Excuse me, Your Ear is Bleeding

This episode of House, called "Runaways," is riveting with its "Is the teen girl an alcoholic or does she have an aneurysm?" seesaw of a storyline. Throw in the fact that she's living on her own due to a mother with heavy substance abuse issues and I'm hooked. Foreman's affair with the married Anita was meh to me, but it was fun to see Taub try to spend more time connecting with his baby daughters.

"The Sound I Make is Moo."

Taub tries to engage his girls with animal puppets but ends up reading about sports, celebrities and the sounds he finds associated with them like whining! The girls laugh and I do, too. Foreman and Chase end up over at Taub's place for a while and they discuss Foreman's affair with Anita.

No one bought Foreman's initial story that Anita was a pharmaceutical rep. House's threats to blackmail Foreman by showing Anita's husband the photos he took of Foreman and Anita all cozy together out clubbing backfire. Anita tells Foreman that although her husband had trouble with it at first, he wants to hang on to their marriage so he's okay with the cheating. Foreman ends up breaking up with Anita anyway as he says it still somehow feels "wrong."

Is She or Isn't She?

A very sick runaway teenage girl named Callie has the team stumped. She's bleeding from the ears and later can't even walk. Dr. Adams and Dr. Park do the obligatory home investigation. And after finding a neatly kept place, but with beer, they conclude Callie's an alcholic. Oh yeah, there's also mold issues, too.

By the way, Callie had also had cans of beer in her bag when she first arrived at the hospital. She did give some to the homeless guy she'd "hired" to play the part of her dad so she could get treatment, though.

Of course, House figures out the ruse pretty fast. Callie has to be given a hospital bed pretty fast as she's fading fast. Dr. Adams argues that Callie's problem is alcohol related while House thinks that an aneurysm is most likely. Dr. Adams ends up agreeing with House when Callie suddenly flutters her eyelids and is totally out of it.

It's Not an Aneurysm

When the team is all there operating on Callie, after her estranged mother shows up out of the blue, they quickly realize that both Adams and House were wrong. Adams remembers that when Callie's mother arrived to bring Callie muffins, she comments that they were like the ones they had on their Florida vacation a few years ago. Adams discusses the details of the vacation a bit more and, of course, House puts more than two and two together to get the correct diagnosis: Callie has a parasitic disease due to animal feces where she swam.

She's All Good, Then She's All Gone

As soon as Callie knows she's going to be fine, she's outta there leaving her mother sitting at the end of an empty hospital bed. Wilson tells House that it's probably because Callie wants to remember her mother in this good way before she goes again. (Oh, clear as mud, I know - time for my meds.) Let's just sum it up as Callie would rather be the one to leave.

Pretty Good, House

I always look forward to Monday nights because I get to watch House. All in all, I thought it was a pretty good episode. How about you? What would you like to see in future episodes?

Sheri Stirrs
Contributing Writer

(Image courtesy of FOX)