4.05 Mirror Mirror

Being a guy... and having a pain problem that requires me to walk with a cane myself... trust me, House's "balancing" was just said to get the immature, teenage girl to stop acting like an immature, teenage girl... so that House's crew could do the test on her, so that House could study her. Believe me... it's not real hard to know well in advance when you have to go to the bathroom. A full bladder is something that builds... so if you start walking to the bathroom when you first start to feel the need to urinate (given that the bathroom isn't... say... 5 miles away), you will assuredly not wet yourself. It's not like when I drink a glass of what, at some random and unknown point down the line I'm suddenly going to have to urinate within 30 seconds... like I said... it builds. It never occurred to me that House was saying that he was worried about pissing himself. He was saying that the more he drinks, the more frequently he has to pee. So he weighs how thirsty he is against how much his leg hurts (and how much he doesn't want to have to walk all the way to the bathroom.) Also, pride is very, very important to House. He puts on a good front when he's with other people -- especially at work. But we've seen how he physically droops as soon as he closes the door to his apartment and he's alone with no one to put on a show for. I think his pain is a lot worse than the others realize. In the showdown when mirror man has to pick between House and Cuddy, Cuddy says that she can fire House. She can fire him right now. And House answers that she won't. But I've seen Season 1. He has tenure. She can't fire him without full board approval. TIIC would have known that if someone had hit them over the head with a first-year biochemistry book...or perhaps that's the problem. I love you. :)

So he weighs how thirsty he is against how much his leg hurts (and how much he doesn't want to have to walk all the way to the bathroom.) Hmmm... interesting take on it... I could be wrong and that could've been the message to take from it... I've just always taken it as him saying "Everytime I drink a glass of water I weigh out the pros and cons"... of whether or not I'll be able to make it to the bathroom without peeing myself. Good point, though. Also, pride is very, very important to House. He puts on a good front when he's with other people -- especially at work. But we've seen how he physically droops as soon as he closes the door to his apartment and he's alone with no one to put on a show for. I think his pain is a lot worse than the others realize. I would say pride is one of the single biggest factors in House's life... coming from someone who knows the good and the bad of where that leaves us... I definitely understand that he doesn't like being humiliated and why and that his public show is (mostly) an act. Seriously... there are strong urges and impulses that lead people like me to act the way we do... and it's obviously to some extent who we are... but there's the caring part of us too, the side that can be affected by the things that go on around us, the side that is empathically crippled by the pain, the side that we want no one to see because it's not "who we are" and because that side is vulnerable, and that side mostly only comes out when we're alone at home at night with no one looking... the outside is outside, and we can drop our guards and trust that the one person who won't lie to us and hurt us... ourselves... is the only one around. In the showdown when mirror man has to pick between House and Cuddy, Cuddy says that she can fire House. She can fire him right now. And House answers that she won't. But I've seen Season 1. He has tenure. She can't fire him without full board approval. 100% true. My guess is that it was just something said to try to win the competition and not something that she was actually threatening... a "moot point" discussion between the two of them, so to speak. It doesn't matter whether the fever is induced or not. 107 is far too high and can cause seizures, brain damage and assorted other unpleasant things. True... not 100% of the time if it doesn't last for too long, though. For instance... my normal temperature is 96.3... when I had a 105.4 fever earlier in my life (which, note, is equivalent to a 107.7 degree fever in the average person) that lasted for 2 hours before we were even able to get it down to 104, it didn't cause me to have seizures, hallucinations, brain damage, etc. It was definitely dangerous, to be sure... it's just not a 100% certainty of the bad, bad things happening... very high likelihood though... and that likelihood gets higher the longer the fever stays that high. That's why my only guess at it was that maybe after they induced the fever, they only let it go for a short amount of time before counteracting the LPS. (I'm not being argumentative here.... surprisingly.... just complementary.) Does LPS even cause a severe fever if injected directly? I haven't done a literature scan since the episode to check it out, but I thought someone may have a particular expertise in that area... my knowledge of LPS extends to pathogenic bacteriology (which clearly does NOT involve pure LPS being given in high doses to patients). And if a direct injection of LPS could cause said effect, would it be possible to counteract the LPS by either some other chemical treatment, complementary therapy, or otherwise, and actually lower the temperature to a safe level (notwithstanding an ice bath, since that would obviously do it... but in this case likely kill the patient)? The temperature at which agglutination sets in is constant. It doesn't go up as the patient deteriorates. Since this isn't really my area of expertise, I'm not clear on the possibilities of changing the temperature of agglutination. If it's anything like the freezing point, it can be altered... for instance, add salt to water and the freezing point is no longer the same as it was before you added the salt. Since the episode is saying that his body is producing (?? I'm assuming it's producing them and they're not randomly coming from some outside source) a flood of cold agglutinins that are building up in concentration in his blood, is it possible that these cold agglutinins could act in blood for agglutination in the same manner as salt in water for the freezing point? Like I said... not my area... but I would think that if the cold agglutinins (which were the initial problem that caused the blood to "turn to sludge"... the guy's temperature didn't drop too low, the concentration of cold agglutinins became so high that they caused the agglutination) caused agglutination, that the higher the concentration of cold agglutinins, the higher the temperature could be while still having the blood solidify. Is there anyone who can clear that up for me and explain this mechanism a little better? TIIC would have known that if someone had hit them over the head with a first-year biochemistry book...or perhaps that's the problem. :lol: lol... well played

It never occurred to me that House was saying that he was worried about pissing himself. He was saying that the more he drinks, the more frequently he has to pee. So he weighs how thirsty he is against how much his leg hurts (and how much he doesn't want to have to walk all the way to the bathroom.) That's always been my interpretation, as well. It makes sense, too, when you've got a bum leg.

It never occurred to me that House was saying that he was worried about pissing himself. He was saying that the more he drinks, the more frequently he has to pee. So he weighs how thirsty he is against how much his leg hurts (and how much he doesn't want to have to walk all the way to the bathroom.) That's always been my interpretation, as well. It makes sense, too, when you've got a bum leg.Yeah.... I can understand being in so much pain you just don't want to walk to the bathroom. So I guess that could be the "pros and cons" he's talking about..... drink the water: pro is you eliminate your thirst, con is your leg was hurting and you had to walk all the way to the bathroom (.... or not if you've got bought *your* one and only, special, high quality, patented, House coffee mug... only $19.99 now in our gift shop); don't drink: pro is you've saved your leg, con is you're thirsting to death. I guess I'm going to have to go back and watch the episode again now to see if, with this version of interpretation in mind, I read it any differently than normal. I've definitely always thought with the look on his face and the tone of his voice he was trying to half crack a joke about peeing himself over a glass of water.

It doesn't matter whether the fever is induced or not. 107 is far too high and can cause seizures, brain damage and assorted other unpleasant things. True... not 100% of the time if it doesn't last for too long, though. <snip> The temperature at which agglutination sets in is constant. It doesn't go up as the patient deteriorates. Since this isn't really my area of expertise, I'm not clear on the possibilities of changing the temperature of agglutination. <snip> chrohandhaivey, it is Silja's area of expertise. She's a physician.

It doesn't matter whether the fever is induced or not. 107 is far too high and can cause seizures, brain damage and assorted other unpleasant things. True... not 100% of the time if it doesn't last for too long, though. <snip> The temperature at which agglutination sets in is constant. It doesn't go up as the patient deteriorates. Since this isn't really my area of expertise, I'm not clear on the possibilities of changing the temperature of agglutination. <snip> chrohandhaivey, it is Silja's area of expertise. She's a physician.Well I'm glad to have her here then, for the practice side of things. I got into the research side of things to solve the puzzles.... what I meant by that not being my area of expertise is LPS-induced fevers and agglutination, not medicine in general. I'm actually quite up on a large portion of the medicine in this show, because I have to have a large knowledge base to understand and interpret the results and data. Like I said about the fever thing, I wasn't undercutting or contradicting what she had said, just adding on to it. I really would like to know about that whole agglutination thing and the possibility of the cold agglutinins and all that jazz... Silja, if you know, would you clarify that mechanism and explain why my thought either is plausible or why it's impossible please... I'm thinking when I get a moment this week I'll call in a consult with a vascular specialist that I've worked closely with (and also worked for before that) in the past to get a researcher's point of view, if he has any knowledge of that possibility (because I know that's know his specific area of focus within the vascular spectrum).... but I'd still love to hear from a physician's perspective. Out of curiosity, what's your specialty? (Trust me, if I wanted to argue with you and/or try to humiliate you by making your post look idiotic, I'd come out firing, not supplementing.... I'm just looking for an intellectually stimulating discussion... because coming up with theories about the way mechanisms work just happens to be what I've been doing for years, and you don't come up with theories unless you want to either prove or disprove them by researching them further, which is what I'm looking for here....... can't say I'd warn you in advance of being in disagreement with you or fire a warning shot, but it would be blatantly obvious that I was trying to make you look like an imbecile. ;p)

Being in nursing (and a moderator) I really want to join your discussion chro, but I also don't want to overtake the board. Can we continue it forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=317>here? You'll probably really like this thread, and this is the perfect chance to get more people in it again.

I'm taking my reply to forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=317&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15&sid=2f52b29733cf43d2ec226bdfe7ec6485>the other thread.

About Cuddy threatening to fire House, she did that before the Volger thing and she's done it afterwards. Repeatedly. The way I see it either 1) the writers have amnesia or 2) Wilson isn't on the board anymore and Cuddy knows that everyone on the board hates House and would fire him if she asked him to. I'm voting for 1.

Interestingly, over on TWOP, Sara M opened her recap of Whatever It Takes with an apology, basically explaining that the mirror syndrome wasn't completely and totally made up. Just mostly.

That's neat. One of the comments on Polite Dissent cited the same case. The authors called it "environmental dependancy" and it was an isolated case, not a known syndrome. I like that they named it after a Woody Allen movie; IRL Giovannini disease is a fungal infection, they tell me. That clears up some things but now I want to know: was his condition pre-existing or caused by his pip dung disease? I was never clear on that from the episode but I'd assumed the former. Now I'm not sure again.

That's neat. One of the comments on Polite Dissent cited the same case. The authors called it "environmental dependancy" and it was an isolated case, not a known syndrome. I like that they named it after a Woody Allen movie; IRL Giovannini disease is a fungal infection, they tell me. That clears up some things but now I want to know: was his condition pre-existing or caused by his pip dung disease? I was never clear on that from the episode but I'd assumed the former. Now I'm not sure again. I don't know, but it strikes me that having the ability to mimic -- to absolutely fit in with whomever you're speaking to -- would be a great one for a salesman. You'd trust him, because he's you.

That's neat. One of the comments on Polite Dissent cited the same case. The authors called it "environmental dependancy" and it was an isolated case, not a known syndrome. I like that they named it after a Woody Allen movie; IRL Giovannini disease is a fungal infection, they tell me. That clears up some things but now I want to know: was his condition pre-existing or caused by his pip dung disease? I was never clear on that from the episode but I'd assumed the former. Now I'm not sure again. I don't know, but it strikes me that having the ability to mimic -- to absolutely fit in with whomever you're speaking to -- would be a great one for a salesman. You'd trust him, because he's you. Or you don't trust him because you think it's a fake. He's agreeing with everything I say. It must be a con.

Well, the real-life guy who had this was a politician!

Also, pride is very, very important to House. He puts on a good front when he's with other people -- especially at work. But we've seen how he physically droops as soon as he closes the door to his apartment and he's alone with no one to put on a show for. I think his pain is a lot worse than the others realize. In the showdown when mirror man has to pick between House and Cuddy, Cuddy says that she can fire House. She can fire him right now. And House answers that she won't. But I've seen Season 1. He has tenure. She can't fire him without full board approval. I definitely agree that I think his pain is worse than House lets on to everyone else. But you do have a point during the Mirror-off. Personally I think that if Cuddy really wanted to fire House, she could. But where she went wrong was going on about how she admires him as a doctor. I think that was where the Mirror Man decided House was more dominate.

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