and empathy, as well as wise advice (that, as we were in high school, they were forced to ignore), and it meant that for those who earned my contempt or who hurt my feelings, I could push their buttons, hurt them, even emotionally damage them with words alone.
Now I’ve developed a more friendly and compassionate nature, and I try to act as though all people are good and mean well until individuals demonstrate to the contrary. I’m an even better communicator/listener than before because I’m more willing to behave as the situation dictates and to interact with strangers despite my desire to be alone with my closest friends.
A bout with severe depression 3 years ago placed me in the hands of a psychologist and psychiatrist who at various times attributed a number of conditions to me — obsessive-compulsive disorder, major depression, generalized anxiety disorder, schizotypal personality disorder, even paranoid schizophrenia. But in none of these sessions did any of them ever take into account my childhood behavioral and cognitive abnormalities.
So for anyone who still is reading, from either morbid curiosity or utter confusion, I guess I’d like /your/ input. I’d say I spend 80%+ of my time on fantasy and imagination, but I’m not psychotic. I’m aware of reality. It just doesn’t feel… real, to me. It doesn’t feel like home. I feel more comfortable in my dreams, even nightmares. I’m excellent at communicating and counseling people and I can usually (though I hate to say it) manipulate them. I’m very empathetic and compassionate but I’m also extremely impatient at things I think are trivial or stupid.
I kind of feel like a doppelganger or a changeling, LOL. I’ve become an expert at interacting with a world that has never, doesn’t, and probably never will feel like home.
Opinions? I ask this here because in many ways, I identify with Asperger’s patients and those on the autistic spectrum, even though there are several things that seem dramatically out of place, like my people skills.
(And, though I hate telling people this because they treat it like a goddamn joke, I rock when stressed. I swear, if you tell people that, or if they see you do it, their response is usually *so* infuriating. Either they think you’re making a “retard joke” or they do the favor of making one for you.)
NOTE: My boyfriend pointed out a really disturbing quirk of mine recently. When I’m watching a movie or program or something, I mimic the facial expressions and mouth the words of the characters if there’s a lot of emotion in it. It occurs more with things I’ve seen before, when I know the emotion is coming, but it happens without me even realizing it, and I have a hard time stopping it. If I’m in a group I’ll even try to hide it with another gesture or a turn of the head or something. I’ve never even HEARD of this before!!! Anyone who has, please please tell me!
August 26th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
zvoid: Thanks for bringing it up. I’m an INTP too, but I don’t know other INTP’s around me (no wonder). Somehow I’m not surprised that other INTP’s can be found here. The extreme minority must love this show! I’m completely addicted! And this blog is great too.
Amanda: I like your story. It’s very interesting. You may feel it’s a burden, but I think nothing’s wrong with yoou, especially because you are conscious about yourself. You are just special, and that’s a great thing in this world of tedious uniformed people. Everyone is born as a coherent person, but most of the people die as a copy. It seems you are not going to become a copy, and it’s good in itself.
October 26th, 2007 at 11:47 pm
Wait, PLEURAL edema? Must be a typo that was meant to be PULMONARY edema. You must write these reviews pretty quickly…
December 12th, 2007 at 3:51 am
Since this seems to be the “diagnose House” thread, let me put in an opinion that House is a psychopath. Yes, he’s manipulative. The “everyone lies” type comments would tend to indicate he is seeing people as being like him. Does he ever show any real emotions that he cannot gain by?
As far as the autism thing… I worked with a child at school, who I was told was autistic. He really liked being touched, having lotion rubbed on his feet, etc. He is almost totally non-verbal as far as I could tell, and spent a lot of time humming. I am assuming that this is just a case of autism manifesting differently in different individuals.
December 14th, 2007 at 11:36 pm
I laughed a lot, lots of funny moments with House flitting around the hospital, miss hottie, etc. And the Casablanca thing was so great. She was buying every syllable, we and House know she’s such a gen-x’er space cadette she’d probably never even heard of the movie.
January 10th, 2008 at 9:51 pm
I think Wilson said House had Aspergers so she would give him the carpet. He goes to House and says quote ‘You’re not autistic, you don’t have asperger’s. You wish you did, it would exempt you from the rules. Let you date 17 year olds. But most importantly it means you’re not just a jerk -’ can’t remember what goes after that. I like this episode a lot. Also, the spores diagnoses for the girl seems fake but then what explains the milky tears she was having. And why was he dissappointed when he made that diagnoses? He WALKED into Cuddy’s office the first time demanding the carpet. WALKED not LIMPED. He is a little different. Comeing off the failure of Ketamine? I don’t have an MD but the roundworm thing was crazy. They’re way to big, and what was with the whole ‘Sit over here Cameron thing?’Did you notice in the first two episodes of season three House wasn’t making his usual snide remarks and snarks? There were some but not as much as usual.
May 8th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
I know this is a very old review, but I want to point out in response to all the “House was quoting Casablanca at her and she didn’t even know it”, that essentially they were BOTH quoting Casablanca:
The original film:
Rick: Now, you’ve got to listen to me! You have any idea what you’d have to look forward to if you stayed here? Nine chances out of ten, we’d both wind up in a concentration camp. Isn’t that true, Louie?
Renault: I’m afraid Major Strasser would insist.
Ilsa: You’re saying this only to make me go.
Rick: I’m saying it because it’s true. Inside of us, we both know you belong with Victor. You’re part of his work, the thing that keeps him going. If that plane leaves the ground and you’re not with him, you’ll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life.
Ilsa: But what about us?
Rick: We’ll always have Paris. We didn’t have…we’d…we’d lost it until you came to Casablanca. We got it back last night.
Ilsa: When I said I would never leave you…
Rick: And you never will. But I’ve got a job to do, too. Where I’m going, you can’t follow. What I’ve got to do, you can’t be any part of. Girl, I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you’ll understand that. Here’s looking at you, kid.
Housian scene:
House: Listen to me. Do you have any idea what you’d have to look forward to if you stayed with me? Nine chances out of ten, we’d both wind up in a jail.
Girl: You’re only saying that to make me go.
House: I’m saying it because it’s true. Inside of us, we both know you belong with Victor – Is there a Victor in your class? If you’re not with someone your age, you’ll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life.
Girl: What about us?
House: We’ll always have Fresno. I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of two little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you’ll understand that. Now, now – Here’s looking at you– damn.
I think the scene is just cute writing. I think you have to look at is as just cute writing, but I don’t think you can really deeply analyze the character traits of him “deciding” she was too young to know the movie, or that she was ignorant of it or whatever. She reponds with the proper movie lines. He clearly knows he’s quoting the film, due to the Victor crack, but I think you have to suspend disbelief and just see it as a cute homage scene.
May 20th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
I enjoyed the show and I don’t have a problem with it.
November 7th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
sueWilson, good points on the possible subplot of House being the father of Cuddy’s baby. Did anyone catch when Cuddy and Wilson were in the stairwell and he asks her if they should make out? hehe
TH, Bravo with catching the teamwork on the Casablanca homage!
December 19th, 2008 at 1:30 am
Did anyone else notice the X-Rays hanging in Wilson’s office? Since when did doctors leave medical-confidence investigation outcomes lying around?
February 19th, 2009 at 4:30 am
Plus the fungal infection having milky tears is fictional! dang- it sure made the ending dramatic…
March 23rd, 2009 at 10:50 am
The carpet, in addition to explanations about House’s reluctance to accept change, may function as his memento mori. One of two in the same frame: Cameron stands beside him in medium long shot as the old cover is laid. A thin, disfiguring line of shadow splits her face and the full length of her body. An easy shot to have reconstructed if the cinematographer had made a mistake – so presumably it was intentional.
July 10th, 2009 at 6:38 am
Dear Lord, I was appalled at the incorrect diagnosis of the PSP as a Gameboy. Props to whoever finally got it right; I was losing hope in humanity.
August 3rd, 2009 at 11:51 am
Hahaha, good one
December 6th, 2009 at 3:07 am
love your reviews.
so many great House comedic moments. one of my fav episodes. particularly after breathing in the gas, stumbling around the room and “YOU CANT STOP OUR LOVE” to cuddy in the board room. hilarious.
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