By Sara M
Special thanks to Couch Baron for filling in for me while I lugged my IKEA furniture a mile and half over to my new apartment. I'll tell you, that stuff is not as light as it looks. Thanks also to Kulfi, who sent me some really nice DVDs of the entire first season, which makes the finding-all-the-reruns aspect of my job a lot easier.
On to the recap! Two men jog. On the left is Dominic Purcell, best known as the titular character from the short-lived but well-recapped John Doe. On the right is some other guy who's complaining about his marital troubles. John Doe, named "Ed" here, needs to take a break, so they sit on a nearby bench. Ed's friend asks how Ed's marriage is going, and Ed says it's great. Friend keeps prying, asking how often Ed and his wife have sex and whether they did it this morning. Mind your own business, dude.
Ed comes home and calls for his wife. He asks her if they have anything with "electrolytes" in it. Yeah, it's called water. Wife Elyce doesn't answer because she's still in bed. Ed points out that it's almost four o'clock in the afternoon, and that Elyce has been in bed and missing work since Wednesday. Then he nudges her to wake up. Elyce: "I SAID LEAVE ME ALONE!" Elyce's outburst is accompanied by a rather vicious slap across Ed's face. I know I hate it when people use physical force to wake me up, and have been known to verbally abuse the poor soul who is kind enough to serve as my alarm clock (ask my parents about the happy times we shared together on school mornings!), but even I have never resorted to physical violence. The sudden realization of what she's done wakes Elyce right up. "I think there's something wrong with me!" she says. Ed's cheek muscles are too sore for him to fully commit to the "no SHIT" face.
Cameron brings Elyce's case to House's attention, and he is typically unimpressed. Patient's sleeping eighteen hours a day? House's instadiagnosis is clinical depression. He can relate, as he usually finds himself feeling sad whenever he's near the clinic. Cameron says that five or six doctors have ruled out clinical depression, along with a host of other ailments. They need House's help to figure out what it is, but none of them feels strongly enough about it to actually talk to House. So they made Cameron do it.
House and Cameron enter the elevator (drink!), and House notes that Ed said his wife has been "unusually irritable." House remarks that he didn't think it was possible for a woman to be "unusually" irritable. I hope he's not basing that opinion on how women act when they're around him, which would probably skew his results. After taking about five minutes to think of a witty retort, Cameron comes back at House with "You're a misanthrope, not a misogynist." Who says he can't be both? House asks Cameron what it is about this seemingly banal case that makes her want House to take it. She doesn't answer, so House takes the chart and the case. "I find your interest interesting," House says.
House is just about the only one who does. Even the other Cottages are ready to write Elyce's ailment off as clinical depression and move on to bigger and better crossword puzzles. House says that their case has a fever, so it's not depression. Maybe it's a brain thing, House wonders, giving neurologist Foreman a pointed look. Cameron says that they can rule out vasculitis, which probably goes without saying at this point. Chase is in the middle of suggesting parasites or other tropical nastiness, but Cameron interrupts him with a bitchy exasperated glasses-removal and says that Elyce has never been outside of the United States. Chase says that's what Elyce said, but that doesn't make it true. This gets him props from House, although, really, why would someone lie about whether or not they traveled out of the country? Unless, of course, our wife is actually a secret agent who doesn't want to blow her suburban housewife cover. And in that case, we can't rule out that she's being poisoned by the Russians. House says it must be a brain tumor, then, which Foreman seriously doubts, seeing as Elyce has already been checked for that by her last six doctors. House orders new blood work and an MRI anyway.
Things aren't so blue for House in the clinic today, because his latest patient is a hot little preschool teacher complaining of shortness of breath. He turns to get the handy-dandy EKG machine ready, and she takes off her robe. House turns back around. His eyes bug out, he steps back a bit, and then says: "Good LORD! Are those real?" And then we get a close up of the boobs, which are admittedly generous in size, if housed in a rather ugly bra. Also, are we sure House isn't a misogynist? "Do they look real?" Boob Lady asks. "They look...pretty...damn good," House stammers. Like most people, I don't like going to the doctor because I'm uncomfortable being naked in front of strangers. But everyone says it's not a big deal because doctors look at naked people every day so it's not like they're getting off or evaluating you critically or anything like that. And here comes House drooling over a patient's boobs like a pubescent boy to totally destroy my illusions. Boobs says that the implants were a present for her husband's fortieth birthday, and I have to say, if those actually are implants, they look pretty real. They don't have the cantaloupe-halves shape I traditionally associate with fake boobs. House says the implants may, in fact, be the source of Boobs's problems, but that he needs to call in a colleague who has more experience in these matters. Cameron? Ah, no. That would be Wilson. It's good that Wilson gets some benefits for hanging out with that guy, I guess.
Cameron and Foreman tell the A-plot patient that they're going to do another MRI to find the tumor they believe she has. Elyce is kinda bummed about the brain cancer news. "Don't worry," her husband says. "Too late," she answers as tears fall down her cheeks. Aw.
Cameron instructs Elyce to remain as still as possible as Foreman injects what I'm guessing is gallium into her IV line. Then she's wheeled into the MRI tube of DEATH. Hope it works out this time!
House and Wilson exit the very appropriately-named "Exam Room" as Boobs puts her robe back on. Except that she's still putting it on when they open the door, meaning that just about anyone in the Clinic could get a peek at her goodies. I'm guessing she doesn't mind that too much, though. Wilson isn't as impressed with the preschool teacher's set as House was. I guess he's not a Tits 'N Ass man. He always struck me as more of a Beard 'N Limp guy anyway. House uses the patient's fake boobs as a segue into a philosophical argument about lying. Is a lie a lie if everyone knows it's a lie? Do people have cosmetic surgery to change how others seen them, or how they see themselves? And why is Wilson wearing a fancy new tie today after wearing the same five boring ties for the last three weeks? Up until this point, the homoerotic vibe I got from those two was that Wilson was interested, but House was not. But I've never known a straight man who paid such close attention to his own ties, let alone those of his best friend's. I guess it takes two to tango, even if one person's bum leg makes tangoing a bit tricky. The flirtatious fun is ruined when Cuddy walks up, asking if the reason that two department heads had to check out a standard shortness-of-breath complaint has anything to do with the complainant's huge boobies. House tells a nearby nurse to run some tests and blood work on the patient. "You're ordering tests to cover your lechery? Interesting," Cuddy says. Seriously, what does it take to get fired from this place?
Back with the small-boobed A-patient, Foreman says they didn't find anything on the MRI. Ed starts to flip out, asking why it's taking them so long to figure out what is wrong with his wife. Cameron's response is an "I know you're scared. I would be, too," which can't do a whole lot to make anyone feel better. In fact, Elyce announces that she suddenly feels much worse, and has a seizure. I blame Cameron for this. Elyce flops around like a dying fish, and I can't believe House didn't take the fastest elevator up there so he could check out all the hot boob-jigglin' seizure action, since that is so important to him this week.
Some time later, Elyce has recovered from her seizure, but now she doesn't even have the motor control necessary to draw a circle. Isn't it kind of unfair of them to give her the hardest possible shape to do out of the gate like that? They could've at least let her start on some rectangles to get her confidence up.
Back at the office, Wilson yet again informs us that nothing showed up on Elyce's MRI. "It's not a tumor," he says. That will never stop being funny for me, no matter how many educational program budgets the most famous speaker of that line-turned-my-governor cuts. Chase has a few suggestions for what wife's problem could be, including the dreaded Lyme Disease. Despite having grown up in the state of its origin, all I really know about this condition is what I saw on The Real World, which is that Lyme Disease makes you laugh and cry at the same time and get slapped in the face for calling out latent homosexuals. So all we need is for Elyce to tell Wilson that he's not fooling anyone and for Wilson to smack her in the jaw and we've got our diagnosis! Or not, as House dismisses the Lyme Disease idea after ascertaining that Ed is an attentive and devoted husband who would have noticed Lyme Disease's initial onset rash. That's true: my roommate came home from a trip back to Connecticut complaining of achy joints and a huge bug bite on his back. I checked it out, and sure enough, he had the distinctive bullseye rash of Lyme Disease. He was able to get medicine quickly enough to avoid Lyme Disease's late-onset complications, although I told him that if he ever had an irresistible urge to tell feminine "straight" men that they were gay, he should call his doctor immediately.
Wilson asks whether anyone got a look at Elyce's breasts. "Men!" House scoffs. Ah, but there is a medical method to his ogling, as Wilson says Elyce could have paraneoplastic syndrome. House asks if there was any breast cancer in Elyce's family medical history. Cameron breathlessly says that Elyce's mother totally died of it. Awesome!
Cut to Ed, acting as our medical exposition elicitor. How can breast cancer cause brain problems? he wonders. Cameron tells him and us that in paraneoplastic syndrome, the body's antibodies go after brain cells instead of tumor cells, as the two have molecular similarities. It's a microscopic version of wanting a Coke, but only being able to find a Pepsi machine and settling for that. I guess. Honestly, it took me two days to figure out how to spell "paraneoplastic," let alone figure out what it actually is. Foreman says that the only treatment option is to go after Elyce's tumor -- providing that it's treatable. And that it actually exists. And I don't think I'm giving too much away by saying that it doesn't.
Cameron gives Elyce what I'm guessing is a mammogram. I've never had one, being way below the age that they start being a recommended thing to do and also having no family history of breast cancer to worry about. But most importantly, not having health insurance. Damn you Canadians and your universal health care, which despite having its own unique set of problems, is still preferable to not having coverage at all! ["Not to brag, but it is a pretty sweet deal." -- Wing Chun] Elyce doesn't particularly enjoy her mammogram, pronouncing it painful. Has she never had one before, despite being in her mid-thirties and having a mom who died of breast cancer? "I'm sorry!" Cameron responds, making a few of her best sympathy faces. Then she does whatever it is that you do to perform a mammogram, and I'm pretty sure people go to school for and train to be mammogram techs, but it appears that Cameron's going solo for this one. Once it's done, Elyce sighs that she wanted to have kids, but it looks like she won't be able to now. "A lot has changed since your mom died," says Cameron. Well, sure, but I'm guessing that you still can't have a baby if you're dead, which is probably Elyce's main concern right now, shut up Cameron.
The mammogram reveals only benign calcifications, which don't sound like fun but are not cancerous. Wilson says the tumor is probably just too small to detect, and that they should do a PET scan to find it. In 12% of cases, there is no tumor at all. Chase is confused; how can someone have a disease caused by a tumor when there is no tumor? Wilson's answer is "it happens." Chase asks how they're supposed to treat it, then. House says you don't; the patient dies while his doctors look for a tumor that isn't there. He tells them to treat the Elyce's symptoms while they wait for the tumor to get bigger and easier to find. Meanwhile, someone needs to check out Elyce's workplace, just in case she doesn't have paraneoplastic syndrome and is having a toxic reaction. It won't be in her home, since the husband is healthy. Is he, though? In the beginning of the episode, he did say he was tired.... Anyway, House assigns Foreman to work-toxin-detail.
House and Foreman exit the elevator on the way out of the hospital and home. Well, House is going home. Foreman gets to go sniff the carpet at Elyce's workplace. Foreman demands to know why House has been "riding" him lately. House simply says that if he's been on Foreman's case more than usual, then it can't be a race thing, since Foreman is "just as black" as he's always been.
Foreman talks to Elyce's boss. She's the meat chef in a restaurant so fancy that it has real, live French people working in it. Foreman asks what kind of cleaners they use, and Boss says that unlike Foreman's hospital, the higher-ups don't have to do grunt work. Foreman asks if they sprayed for roaches recently, and a kitchen worker who may or may not be Gérard Depardieu gets all alarmed. Boss orders him to get back to work, and then tells Foreman that he has to do the same. So he'll break it down for Foreman: he's been using the same cleaning products for the last fifteen years and everyone else is healthy. He hopes Elyce feels better soon. Foreman notices some cooked rabbit carcasses lying around.
Elyce wakes up from her latest nap to find Cameron hanging out. Cameron says Ed is down at the gift shop and asked Cameron to stick around until he got back in case Elyce woke up. "You must have better things to do," Elyce says. "I send my laundry out," Cameron says. Yeah, all three pieces of it. I'll bet that bustier-vest is dry clean-only, too. So Cameron has all the free time in the world to listen to Elyce's super-romantic fairy-tale story of how she and Ed met during their freshman year of college, when he came to her dorm for a party, barfed all over her bathroom, and threw her vomit-soaked towels out the window so that she wouldn't find out. What a charmer. Cameron says that Ed must have come back the morning to apologize. It's pretty funny when Elyce blows her romance book ideas of love out of the water and says that she actually tracked Ed's ass down to get restitution for the towels he ruined. Then she complains that her neck hurts and her arm itches. Cameron doesn't think it's a big deal, and leaves to get her some cream for the itch. Which means that Elyce is all alone when the huge bubble rises up from her forearm and then all the bugs crawl out of it. Understandably, she freaks the hell out, and Cameron runs in to try to calm her down. Foreman enters, sees the scene, and you know he's thinking about how when they left Elyce, she was calm and sleepy, but after a few minutes with Cameron, she's become hysterical, and that can't be a coincidence. Elyce waves her arm around, the bugs flying everywhere. It's the stuff of nightmares. Or hallucinations, which is what poor Elyce was actually having.
Foreman tells House that they had to sedate Elyce, and House is pissed. He doesn't think that people who already sleep eighteen hours a day should be given something that makes them sleep even more. Foreman says that their only other option was to let Elyce scratch her skin off. In the office, Wilson says that bug hallucinations are consistent with paraneoplastic syndrome. Cameron points out that the hallucinations started immediately after they started treating Elyce's "symptoms." House wonders if there are, in fact, "bugs" under Elyce's skin after all. Foreman says everything of that nature has been ruled out. House says that the final stages of African trypanosomiasis wouldn't show up in any of those tests. Foreman wonders how someone who has never been out of America could get bitten by a tsetse fly. He mentions that Elyce's restaurant serves rabbit; maybe she inhaled some rabbit fever? I knew someone with rabbit fever. She collected all sorts of ceramic rabbits and put them all over her living room. But this rabbit fever is actually tularemia, and is spread to rabbits through ticks. House says that they dismissed Lyme Disease figuring that Ed would have noticed a rash, but that they'll give rabbit fever a whirl even though its onset symptom is a "wet, hacking cough." Foreman says that's just as likely as Elyce's missing her exit on the Turnpike and winding up in Africa, which, incidentally, happened to me in a dream I had once. I also dreamt I could drive from Connecticut to Las Vegas in one day. I drive really, really fast in my dreams. "Very nice," House says to Foreman, adding, "That's why I ride you." Then he limps into his office and turns on the television. "Did he just turn on the TV?" asks Cameron Obvious. "He needs to think," Wilson says. Encyclopedia Brown only had to close his eyes at the dinner table for that.
The Cottages hang out together in the lab, doing whatever tests will give them a positive diagnosis. Foreman grouses about House's "that's why I ride you" comment. He doesn't like the insinuation that Foreman only has good ideas because House is tough on him. Chase says that House actually said that Foreman's idea was lousy. Cameron just wants to go ahead and treat Elyce for rabbit fever without bothering to wait for the test results. Chase says that the rabbit fever treatment is too dangerous to administer without being sure, and that the African sleeping sickness medicine is even worse. Foreman asks why House doesn't treat Chase or Cameron the way House treats him. "He's got a crush on you!" Chase says. Chase is the voice of reason in this scene, that's for sure.
Wilson has perfectly timed his visits to House's office so that House's stories are just ending when he arrives. House asks Wilson for the juicy details on his new girlfriend, pointing out that Wilson is wearing fancy French shoes, obviously meant to impress someone. A professional someone. Does an infectious-disease doctor count as a professional? After further prying, Wilson admits that he had lunch with a new Oncology nurse, just to be nice. It wasn't a date. Cuddy enters with the big-boobed preschool teacher's test results. She remarks that she can't believe House and Wilson didn't jump on them the minute they came in, so interested were they in finding the source of the patient's shortness of breath. House accuses Cuddy of being jealous that another woman has their attention. That would be Cameron, wouldn't it? He takes a quick look at the test results and comes to a conclusion: "I was right."
House enters the exam room and informs Big Boobs that her husband snuck some of his blood pressure medicine into her breakfast oatmeal, figuring that they could share the low-sex-drive side effects. If he can't have her, no one can -- because she won't be in the mood. House prescribes that Big Boobs make her own breakfast in the future, or grab some condoms and go to a bar. What she's supposed to do then we can only guess, as House is suddenly struck with an idea and leaves.
House limps into the lab, where the Cottages report that the lab tests were inconclusive. House says that's okay, because he knows exactly what happened: Elyce has African sleeping sickness, transmitted through sex. Foreman says that's only possible if what you have sex with is a tsetse fly, which is an amusing mental image. House says there was a case in Portugal a few years back where a man caught sleeping sickness from his girlfriend, as reported in some Portuguese medical journal. At least, House hopes that's what it said. His Portuguese is a little rusty. Cameron says that the husband hasn't been to Africa either. "Your logic is bulletproof!" House snarks. Cameron says that ignoring the wet, hacking cough of rabbit fever is more likely than that either Ed or Elyce cheated on each other, based on her vast knowledge of them as individuals and as a couple gained from the twenty minutes she has spent with them. House orders Cameron to ask Elyce and Ed if they cheated, and then wisely reconsiders and assigns the wife to Chase and the husband to Foreman.
Cameron follows House out of the office and asks him if he doesn't trust her to do her job. Yes, well, Cameron, considering that the last time House told you to do something, you stood back and let Wilson do it, I'd say he's not too far off there. And then House reveals that he totally looked at Cameron's medical records to find out if her whole emotional deal a few episodes ago was because she lost a baby. She didn't. She also didn't really lose her temper at this, like I would have done, and simply says that House is like "an eight-year-old boy with a puzzle that's just a little bit too grown up for him to figure out." Yeah, like Cameron's all that grown up. I think a grown-up would have quit working for her sexual-harrassing, private-medical-file-reading boss a long time ago.
Foreman breaks the news to Ed that his wife has one of two illnesses, and that the treatments for both are dangerous, so they have to be sure of what she has before they try to kill/cure her. "Are there tests you can do?" Ed asks, as Dominic Purcell's Australian accent slips in a bit. Purcell does a pretty good American accent, but alas, no one can match Hugh Laurie's. Foreman says that there are no tests at this late stage of the game, but that if Ed wouldn't mind answering a few difficult questions, they might be able to narrow things down...
Chase asks Elyce if she had respiratory problems before the sleeping problems started, since those would indicate rabbit fever. Elyce says no.
Ed also says that his wife hasn't had any breathing problems lately, and that he would have noticed if she had, since he has never been away from her for "more than a night." Foreman sighs, which I don't understand, seeing as Ed just gave him a golden segue into asking about one-night stands.
Chase asks Elyce if she's ever had an affair. "Of course not," she says. She loves Ed.
Ed is similarly emphatic in his negative response, even after Foreman reminds him that if Elyce does have sleeping sickness and she isn't treated, she will die. "I love her," Ed says.
Back at the office, House says that they can rule out sleeping sickness, so they should start Elyce on rabbit-fever meds immediately. He leaves for the night, and the Cottages look at each other.
Cameron spends some time with Elyce as Ed sleeps in the corner of the room. Cameron says it's 4 in the morning, but that she "pulled the short straw" and so has to pull an all-nighter to get Elyce's meds administered correctly. First of all, you know Chase and Foreman rigged that game so Cameron would lose, because she's such a sucker. Second of all, isn't that a nurse I see just outside the room? Isn't she able to hook up IVs? I can't even get my doctor to come in on a Wednesday, and yet these people are seemingly tireless in their devotion. Elyce asks what time it is again, and Cameron starts getting concerned. And then Elyce goes into a coma, and Cameron is very concerned. Cameron tries to shake Elyce awake, but only succeeds in waking up Ed, who at first must have been quite pleased to see an attractive young woman wearing a low-cut top bouncing up and down on his wife's chest. "Is it my birthday?" he wonders. This is followed by a second, more sobering question: "Is she dying?" "I don't know," Cameron says, and then stares helplessly at the vitals monitor. Cameron sucks at all aspects of being a doctor.
A few hours later, House and the other Cottages have reported to work. They follow him down the hallway as he says that Elyce's reaction to the rabbit-fever treatment means that she does not have rabbit fever. Which means she's got African sleeping sickness. Foreman says that they have no explanation for how this happened, since he made it very clear to the husband that if he lied about sleeping around, his wife would die. Even House has to admit it's unlikely that the patient or her husband would LIE in these circumstances. "Go away," he tells the Cottages. The Cottages just stand there. No wonder House hates them so much; I'd be pissed if I told people to go away and they just stared at me without moving.
Now that Elyce is safely in her coma, House can go see her and not have to worry about her attempting to engage him in pesky human interactions. Unfortunately, Ed is also in the room, and he wants to know why House is playing around with his wife's arms. House says he's checking for some thing that happens to people's arms when they have African sleeping sickness, because that is what Elyce has. Ed says that he didn't have an affair. "I believe you," House says. But he doesn't believe Elyce. Ed asks why Elyce would LIE if it meant she could die. House says that people LIE for all kinds of reasons. He needs Ed's written consent to prescribe the treatment for sleeping sickness because it's so dangerous. So, if Ed thinks there's even the tiniest chance that his wife made a mistake during their marriage, he should sign the consent form. If she does have the sleeping sickness, she'll be dead by tomorrow morning without treatment. So how much does Ed trust his wife? "I don't know," Ed Camerons. House takes that as a consent. And all this time, I bet you thought Ed was the cheater. I know I did.
Foreman and Chase prepare to give Elyce her deadly-ass medicine, which we learn is made from arsenic. It comes in glass syringes with special IV tubing because IT MELTS PLASTIC. I have to wonder how the hell the medicine was created. Who took a look at this liquid that MELTS PLASTIC and thought it would be a good thing to shoot into humans? I guess the field of African sleeping sickness medicine has its own Dr. House. Chase adds that the treatment "hurts like all hell." Yes, well, I'd imagine that something that MELTS PLASTIC would do that. But is it worse than a Tetanus booster? Because I'll tell you, my arm was owies for a week after that thing. ["Word. Sometimes I still have phantom twinges." -- Wing Chun] Chase shoots Elyce up, and we get a CGI look at the drug as it enters Elyce's bloodstream and destroys everything in its path.
Sometime later, Cameron takes her turn administering the drug. Now, whose bright idea was it to let her do anything so potentially dangerous? The guy who created that arsenic sleeping sickness medicine? Every time Cameron gives Elyce medicine, the poor woman either hallucinates bugs or forgets what time it is and goes into a deep coma! Cameron and her "I don't know" theory of bedside manner tell Ed that the fact that Elyce didn't haul off and die since the treatment started is a "good sign." Yeah, no shit, Sherlock('s wannabe girlfriend). African sleeping sickness or no, it's ALWAYS a "good sign" when you don't fall off this moral coil. Ed asks whether Elyce knows he's there. "I don't know," Cameron says. As long as difficult questions aren't related to medicine and are related to her own personal Issues, Cameron has an answer. She says Elyce knows that Ed is "always" there for her. Except for the time she cheated on him, Ed says. Whoops! Cameron gets all mad that Ed would dare to be upset at his wife's indiscretions, saying that Elyce just "made a mistake." Except that Cameron doesn't know that, does she? For all we know, Elyce has been having a long-term affair with Ed's jogger buddy and would have left Ed week if this whole coma thing hadn't messed with her plans. Ed says there's a big part of him that can't handle having a cheating wife. And that part of him kind of wouldn't mind if Elyce died. Ha ha, Cameron! Look what your little true love happily ever after story turned into now! She gathers up her glass syringes of plastic-melting medicine and moves to leave the room, and Ed asks if this makes him a terrible person. I was totally expecting Cameron to say the predictable "it makes you human" response, but instead she says "yes." Holy crap! That would have been really cool if it wasn't so WILDLY INAPPROPRIATE. Seriously, Cameron needs to learn a few lessons from her boss and stop being around people if this is how she's going to behave.
Wilson comes back to recap the first three-quarters of the show for us, saying that House is treating Elyce for sleeping sickness because he doesn't think it's possible for a couple to stay faithful. House says that Wilson is going to break something if he continues to throw stones in that glass house of his. Wilson says it was only a work lunch, and that he loves his wife. House says he's sure Wilson loves his wife, just like House loved "all" his wives, and the women he was with who didn't actually make it to the altar. Wilson calls House a "jerk." Ooooh, shot to the heart! House says he's a jerk, and Wilson is the "good guy." And as long as he's the good guy, he can do whatever he wants. Wilson says that being a jerk allows House to say whatever he wants. House says that together, the two of them together can "rule the world!" Sounds like a proposition to me, but Wilson just rolls his eyes and walks away.
This leaves House standing in front of the lab, through the pretty glass doors of which you can see Cameron's back as she runs simultaneous tests on her doctoring, dressing, and non-self-righteousness abilities. She scored a two. Combined. House enters and says that if Cameron is making margaritas, he would like a double. Alcohol and Vicodin mix so well. Cameron, her voice filled with sadness, says she's recalibrating the centrifuge. House orders her to turn around and face him, and when she does, we see that she's been crying. Of course. House says that uncalibrated centrifuges are sad. So is the fact that a doctor is doing routine lab maintenance. This is the stuff that I used to do in a job whose sole requirement was a high school diploma or equivalent. Any doctor who came in and tried to use our equipment usually ended up breaking it. I still remember the glorious Battle of October, in which an orthopedic surgeon broke a microscope while trying to look at some knee fluid crystals, thus bringing the wrath of the Assistant Lab Director down upon him. The doctor then complained to the Lab Director and the pathology doctors, who ordered her to apologize to him because doctors are God.
Anyway, Cameron says she isn't crying. House chooses not to call her out on her obvious LIE. Cameron tells House that she told Ed he was a "jerk," although I'm pretty sure a "terrible person" is worse than a "jerk." Just in case you thought Cameron was crying because she felt bad about telling a guy whose wife was unfaithful and dying that he was a terrible person, it's actually because she fell in love in college and got married, only to watch her husband die of cancer six months later. "I'm sorry," House says. "But that's not the whole story." You see, it would take at least a year for Cameron's husband's thyroid cancer to kill him by spreading to his brain, which means Cameron knew her husband was going to die when she married him. "You can't be that good a person AND well-adjusted," House says. How does marrying someone with cancer make you a "good" person? Are we supposed to infer that Cameron is a "good" person because she had a pity sex with a dying man? Not to mention that she lords her tragic young widow issues over everyone every chance she gets. And if she expounds upon any more of her backstory, I think I'm going to get recapping sleeping sickness. Fortunately, House and Cameron's pagers go off before I slip into a coma and Wing has to make the difficult decision to assume I've been recapping for other sites and consent to the treatment, or let me die. ["Maybe if I knew you'd been recapping for other sites, I wouldn't mind if you died -- but then, I'm a terrible person." -- Wing Chun]
Chase tells the approaching House and Cameron that Elyce's fever spiked. She's dying. The three enter her room, where Foreman greets them with a sad head shake. Chase says there's no point continuing to give Elyce medicine that is destroying her heart. Cameron says that hearts can be replaced. Yes, and these certainly are perfect conditions for heart-transplant surgery. You really want your patient to be half-dead, her bloodstream surging with plastic-melting arsenic derivative, when you perform such a risky and complicated procedure. Ed enters the room and asks what's going on. House tells him that Elyce's condition hasn't improved; it's getting worse. Ed walks over to Elyce's bedside and whisper-sobs a "please don't die" before dropping his head. The camera tracks back to the vitals monitor, which show a sudden improvement. And then Elyce's left hand -- the one with the wedding ring that probably should have been removed with the rest of Elyce's personal effects -- raises and pats Ed on the head. He's startled at the touch, then really happy. The Cottages rush over to tend to Elyce, leaving House standing by himself, irritated at the God that allows such cheesiness to occur. He limps away before Elyce can regain the power of speech and start annoying him.
After an especially long overhead view of the hospital, just in case you forgot where almost every scene of this show takes place, we return to Elyce's room. Cameron and Foreman watch from outside as Ed hovers over his wife. Foreman says that Elyce will be okay. "Yeah, sure," Cameron says. Back in the room, we see Ed grab a suitcase and leave the room. Elyce cries. She lived through African sleeping sickness and all she got was this lousy divorce.
Cameron follows Ed down the hall and tells him he's lucky that his wife is alive and loves him. Ed doesn't think his wife loves him all that much, and he doesn't care how many times Cameron -- who, again, barely knows either of them -- says she does.
House comes to see his crying patient. He says he needs to know whom she had the affair with so that he can get the necessary treatment. And he wants to know why Elyce lied to her doctors, knowing her life was at stake. And not only her life, I'd like to point out, but also the life of the man she cheated on Ed with and possibly Ed himself, since they were having unprotected sex while they tried to have a baby. All Elyce can do is wallow in her own self-pity about her husband leaving her. House says you pay a price when you make a mistake. Sometimes, it's herpes. This time, it was African sleeping sickness. Hard luck, Elyce.
Cameron has been given the job of informing the Other Man that he's got African sleeping sickness. Which was more ill-advised: giving Cameron this job, or Cameron's choice of wearing a full-length coat made out of what appear to be drapes? She asks a small child where his father is, and then the guy comes outside. Sure enough, it's Ed's jogging partner. I was right, although it's hard to feel too proud since the only other option, based on the episode's guest stars, was the booby preschool teacher. "Can I help you?" he asks. No, but Cameron can help you, Traitorous Friend, provided that your idea of help is getting pumped full of plastic-melting arsenic. Good luck with that!