House M.D. Episode 5.22 A House Divided

At a high school wrestling competition, player Seth Miller is deaf. As he grapples for control in the middle of his match, he hears what sounds like an explosion followed by another. Seth collapses onto the mat.

House is in his bed when he sees Amber appear in a chair. Is it a hallucination from insomnia? His pager goes off, and he heads to the hospital where the team is reviewing Seth's case of Exploding Head Syndrome. Seth went deaf at age four from meningitis and does not have a cochlear implant. House sees Amber in his office as well. She makes a comment about "the limp leading the blind." House goes to Wilson's office and sees him and Cameron going over plans for Chase's bachelor party. Cameron asked Wilson to plan it instead of House.

Seth is tested to induce a seizure with a strobe light. Thirteen and Foreman discuss the patient's choice to not have a cochlear implant, wondering if deafness is a culture or disability. Suddenly, Seth's mother says that her son cannot see.

House takes a bottle of sleeping pills from the hospital's pharmacy when he recites Amber's blind comment to the team. Taub theorizes Subclavian Steal syndrome. House leaves and goes into an exam room where he talks to Amber. She tells him that she noticed that the c-reactive protein of the patient was slightly elevated and that the stress of the seizure lab would trigger blindness. She advises House to play music for the patient.

Foreman tracks the blood flow in Seth's neck and arm. House walks in playing rap music on a boom box. House places the stereo on Seth's stomach. The patient feels the vibrations in his abdomen but not in his hand. House uncovers a new symptom: neuropathy. House tosses out the bottle of sleeping pills because he's going to need Amber's help.

The team quizzes House on how he diagnosed the neuropathy. He claims that he assumed Seth's losing match record meant his balance was off from diminished sensation. Foreman thinks it is from increased ICP caused by a brain tumor. House sees Amber sitting at the nurse's station. She tells House that Foreman is right. House wonders if the deafness was caused by NF2 cancer, and he orders a brain MRI.

House sends Foreman and Thirteen to a strip club to evaluate the strippers. Foreman thinks that House is organizing the party in order to spilt Chase and Cameron up. Meanwhile, Taub speaks to Seth's mother about the NF2 cancer and the possibility that he could regain hearing. Seth insists on staying deaf.

Taub shows House the MRI results as Thirteen and Foreman enter with their strip club findings. Thirteen is not on the guest list until she offers up the possibility of her making out with a stripper. They turn back to the case, and Taub says there is no tumor in the brain. Thirteen suggests a biopsy. Amber tells House that they may be able to do a comparison of slides from when Seth broke his nose years ago.

Wilson warns Chase about the consequences of House throwing his bachelor party. House enters carrying the two MRIs. He also justifies his bachelor party to Chase. Wilson confirms that there is evidence of NF2 on the scan and a brain biopsy is needed. Wilson refuses to go to the party.

House and Amber watch Seth's biopsy procedure from the gallery. She recommends that House get the same stripper that he used at Wilson's bachelor party years ago. Chase tells House that the biopsy shows nerve inflammation and not cancer. Amber pushes House to have Chase insert a cochlear implant into the patient. Seth wakes up and can hear. He freaks out.

Seth's mother demands that the implant be removed. House can tell that the mother is ambivalent. Cuddy confronts House and puts Foreman in charge of the case. House and Amber walk back to the office. Foreman is leading the group, and they discuss that the patient has a post-op fever. Taub wonders if Seth's girlfriend gave him the Epstein-Barr virus. Foreman has them treat the virus with ribavirin.

House drops by Wilson's office to see why he hasn't criticized him over the cochlear implant. Wilson responds that House did a kind thing. Meanwhile, Seth and his mother argue about the implant. He hears his name spoken by her for the first time. She notices that the bed is wet. Liquid spills onto the floor.

The team discusses the urination symptom over liquor-flavored ice cream that House has brought to sample for the bachelor party. House and Amber try to recover a memory that leads to House realizing that a rapid heartbeat can release a hormone that causes the body to release sodium.

Chase comes to House with news that Cameron will not be happy with the party, so House will have to kidnap him. Amber remembers that the stripper's name was Karamel.

Thirteen administers the EKG test as Seth talks with his girlfriend. The team enters House's office to find him downing energy drinks. The EKG is normal, but Amber says the heart is not fine. House responds that the arrhythmia is hiding and that they will need to stress test Seth. Foreman disagrees and tells Taub to run a thyroid panel. Amber and House conspire to stress Seth with asthma medicine. House enters the patient room to find him being restrained by nurses. Seth has ripped out his implant. Amid the chaos, House and Amber find the arrhythmia on the graph of Seth's heartbeat.

Seth is restrained in his bed. His blood pressure is low. Foreman admits that House was right about the heart. Thirteen recommends that Seth's blood could be thrombocythemia. Foreman orders a VQ scan of the lungs.

House and Amber are in the morgue, where he is practicing lighting shots of alcohol with a flaming bottle. He sets a cadaver on fire. House considers Amber's idea that the symptoms are from heat. House calls Foreman to tell him the diagnosis of Uhthoff's phenomenon.

Cameron, Chase and Foreman are on their way out of the hospital for the night when two "immigration officers" approach Chase. They have to take him in for a visa violation. Cameron plays along. At the bachelor party in Wilson's apartment, House performs his flaming shot trick for Chase and the party crowd cheers. Wilson walks in, surprised to find his apartment taken over. Karamel the stripper approaches Wilson, and soon he is doing shots off of her stomach. Then Thirteen takes a turn. Next up is Thirteen's turn. Wilson goes to get some fresh air without his pants on.

House is in the bathtub drinking with Amber. Inside the party, it's Chase's turn to lick Karamel when suddenly he passes out. Chase falls into anaphylactic shock from the strawberry flavor on Karamel. House realizes that he knew Chase was allergic to strawberries. Suddenly, he gets a call from the hospital that Seth is dying.

Chase is brought to the ER by ambulance with the team and met by Cameron. Cuddy is holding a chest x-ray showing them Seth's lung failure. He is on a ventilator. Meanwhile, House is drunk at his apartment. Amber tells him to go to the hospital but he wants to sleep.

Taub, Thirteen and Foreman are hooked up to IV bags to sober them up. Cuddy calls House for his diagnostic help. Amber suggests Eosinophillic pneumonitis to House. Foreman and Thirteen agree that they need to see if Seth's voice is hoarse to diagnose this. They take out Seth's breathing tube to test him, but what they do find is that he chewed tobacco. The tobacco released toxins that suppressed his immune system. When he stopped chewing, the lack of toxins brought out sarcoidosis. They start Seth on treatment.

House comes to Cuddy's office to get sleeping pills. Cuddy tells him the reason Wilson was not answering his phone was because the police found him trying to walk home from his own apartment with no pants on. House admits to her that he hasn't slept since Kutner died.

Seth has improved and, despite his protests, his mother has decided to implant the cochlear device in him. House wakes from a proper sleep and thinks he has gotten rid of Amber. He turns to find her right beside him.