Three Stories
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| House episode | |
| "Three Stories" | |
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| Episode no. | HOU-121 |
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| Airdate | May 17, 2005 |
| Writer(s) | David Shore |
| Director(s) | Paris Barclay |
| Guest star(s) | Sela Ward as Stacy Warner Nicole Bilderback, Andrew Keegan, and Josh Zuckerman as medical students Brent Briscoe/Carmen Electra as a farmer Stephanie Venditto as Nurse Brenda James Saxenmeyer as late 30's man Carmen Electra as Herself/farmer/House analog |
| All House episodes | |
Three Stories is the twenty-first episode of the first season of House, which premiered on the FOX network on May 17, 2005. David Shore won an Emmy in 2005 for Outstanding Writing for A Drama Series for this episode.[1] It won the Humanitas Prize in the '60 minute' category for the year 2006.
[edit] Plot
House agrees to lecture on diagnostics in place of Dr. Riley, who is sick, for two hours free of clinic duty. On his way out of Cuddy's office, House encounters his ex-girlfriend, Stacy Warner, who wants him to treat her husband, believing he is sick, however, House refuses.
His lecture consists of three scenarios, all previous cases House has diagnosed, with the students having input on what to do in each case. All three patients share one common thing: leg pain. The first patient is a 40 year-old farmer, who has an animal bite on his right leg, which appears cause by a timber rattlesnake. However, when the antivenin is given, he suffers an allergic reaction. After the farmer is stabilized, the skin from the leg begins to peel off and rot. The venom test results lead House to believe it cannot be from a snake, but since there is no presence of another snake in the farmer's field, the team gives him a different antivenin, but it has no effect. House decides to lie to the patient, informing him of eventual death, and the farmer quickly changes priority, wondering what will happen to his dog. House immediately deduces the bite was caused by his pet, and this wasn't the first time it happened. As such, the dog will have to be put down, due to its record. Foreman and Chase return to the farmer's field and take a sample of the dog's saliva, revealing a form of strep bacteria, more commonly known as the flesh-eating disease. The farmer's right leg is amputated, but is given a prosthetic one and a new dog.
The second patient is a young 16 year-old female volleyball player, who Cameron believes is suffering from tendinitis, due to her thyroid gland causing a depressed mental state, due to the patient's boy problems, resulting in the inflammation of the tendons. Cameron starts the tests, confirming tendinitis, and gives the teenager Thyroxin to level her moods. However, the treatment is not working, and the team becomes stumped, due to her hypersensitivity to touch and raised calcium levels. Chase theorizes parathyroid adenoma and an MRI is done to confirm. The scan reveals she has osteosarcoma, a cancerous tumor on her femur. Cameron delivers the news, but warns the patient and her parents depending on how large and ingrained the tumor is, amputation might be the only way to recovery. Fortunately, her leg is not amputated and she makes a full recovery.
The last patient is depicted as Carmen Electra, who is enjoying a round of miniature golf, but turns out to be a male golfer with extreme right leg pain, after House admits that she was simply a part of his fantasy. While being examined, the patient grabs a syringe of Demerol and self-administers the injection. The students deduce the patient was here just for narcotics, but he later returns with renewed pain. House has him undergo a urine test, to see if they are any drugs in his system. When the patient begins urinating blood and waste, the students are stumped at the cause, greatly angering House. Cameron shows up at the lecture, diagnosing muscle death. As Foreman and Chase also arrive, House states an MRI was done to confirm, revealing an aneurysm that clotted, leading to an infarction. Immediately, Foreman realizes the patient in the third scenario was House all along.
In the flashback, Cuddy, now overseeing House treatment, apologizes to the bedridden House that it took doctors three days to diagnose muscle death (it was House who actually suggested muscle death). Stacy, who was dating him, goes along with Cuddy's suggestion of amputating his leg. House refuses, and wants to restore the circulation, which could save his leg, but also comes with pain and severe risks. Indeed, House goes into cardiac arrest, claiming to have died and seen visions of the other two patients, which given they did not occur until after the event, implies House was lying about what the visions were about. By this point, Wilson has entered the lecture, asking House if he believes his visions were real. House claims he thinks the visions at the point of death are chemical reactions in the brain, and life is not a test by some higher power.
House has Cuddy put him into a chemically-induced coma, during which Stacy decides to have the dead tissue removed without amputating his leg, against his will. While the students debate the ethics of this choice, Cuddy enters, and tells House he has run over the scheduled lecture. By the time class is over, the lecture theater, which had been nearly empty at the beginning, has filled to near capacity. House tells Cuddy that Dr. Riley is vomiting due to the ingestion of lead-based paint, which House tasted when he drank from Riley's homemade coffee mug during the lecture. He returns to his office, leaving the students, his team, Wilson and Cuddy in awe of such an experience and betrayal.
However, as he walks down the hospital halls, House calls Stacy and tells her he will treat her husband.
[edit] References
- ^ Guide to the 2005 Emmy Awards Retrieved 2006 11-18.
[edit] External links
- FOX.com-House official site
- Television Without Pity-House recaps
- House Episode Guide at epguides.com
- TVGuide's Page: Full list of House Episodes
- House M.D. Guide
- "House M.D." IMDB Profile
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