Daddy's Boy (House)

"Daddy's Boy" is the fifth episode of the second season of House, which premiered on Fox on November 8, 2005. A father and his son, Carnell, a student at Princeton University, are celebrating the son's graduation and they have a father/son moment. Carnell is heading out to a party where he drinks with his friends, but begins experiencing what feels like electrical shocks and starts having convulsions.

Princeton University student Carnell has a seizure during a graduation party. His symptoms are painful shocks, headaches, nausea and drowsiness. In the hospital, he later has sphincter paralysis added to the symptoms white board. That, combined with shocks usually indicates Miller Fisher syndrome but the tests do not support their theory. The father and his son have lied on different occasions to each other. The father lied about his wife's car accident (so his son would never drive under influence), Carnell went to Jamaica with his friends knowing his father would never approve of it.

More clues are revealed when Carnell's friend Taddy is rushed to the hospital from vomiting blood. He tells House that Carnell and his father have been working in a scrap metal junkyard, to which House then confronts the father on the issue (The father earlier told House that he was a construction foreman). The metal key chain that his father has made for Carnell turns out to be radioactive. Taddy was affected because on the flight to Jamaica he carried the bag which had the key chain on his lap. Carnell's ability to make white blood cells is severely compromised because of the radiation poisoning, which causes his reaction to the infections, and he will need a bone marrow transplant because of heavy exposure. He also has a tumor inside his cervical spine, revealed by a PET scan, that is causing the symptoms. They successfully remove the tumor, but he has a hemorrhage on his bowel after the surgery and his white cell count is plunging. Chase informs the father that no matter what courses of antibiotics they give Carnell, he will not be able to fight off the infection and it will slowly compromise his systems. Knowing his son will likely die, the father lies to his son once more, telling him he will be "just fine."