Dead and Buried

House is presented with the case of a 14-year-old girl who’s suffered an anaphylactic reaction but the cantankerous doctor is not interested, preferring to investigate the case of a four-year-old boy who died of kidney failure five years before. Foreman is insistent, however, so House hands the case over to his team.

The girl, Iris, starts to deteriorate and has no feeling in her arms. She admits to tenderness in the chest area and Adams suggests a pregnancy test… which proves positive, even though Iris denies ever having sex. Bruises on her arms also suggest her ‘boyfriend’ has been abusing her. Then House has an epiphany: there is no boyfriend, Iris suffers from multiple personality disorder and the boy is inside her mind. It’s a result of a car accident she was in at the age of two in which her father had died. She’d been eating strawberries at the time and doing so again had triggered the reactions.

But Iris suddenly starts bleeding but it’s not a miscarriage. A scan shows she’s not pregnant, but she does have cancer. Treatment begins and Iris responds well.

Meanwhile, House investigates the four-year-old Drew’s death, even going so far as to break into his coffin to get a tissue sample. He has difficulties dealing with the boy’s mother, Mickey, as she’s remarried and has another son, but realisation dawns when he meets the grandfather, who has a hearing problem which points to the genetic disorder Alport Syndrome that had killed the boy. With the appropriate treatment, Mickey’s second son will be able to have a normal life.