The Cottages find House sleeping on the floor of his office. Cameron kindly offers him a pillow and only gets criticized for having a "grating" vocal frequency in return. The maggots helped Adam's burns but didn't do anything for his brain, meaning that Cameron's skin-infection theory was wrong. House says that they need to do the lumbar puncture now, and that they can get it by going into the part of Adam's spine that isn't covered with burnt skin -- in between the C2 and C3 vertebrae, which makes this more of a cervical puncture than a lumbar one. Foreman doesn't want to have any part of this, saying that the only time he's ever seen that procedure done resulted in the patient's becoming paralyzed. House says it's either a paralyzed patient or a dead one at this point.

Foreman gets to inform the parents. He tells them that there is a significant risk of paralysis in this procedure that has to be done, and Mom finally speaks up and yells at Foreman for telling her all of this upsetting stuff just to cover his own ass. She'd rather not know it if there's nothing they can do to prevent it. Dad tells her to ease off, and she accuses him of being the reason why Adam is sick in the first place, since that's what he's been saying all along anyway.

Family drama over, Foreman gets ready to do the puncture with Chase assisting. He doesn't have any success with his first attempt and tries again. Chase doesn't think that's wise, and says so loudly and insistently while poor Foreman is trying to concentrate. Adam's blood pressure skyrockets, but Foreman manages to get the tap in and collect the precious, precious fluid.