Forever (House)
Encyclopedia
"Forever" is the twenty-second (22nd) episode of the second season of House
, which premiered on the Fox
network on May 9, 2006.
) goes back home and finds his wife Kara (Hillary Tuck
) in the bathtub having a seizure
, and their newborn infant, Mikey, drowning.
Chase, who is working in both the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit
and the Diagnostics department, takes the case and asks House for help. Foreman returns after his near-death experience in the last two episodes. He is suffering from mild memory loss but is in a very good mood. Throughout the episode, he does not argue with House's ideas, which annoys House.
Mikey seems fine until his lung collapses
. House says it is caused by bacterial problems, and Chase starts Mikey on ECMO
. When the treatment appears to be working, he returns to Kara, who is attempting to smother Mikey and says she is hearing voices. Although House initially saves him with CPR, the baby eventually dies from a heart attack caused by rising potassium due to kidney damage from the smothering attempt. Chase feels guilty that he did not do enough, even though there was nothing to prevent death from happening eventually due to the organ damage. House starts to think that both Kara and Mikey had the same problem, so he directs Chase to autopsy Mikey. He also diagnoses the father as being hung-over the morning of the drowning and that he'd been ignoring his wife's symptoms.
After examining Mikey, Chase realizes that the baby has flattened intestinal villi. House and Wilson think that Kara and Mikey have Coeliac disease
, explaining her bleeding due to Vitamin K deficiency and pellagra
due to vitamin B3 deficiency, and leaves her susceptible to cancer which Wilson realizes she has. This also explains Mikey's death despite Chase's best efforts: his Coeliac disease prevented the medication that could have saved him from working on him. Neither of them are successful in convincing her to receive treatment, including her husband. Kara wishes to die because she believes she was fully responsible for Mikey's death, even though she was powerless to do anything else than what the "voices" said that she should do.
Meanwhile House and Wilson try to find out why Cuddy
asked Wilson to have dinner with her. House buys her trash from a janitor to investigate. He finds a box of red clover, which among other things is used by cancer patients. House believes the date is a consult.
Wilson later runs a PCR
test on Cuddy's spoon. The results show that she is negative for all cancer markers, but House notices that her estrogen is unusually high. He talks to Cuddy, who reveals that the red clover was a herbal booster for fertility, and that she was considering Wilson as a sperm donor. House keeps this a secret, and tells Wilson that Cuddy had some skin lesions.
House (TV series)
House is an American television medical drama that debuted on the Fox network on November 16, 2004. The show's central character is Dr. Gregory House , an unconventional and misanthropic medical genius who heads a team of diagnosticians at the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in...
, which premiered on the Fox
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
network on May 9, 2006.
Plot
The episode starts with a man heading out the door to work. As he progresses down the stairs, the stairwell begins to sway, and he vomits. Brent Mason (Kip PardueKip Pardue
Kevin Ian "Kip" Pardue is an American actor and model, best known for his roles in the films Remember the Titans, Driven, The Rules of Attraction, and Thirteen....
) goes back home and finds his wife Kara (Hillary Tuck
Hillary Tuck
Hillary Tuck is an American actress, who is perhaps best known for her co-starring roles in the NBC Saturday Morning sitcom Hang Time and Disney's Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: The TV Show...
) in the bathtub having a seizure
Seizure
An epileptic seizure, occasionally referred to as a fit, is defined as a transient symptom of "abnormal excessive or synchronous neuronal activity in the brain". The outward effect can be as dramatic as a wild thrashing movement or as mild as a brief loss of awareness...
, and their newborn infant, Mikey, drowning.
Chase, who is working in both the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit
Neonatal intensive care unit
A Neonatal Intensive Care Unit —also called a Special Care Nursery, newborn intensive care unit, intensive care nursery , and special care baby unit —is an intensive care unit specializing in the care of ill or premature newborn infants.The problem of premature and congenitally ill infants is not a...
and the Diagnostics department, takes the case and asks House for help. Foreman returns after his near-death experience in the last two episodes. He is suffering from mild memory loss but is in a very good mood. Throughout the episode, he does not argue with House's ideas, which annoys House.
Mikey seems fine until his lung collapses
Pneumothorax
Pneumothorax is a collection of air or gas in the pleural cavity of the chest between the lung and the chest wall. It may occur spontaneously in people without chronic lung conditions as well as in those with lung disease , and many pneumothoraces occur after physical trauma to the chest, blast...
. House says it is caused by bacterial problems, and Chase starts Mikey on ECMO
Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation
In intensive care medicine, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation is an extracorporeal technique of providing both cardiac and respiratory support oxygen to patients whose heart and lungs are so severely diseased or damaged that they can no longer serve their function...
. When the treatment appears to be working, he returns to Kara, who is attempting to smother Mikey and says she is hearing voices. Although House initially saves him with CPR, the baby eventually dies from a heart attack caused by rising potassium due to kidney damage from the smothering attempt. Chase feels guilty that he did not do enough, even though there was nothing to prevent death from happening eventually due to the organ damage. House starts to think that both Kara and Mikey had the same problem, so he directs Chase to autopsy Mikey. He also diagnoses the father as being hung-over the morning of the drowning and that he'd been ignoring his wife's symptoms.
After examining Mikey, Chase realizes that the baby has flattened intestinal villi. House and Wilson think that Kara and Mikey have Coeliac disease
Coeliac disease
Coeliac disease , is an autoimmune disorder of the small intestine that occurs in genetically predisposed people of all ages from middle infancy onward...
, explaining her bleeding due to Vitamin K deficiency and pellagra
Pellagra
Pellagra is a vitamin deficiency disease most commonly caused by a chronic lack of niacin in the diet. It can be caused by decreased intake of niacin or tryptophan, and possibly by excessive intake of leucine. It may also result from alterations in protein metabolism in disorders such as carcinoid...
due to vitamin B3 deficiency, and leaves her susceptible to cancer which Wilson realizes she has. This also explains Mikey's death despite Chase's best efforts: his Coeliac disease prevented the medication that could have saved him from working on him. Neither of them are successful in convincing her to receive treatment, including her husband. Kara wishes to die because she believes she was fully responsible for Mikey's death, even though she was powerless to do anything else than what the "voices" said that she should do.
Meanwhile House and Wilson try to find out why Cuddy
Lisa Cuddy
Dr. Lisa Cuddy, M.D., is a fictional character on the Fox medical drama House. She is portrayed by Lisa Edelstein. Cuddy was the Dean of Medicine and hospital administrator of the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in New Jersey. She also becomes House's love interest through the...
asked Wilson to have dinner with her. House buys her trash from a janitor to investigate. He finds a box of red clover, which among other things is used by cancer patients. House believes the date is a consult.
Wilson later runs a PCR
Polymerase chain reaction
The polymerase chain reaction is a scientific technique in molecular biology to amplify a single or a few copies of a piece of DNA across several orders of magnitude, generating thousands to millions of copies of a particular DNA sequence....
test on Cuddy's spoon. The results show that she is negative for all cancer markers, but House notices that her estrogen is unusually high. He talks to Cuddy, who reveals that the red clover was a herbal booster for fertility, and that she was considering Wilson as a sperm donor. House keeps this a secret, and tells Wilson that Cuddy had some skin lesions.
External links
- "Forever" at Fox.com