Acceptance (House)
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| "Acceptance" | |
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| House episode | |
| Episode no. | Season 2 Episode 1 |
| Directed by | Dan Attias |
| Written by |
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| Original air date | September 13, 2005 |
| Guest stars | |
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| Season 2 episodes | |
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| List of House episodes | |
"Acceptance" is the first episode of the second season of House and the twenty-third episode overall. A death row inmate is felled by an unknown disease and House volunteers to investigate, over the objections of most of the staff. House also has to deal with Stacy, who is working closely with him. Cameron takes over some of House's clinic hours, and ends up with her own patient to deal with.
[edit] Plot
Clarence, an inmate on death row, starts seeing hallucinations of the people he killed—his girlfriend, a rival gang member inmate, a guard and a second inmate. Clarence screams to be let out of the room and then collapses on the floor. House is intrigued to hear that the patient's heart was beating so quickly that it pumped air instead of blood. Cuddy gives him the case in exchange for two clinic hours.
Meanwhile Dr. Cameron meets a patient named Cindy who appears to be anemic. The x-rays indicate that she has lung cancer but Cameron refuses to believe it. She goes to Wilson and House for other possible diagnoses but both dismiss it as terminal cancer.
House diagnoses Clarence as hypoxic with fluid in his lungs. He will die in an hour without a respirator. House calls for an ambulance. The warden insists that no death row inmate leave through the front doors. House has Stacy acquire a legal injunction, apparently having told her that Cuddy approved. When Cuddy finds out, she is angry about the need to shut down a section of the hospital for death row level security. Foreman thinks heroin might be the cause of Clarence's tachycardia and pulmonary edema, so House orders a drug test. The test results come back with no sign of opiates in Clarence's system.
Foreman draws blood from Clarence's femoral artery. The tests results indicate anion gap acidosis, a new symptom. The team mulls over the causes of anion gap acidosis, and Cameron suggests INH, the drug for tuberculosis. House sends Chase to the prison to find Clarence's heroin stash, but he only finds boxes of office supplies. House figures out that Clarence drank copier fluid to kill himself, and cures him with several shots of liquor. Ethanol inhibits the metabolism of the methanol in the copier fluid, allowing the methanol to be eliminated from the body in the urine. Clarence's return to health means he should go back to prison, but House asks Stacy to cover, believing something else is medically wrong with Clarence. Stacy tells Cuddy anyway, and when she tries send Clarence back to prison, Clarence complains of tremendous stomach pain. House pulls back Clarence's sheets, revealing a large pool of blood on the bed.
The surgeons remove almost a foot of necrotic bowel from Clarence. House asks Clarence about why he killed his fourth victim, the only case that did not fit or have an apparent motive. Clarence says that he felt like the victim was trying to see through him and "raged out" at him. House, Foreman and Chase ponder the sudden cause of this rage. Chase suggests adrenaline, which leads House to think about pheochromocytoma, a tumor that sits on top of the adrenal gland and randomly dumps the system with adrenaline. Although extremely rare, it is the best explanation. The diagnosis is confirmed by an excruciating MRI (due to iron content in his prison tattoos), and Clarence is cured. Afterwards, Foreman plans to testify at Clarence's appeal hearing, on the basis that the tumor led to the rage murders in the first place, even after House reminds him that it was only one of many factors in play.
After running various tests on Cindy trying to avoid doing a definitive biopsy, and in the process going through the five stages of grief herself, Cameron is forced to confront that her patient has terminal lung cancer. The episode ends with her hugging Cindy after she delivers the news.
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- "Acceptance" at Fox.com
- "Acceptance" at the Internet Movie Database
- "Acceptance" at TV.com
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