All In (House)

"All In" is the seventeenth episode of the second season of House, which premiered on Fox on April 11, 2006.

During a field trip in a museum exhibit about the human body, 6-year old Ian Alston is found to have bloody diarrhea. Meanwhile, at charity Casino Night at Princeton-Plainsboro, House, Wilson, and Cuddy are engaged in a game of Texas hold-em poker when Cuddy receives the news about her new patient. She dismisses it as dehydration and gastroenteritis, but House, recognizing the symptoms and thinking this could be more than what she suggested, decides to drop out of the game (folding a pair of Aces to Cuddy's bluff) and take the case behind her back.

With his suspicion, House tests Ian's coordination by asking him to reach out and grab his cane, which takes Ian multiple grasps until he actually touches the cane. House concludes Ian has ataxia and begins to assume Ian has the same disease as a former patient from 12 years ago, 73-year old Esther Doyle, who died under House's care and was never correctly diagnosed. House then drags Cameron, Foreman, and Chase out of the party to perform a differential diagnosis. Drawing up a list of all of Esther's symptoms, House is able to predict what will happen to Ian next, as well as how long it will take him to get there.

House first suspects it is Erdheim-Chester disease and orders a colonoscopy, but tests are negative. House, knowing the next symptom that will develop is kidney damage, orders a kidney biopsy, which turns out to be negative. The rest of the team, annoyed, tell House that all Ian has is a stomachache due to some bad food. But after discovering Ian's urine catheter bag full of brown urine, they realize that Ian's kidneys are indeed failing and that they are already far too damaged to be saved. The team is forced to do another differential diagnosis, however many of the diseases proposed, House already tested for 12 years ago.

Next the team postulates it is lymphoma and tries more tests. To keep Cuddy busy and off the case, House calls Wilson and has him stall her in the poker game. However, tests are negative for lymphoma. Unable to determine what disease afflicts the two people, House orders immediate treatment to protect Ian's liver, which was the next symptom Esther developed. His plan succeeds and Ian does not develop liver damage, but instead skips the next two symptoms and goes into respiratory distress.