Insensitive (House)

House (TV series) episode
episode_name = Insensitive
episode_no = HOU-314
airdate = February 13, 2007
writer = Matthew V. Lewis
director = Deran Sarafian
guest_star = Mika Boorem (Hannah);
Josh Stamberg (Bobby);
Kimberly Quinn (Wendy);
Jenny Robertson (Abby)


season = 3
diagnosis = Diphyllobothrium latum causing Vitamin B12 deficiency

"Insensitive" is the fourteenth episode of the third season of "House" and the sixtieth episode overall.

Plot

The episode begins with a teenage girl being taken to the hospital by her mother after falling on ice. The mother and daughter are in the middle of a winter snow storm, making the road a more dangerous place to be, especially since the two are arguing in the car. The girl believes that her mother is overly concerned about her, but her mother tries to explain how important it is that she be careful not to get hurt. The argument is interrupted by their car getting into an accident.

The girl is stabbed through the leg in the accident, but does not show any pain from it. She ignores her wounds and calls an ambulance for her mother, who is unconscious.

Meanwhile, the hospital is short staffed on Valentine's Day and the diagnostics team is helping out in the ER. When Hannah, the girl in the car wreck, is being examined by Dr. Foreman, House notices Hannah flinching oddly when she moves in pain as Foreman cleans her wounds. He deduces immediately that she has CIPA (congenital insensitivity to pain), which she denies. He confirms his diagnosis by whacking her leg with his cane and orders a battery of tests on her, including a spinal nerve biopsy. The diagnostics team scoffs at this suggestion, suggesting that a spinal nerve biopsy could paralyze or seriously harm her.

In addition, the team cannot perform any procedure on Hannah because she will not submit until she has more information on her mother, who is in surgery. Eventually, House comes in and verbally spars with the girl until he tricks her into revealing an area where he can sedate her.

Because the team refuses to perform the spinal nerve procedure, House defers for permission to Cuddy. House had discerned that she has a blind Valentine's date, due to her makeup and dress, and meets her at a café close to the hospital, embarrassing her in front of her date. Perhaps because of this, Cuddy quickly grants permission.

Hannah develops a fever while House continues to insist on the spinal nerve procedure. Instead of performing the dangerous nerve biopsy, Chase convinces the others to somehow find the problem by inducing pain. Wherever Hannah could feel the pain would be where the problem is located. However, Hannah fakes being in intense pain to remove the restraints and then threatens to jump off a balcony unless the team lets her see her mother. She suffers a paranoid delusion and her legs become paralyzed, and she falls off the ledge to the rock-hard floor below.

Meanwhile, Wilson then judges that House wants the spinal nerve biopsy in order to grow it and then plant it in his own leg, a procedure which would allow him to walk pain free. House reluctantly decides that the team can biopsy a "safe" nerve rather than the spinal nerve, and goes to Cuddy (at her house) for an endocrinology consult, ostensibly because the endocrinologist on duty was not picking up his phone. Cuddy tells House that he did not need to personally visit her because the endocrinologist on duty is available—she just talked to him—and that she thinks he visited her to interrupt her date. Cuddy then asks House if he likes her and is jealous, though House denies it saying he simply is trying to destroy other people's happiness. Cuddy's comments seem to fluster House and he leaves her to return to the hospital. Cuddy's date overhears comments she makes about him and leaves, believing that she does not share the same passions as him; his being music and travel, and hers being her job and House.

When House returns to the hospital, after Hannah's condition worsens due to a meeting with her mother, he consults with Wilson on a potential cancer diagnosis. While stealing a bite from Wilson's sandwich he realizes it's a Vitamin B12 deficiency, which the team had already covered, but caused by something else and that the sedatives caused her to become paranoid. House dramatically takes over the OR, as Hannah screams and protests in mock pain (a delusion caused when they initially tried to sedate her). With Hannah awake and watching, and with surgeons looking on in utter mortification, House removes the convert|25|ft|m|sing=on-long tapeworm (Diphyllobothrium) which had been causing her condition(One doctor even snaps a photo of it with her cellphone camera).

Near the end of the episode, Foreman's girlfriend realizes that Foreman cannot take commitment and is going to break it off with him. Cameron announces to Chase that she thinks they should have non-committal sex, and House and Wilson go out to breakfast.

External links

* [http://www.fox.com/house/ FOX.com - "House" official site]
* [http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/Shows/House/Stories/Insensitive Television Without Pity recap]
* [http://epguides.com/House/ House Episode Guide at epguides.com]
* [http://www.tvguide.com/tvshows/house/100213/ TVGuide's Page: Full list of House Episodes]
* [http://www.housemd-guide.com/ House M.D. Guide]
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* [http://politedissent.com/archives/1563 Medical Review of "Insensitive"]