I Read a Book That Made Me Cry
While Cataloging Books At A Library, I Found The Long Dying Of Baby Andrew... This book has to be the saddest of the several thousand I have read. Even first hand accounts of the Holocaust didn't move me the way this did. Partly, because I've been through the loss of a premature birth, but also because it was so well written you could easily put yourself in the parents' place.
The book takes place around the 70s if my memory serves me and was written by Robert Stinson. There is a preterm baby named Andrew who's parents basically have to go to court to be allowed to "pull the plug" on their long suffering child. The doctors play at being God using for the time recent technology to just keep him alive, but without any prognosis for long-term survivability or quality of life. The reason long is in the title is because it takes them many months to do this. What is saddest is that Andrew didn't stand a chance in the first place and yet the doctors tortured him in the name of keeping him alive.
As I am someone who has gone through a microcosm of the pain those parents felt (my son lived only a week and the doctors allowed me and my GF to make the choice to keep him alive or pull the plug.) I salute those parents because their actions led to legal changes which led to my tragic situation not being made worse by overzealous and uncaring doctors.
Now, I know doctors can perform great feats, but there must be a reasonable prognosis for long term viability and a significant quality of life. Plus the choice should always rest in the hands of the person himself/herself or if incapacitated then his/her family or other loved one. That is why having legal documentation on file for oneself is so important so that your wishes will be carried out if the worst were to happen, because as I have found, you cannot expect this.
The book takes place around the 70s if my memory serves me and was written by Robert Stinson. There is a preterm baby named Andrew who's parents basically have to go to court to be allowed to "pull the plug" on their long suffering child. The doctors play at being God using for the time recent technology to just keep him alive, but without any prognosis for long-term survivability or quality of life. The reason long is in the title is because it takes them many months to do this. What is saddest is that Andrew didn't stand a chance in the first place and yet the doctors tortured him in the name of keeping him alive.
As I am someone who has gone through a microcosm of the pain those parents felt (my son lived only a week and the doctors allowed me and my GF to make the choice to keep him alive or pull the plug.) I salute those parents because their actions led to legal changes which led to my tragic situation not being made worse by overzealous and uncaring doctors.
Now, I know doctors can perform great feats, but there must be a reasonable prognosis for long term viability and a significant quality of life. Plus the choice should always rest in the hands of the person himself/herself or if incapacitated then his/her family or other loved one. That is why having legal documentation on file for oneself is so important so that your wishes will be carried out if the worst were to happen, because as I have found, you cannot expect this.
51-55, M