07-04-2006 13:13
In tonight’s episode of House, the team treat 15- year-old Alex, a model who uncharacteristically punched another girl and then collapsed at a fashion show.
House is unusually keen to take the case – “You had me at teenage supermodel,” he tells Cuddy – and orders the routine battery of tests.
When the tox screen reveals Alex has taken heroin, the team try to determine if she is suffering from withdrawal symptoms, or whether the heroin is simply masking an underlying disease. House orders a risky detox procedure that will pump the heroin out of her system overnight. However, the process is too much for her, and Alex has a heart attack.
Nurses revive her at once, but her father Martin is furious and demands that they stop the treatment immediately. House replies that if they wake her up now, she will be in unimaginable pain. Meanwhile, House is battling his own problems. The pain in his leg has suddenly got so much worse that he is having trouble walking.
Wilson hopes it’s an indication that his nerves in his amputated thigh muscle are regenerating, but House refuses to consider this. “It’s a simple equation,” he says. “More pain equals more pills.” However, it soon become clear that his leg is so painful that even his Vicodin addiction is not enough to control it.
With the three junior doctors beginning to wonder if the pain is affecting his medical judgement, House asks Wilson to give him an MRI scan. When it reveals that nothing has changed, Wilson begins to suspect that the pain is all in his mind. But House denies it and approaches Cuddy to get an injection of morphine so he can concentrate on curing Alex.
Has House’s addiction stepped up a level? Elsewhere, Alex has developed short-term memory loss. Foreman is worried that it’s a result of the loss of oxygen to the brain after her heart attack, but House has an alternative theory. Claiming that someone as beautiful as Alex wouldn’t have become a junkie under normal circumstances, he insists she has been sexually abused by her father and is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
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