Friday: He walks in to the ER, tall, tanned, thick silver hair. A French accent, loping gait, and an easy smile, he could be mistaken for a Hollywood actor. But he is here with new lung cancer, new confusion and a calcium
level which needs to be corrected before his treatment. A CT-scan of the brain also confirms bleeding metastases - tumors which migrated north from his lungs. I settle him in his room as he flirts with me and his nurse.
Saturday: His calcium trends down but his confusion is ramping up - he needs a 1:1 nurse to keep him safe, keep his IV line in, keep him from falling. I prescribe sedatives, anxiolytics, benzodiazepines. I bring more teams aboard, take recommendations, tweak medications.
Sunday: His family is at the bedside, processing his diagnosis, prognosis. I increase the sedatives as he blitzes through them in his delirium, tossing in bed, reaching for what isn’t there, moaning. His daughter points out that my mascara is running. I accuse her of the same.
Monday: Still weakly tossing, occasionally moaning, hazily moving his hands in the air, grasping, seizing, roaming. His calcium level is normal: it was a red herring. This is terminal delirium, nothing more, nothing less. I play with the drugs and doses and watch him carefully.
Tuesday: He settles. We sigh. His family sobs. He tosses again, moans. I increase one drug. He settles. We watch. He tears at his chest, at the tumors encasing his thorax. I add more morphine. For twelve hours, we duel.
Wednesday: He’s comfortable. He’s at peace, he’s sleeping, he’s covered. He’s not ripping off his sheets, ripping off his clothes, ripping out his lines. I pray.
Thursday: He sleeps, deeply. He’s still comfortable. The magic liquid in his veins keeps his delirium at bay. His family collapses into chairs, wild-eyed and sleep-deprived. They try to rest, as he rests.
Friday: He dies in his sleep: heart stops, brain sleeps, lungs deflate, hands gently at his sides. He’s still tall, tanned, with silver wavy hair.
• • •
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This arrived last night and I already finished it.
A must read for halachic people whose loved ones have a cancer diagnosis.
This covers so many topics in concise and readable language:
1. Cancer screenings: allowed, or actually mandatory? 2. Genetic cancer screening: allowed or mandatory? 3. Common cancer statistics and treatment modalities 4. Preventative surgeries or treatment: allowed or mandatory? 5. Halacha on medicine in general
6. Clinical trials: allowed or forbidden? When? What if you’re healthy and want to contribute to science? 7. Pain medicine: allowed, forbidden, or mandatory? 8. Palliative/hospice care 9. Goseis and end of life 10. DNR and DNI 11. Artificial nutrition 12. Healthcare proxies
If you condemn Israel for Palestinian suffering but you omit Hamas, you might just hate Jews.
If you fault Israel for Palestinian suffering but you omit Qatar’s role, you might just hate Jews.
If you condemn Palestinian suffering but you didn’t condemn the Hamas massacre, you might just hate Jews.
If you condemned Israel for blowing up a hospital and didn’t post a retraction and correction, you might just hate Jews.
If you didn’t condemn Islamic Jihad for their hospital bombing, you might just hate Jews.
If you provide armchair analysis on the most conflicted and contested region in the world without educating yourself on millennia of Jewish sufferings you might just hate Jews.
Many people are arguing that “context” is needed to understand the slaughter by Hamas.
As a student of Jewish history, I agree, and I offer context.
We start with the first expulsion of Jews in Israel, in 586 BCE by the Babylonians.
1/
Under the Persian ruler King Cyrus, Jews rebuilt their Temple and returned to Jerusalem for several hundred years.
The Romans captured the city and dispersed the Jews in 70 CE.
The Jewish people migrated west and south, living in Europe and North Africa for centuries.
2/
For 1,000 years they wander between the Middle East and Europe, building communities and scholarly works. Note that official Christian policy is to convert all Jews, expel them, or worse.