oh hi, yes. wow you really went all out on the decorations, huh? yeah, but i'm so slow taking them down after all the fatty holiday food. but that's normal. what do you mean that's normal? it doesn't have to be. to me normal means feeling good inside. not slow. try some activia. activia helps with occasional irregularity when eaten three times a day. keep a video diary and let me know about your new normal.

(dr. obyedkov) nurse! nurse! [sighs] there's a consent from boston for the cancer drug trial. any description of the process of previous trials? yep. any chance it'd work? no. it's not even designed to work. why would he-- it's designed to treat depression in terminal cancer patients. he doesn't seem depressed. [door opens] [noisy sigh] okay, let's assume that i am dying. which i specifically told you not to assume. could we at least assume that i'm not dying tomorrow? whereas this kid, pet revealed several more hot spots, but they're non-specific. how can you focus on him? it's the only way i can cope. pet also showed a left brain that's working hard. harder than the right? wouldn't be worth mentioning otherwise. bleeding in the brain. blood would irritate the lining, might cause the seizures to get worse.

yes, he needs an angiogram to look at the vasculature inside his brain. we'll get right on it, as soon as we're finished here. don't get up. i got it. you're busy. continue. you know what my team is doing right now? no. they're trying to figure out what's wrong with me. what's wrong with you? thanks for asking. they found out that i'm dying. that's sad. everyone's dying. that's sad. meteor lands on my head tomorrow, it's all academic. i told them to leave me alone, but did they? d-did they? no, that one was rhetorical. oh. no, they did not. what the hell were you before you hit your head? hell is a bad word. so's ass and bitch. i could probably rattle off 50 much more complicated

and disgusting ones, but then your dad would get pissed at me. do you like your life? what life? your life. playing the piano, going on tour. scoring girls left and right. i don't like girls. boys. whatever gets you off. i like the piano. what's wrong? dr. peter hayes? this is eric foreman at princeton plainsboro. you're doing a signal transduction inhibitor clinical trial. what kind of results have you been-- transduction inhibitors are a decade away. bye, pete! they've got another trial going on at duke. 15% extend their lives beyond five years. if you're positive for protein phf-- stop trying to save me. i'm fine. mra confirms small collections of blood

throughout the white matter of patrick's right hemisphere. mind if we chat about that for a few moments? (chase) either trauma, an aneurysm, cancer, or autoimmune disease. we need a biopsy to figure out which it is. his eeg was non-specific. where are you gonna biopsy? everywhere. sure, just put on a blindfold and play pin the tail on the brain. he's bleeding into his brain. he's dying. you can't just randomly stab the temporal lobe and hope you hit the right spot. well, i'm only gonna take little tiny pieces. until what? till i find the problem. or you kill him. no, i'll keep going even if i kill him. then he's screwed. thanks for the chat. what if we do the eeg from inside his brain? i'm actually a little insulted. you were supposed to spend the last hour worrying about me.

it's risky and invasive. but that's why god invented the long consent form. can you get to why this is a brilliant idea? external eeg could get confused if there are multiple structural abnormalities. if we perform the eeg inside the skull, it could show us where to biopsy. brilliant. go. do. i'd also like to talk to you about-- this is gonna be personal, isn't it? yeah. [joe purdy's rainy day lament] ♪ (foreman) we use a small drill to get inside the skull. ♪ where do you go when your luck runs out... ♪ (dr. obyedkov) there's bleeding inside? (foreman) yes. as long as we have 12 holes, we can surgically implant the electrodes under the meninges against the brain. (dr. obyedkov) and it's either cancer or autoimmune disease? (foreman) sorry. yeah.

(dr. obyedkov) which one is better? [foreman sighs] (foreman) neither. ♪ won't you come inside ♪ with me today ♪ you could stay inside ♪ with me today ♪ can't you see it's gonna rain? ♪ hey. where do we cut? we don't. i need to say something. something personal. yeah. and i can't leave because you've got something interesting in that file. sorry. [sighs]

you're an arrogant ass who makes it impossible for anyone to like him, by punishing people who don't deserve-- can we get to the "but" part of this speech? but i like you. no, you don't. you're just reacting to the perception of my death. you need to put things in order. fear of guilt-- would you shut up? see? i annoy you. now are you gonna give me the results, or are you gonna... [sighs] intracranial eeg showed no electrical abnormalities. which means it's autoimmune. no, it also showed his entire right hemisphere is brain dead.

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so...while you guys were worrying about me, half this kid's brain died. the only solace you should take from this is the fact that it didn't. garden variety eeg sucks compared to the in-brain variety, but it's not gonna miss brain death. he's gotten worse. not that much worse. respiration is depressed, seizures are increasing, one every five minutes. it's not that much worse. he can still talk, and he's left-handed, which means speech is in the right side. you don't know how patrick's brain reorganized itself 25 years ago. what if the right side is just a little dead. maybe he still has random neurons firing. you're just looking for a puzzle to distract you from your own situation. you're right. he's dead. let's go home.

it's going to be all right? i'm sor-- yes! what's this? piano. what's this? he's obviously lost use-- shut up. [first phrase of scott joplin's the entertainer] [second phrase of joplin's the entertainer] music is a global process. can't play the piano with half a brain. what's it mean? it means the right side of his brain has always sucked. it means it's not relevant to what's going on now. wow, then it's autoimmune. yeah. question is, what do we do about it? most likely ones we can fix.

polyarteritis nodosa, takayasu, or sarcoid. i'll start treatment. not what i was talking about, but yeah. you do that. your turn? do you have to do that? you mean cheapen everyone's attempt at a human moment by identifying the real calculations that go into it? yeah. yeah, i do. i'm sorry you're dying. i'm gonna hug you. anything to say? well, if you're considering grabbing my ass, don't start anything... you can't finish. well, as long as we're just standing here, do you mind if we work? how's the kid's treatment going? are you crying? no. [sighs] respiration rate's up. seizures are calming down. it's all good.

not for what i'm gonna do next. but there is no next. he's gonna be fine. only if he wants to remain a four-year-old who wets his bed. there's nothing else for him. there's better. thanks for the hug. [doorbell buzzing] it's the middle of the night. you knew i'd be asleep. phone would've woken you up just as much. and i can't see what you're wearing on the phone. my patient with the 55 iq has takayasu syndrome. very uncommon. happens mostly in asian women. takayasu is manageable with steroids, which you already know. so i assume you're here for something else.

my patient also has significant seizure problems. also manageable with anti-convulsant medication. yes, and if he kept taking his anti-convulsant medication, he could go back on tour and play the piano. but...a hemispherectomy would completely stop the right brain seizure activity and he would no longer need to take his anti-convulsant medication. you wanna remove half his brain. the right half, it would be irresponsible to remove the left. you don't remove half a brain and gain function. not my brain. but his? who knows? look, let's say that i'm the left side of patrick's brain. i'm quick-witted, i'm charming, i'm great looking. you're the right side of his brain. you're useless, old, damaged. we go to a bar for a drink. now, i have the mad skills to be scoring all the hot babes, but instead i'm spending my time wiping drool off your chin and making sure you don't eat the tablecloth. what's the father wanna do? i don't know. so go wake him up.

house. i'm so sorry. forgot i was dying, huh? i'm here if you need me. i need you. one small feel for man. one giant ass for mankind. thanks. good luck in boston. call the make a wish foundation. dr. foreman was just here. seizures have almost completely gone away. says we might be able to go home in the next day or two. thank you so much.

i think we should remove the right side of your son's brain. i thought you fixed him. does he look fixed? right side of his brain was keeping him walking straight. other than that, it's been dead weight ever since the accident. if we remove it, seizures would stop completely. but the seizures are hardly noticeable. they don't bother patrick. but without the seizures, the left side would have a chance to actually function. it could learn to do new things. only bummer... he'd never play the piano again. no, the piano is everything. i'm not saying he'd ever work for nasa, but flipping burgers isn't out of the question. well, i don't mind taking care of him so he can play the piano. no, you're actually lucky. you don't have to watch your kid grow up. you don't have to let go. you trying to make this about me? i love my son! just the way he is. he's a monkey grinder at the circus. he's worked hard to get where he-- so does the monkey.

the piano is a neurological accident. he has a gift. i'm offering him a life. it's up to you. i've isolated the cancer proteins in house's csf. 'bout time. we can't let him go to boston if he qualifies for the duke trial. you wanna do it? [softly] damn. he's negative for protein phf. he doesn't qualify.

what's that? that shouldn't be there. patrick. hello, papa. patrick, i have a question for you. yes? are you happy?

are you happy? [stifles a sob] [sad contemplative music] ♪ [knocking on door]

(foreman) house, open up! open up, it's important! i've got a flight in three hours. you don't have cancer. there was abnormal presence of igg and igm indicating-- i don't have neurosyphilis. my mri showed nothing-- it's a gumma in your brain. it's very rare not to be in the liver, and i'm really glad we never slept together-- you would've used a condom. and i don't have syphilis. my vdrl was negative-- we did an fta antibody test, the vdrl was a false negative. you're not going to die! all you need is iv antibiotics! did you send these results to mass general? of course. you idiots. we just told you you're not gonna die. you should be making out with cameron. you knew it wasn't cancer? i was sure it was cancer. then why aren't you celebrating? because it wasn't my damn file!

you faked cancer? the real patient is in the witherspoon wing. feel free to tell his wife that he's not gonna die, but he is cheating on her. why would you want us to think that you-- i didn't! i wanted the guys in boston to think that i had cancer. i wanted the guys who were gonna implant a cool drug right into the pleasure center of my brain to think that i had cancer. you faked cancer to get high? [sighs] i'm going to bed. you're right. i don't like you. sure, now that i'm not dying.

i heard patrick's hemispherectomy went well. he survived the surgery. he's unconscious. how depressed are you? i'm not depressed. you faked cancer. it was an outpatient procedure. i was curious. are you curious about heroin? not since last year's christmas party. [exhales forcefully] i know this goes against your nature, but can we not make too much of this? you made people think that you were going to die. i didn't make them! i tried to hide it. but you idiots needed to get into my business. [laughter] i'm sure i'll regret asking, but why are you laughing? it's ironic. i'm sure i'll regret asking, but why-- depression in cancer patients is not as common as you think. it's not the dying that gets to people. it's the dying alone. the patients with family, with friends, they tend to do okay. you don't have cancer.

you do have people who give a damn. so what do you do? [laughter] you fake the cancer, then push the people who care away. because they're boring. go home to your hotel room and laugh at that irony. start small, house. take a chance. maybe something that doesn't involve sticking stuff in your brain. pizza with a friend. a movie. something. follow my finger. do you know your name?

his speech center was on the right side. it'll be a while before he's talking. he hasn't really done anything except to stare off into the distance. he'll take some time to... [uplifting piano music] oh, uh... ♪ you buttoned your shirt. he looks happy. [gomez' see the world] ♪ ♪ ♪ day to day ♪ where do you want to be? ♪

♪ 'cause now you're trying to pick a fight ♪ ♪ with everyone you need ♪ you seem ♪ like a soldier ♪ who's lost ♪ his composure ♪ you're wounded ♪ and play a waiting game ♪ in no man's land ♪ no one's to blame ♪ see the world ♪ find an old-fashioned girl