The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman

Author:Anne Fadiman [Fadiman, Anne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction
ISBN: 9780374533403
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 1997-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

I held a long discussion with both parents through aid of an interpreter. CPS worker Jeanine Hilt was present. Parents understand that the antibiotics are fighting a severe infection and that without medication Lia may get her infection back and die sooner. They understand that once we remove IV, a new line will NOT be replaced. They understand and still refuse medication. Therefore, meds & IV will be withdrawn.

“The impression I had,” recalled Peggy, “was that they wanted Lia to be peaceful and not be persecuted anymore. Basically, they wanted her to die with dignity.” Peggy was mistaken. She thought that Foua and Nao Kao wanted to withdraw the medicines because they were artificially prolonging Lia’s life. In fact, though the Lees believed Lia was so sick she might die, they wanted to stop treatment because they thought it was the medicines that were killing her.

After the IV line was taken out, Foua and Nao Kao announced that they wanted to take Lia home. Her brain damage had fouled up the homeostatic mechanisms that regulated her body temperature, and she was spiking fevers as high as 107.4°, which is potentially fatal. Peggy therefore informed the Lees that Lia needed to stay at MCMC for a few days of observation. “I was sure she was dying,” she recalled, “but that’s the quandary of Western medicine, that you can’t let people die.” Concerned that Lia be kept comfortable during her final days, Jeanine wrote the following memo:

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