EPISODE

1. Pilot

Dr. Gregory House and his team take medical cases only after everyone else has failed to diagnose a patient. A Kindergarten teacher begins speaking gibberish and passes out in front of her class. What looks like a possible brain tumor does not respond to treatment and provides many more questions than answers for House and his team as they engage in a risky trial-and-error approach to her case. When the young teacher refuses any additional variations of treatment and her life starts slipping away, House must act against his code of conduct and make a personal visit to his patient to convince her to trust him one last time.

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THIS ENTRY’S STORY

Plot summary and ending

Spoilers ahead. Coverage follows the scope labeled below.

Complete story — includes the ending

Rebecca Adler ( Robin Tunney ), a 29-year-old kindergarten teacher, becomes aphasic and collapses from a seizure in her classroom. Dr. Gregory House initially refuses the case until Dr. James Wilson tells him that Rebecca is his cousin. When Dr. Lisa Cuddy tries to make House fulfill his clinical duties, he refuses but is forced to do them when his authorization to the MRI is revoked. He diagnoses Rebecca with cerebral vasculitis and her condition improves with treatment. To find the source of Rebecca's seizures, House convinces Dr. Eric Foreman to break into Rebecca's house. At the hospital, Rebecca suddenly loses her vision and suffers another seizure. Foreman discovers ham at Rebecca's house, revealing both Wilson's lie (Wilson is Jewish and the presence of ham indicates Rebecca is not, thereby suggesting the two are not related) and the cause of the seizure— tapeworms (namely, a tapeworm larva embedded in her brain). When Rebecca refuses treatment, House persuades her otherwise by proving her condition with a non-invasive X-ray suggested by Dr. Robert Chase, which depicts a tapeworm larva embedded in her leg, supporting their diagnosis. Final diagnosis: Neurocysticercosis

Sources and content license

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