December | 2014 | Book Chatter

Sunday Matters

I survived my busy week of doctor’s appointments and rehearsals and The Teen’s Winter Concert is now all said and done. I knew I would make it through but it’s nice to put it all behind me. I get all antsy when my calendar is too full. Lately, all I want to do it hang around the house. My house is not the biggest house on the block and needs a little TLC here and there but man, it sure is comfortable. I have views all around me and yet I am privately tucked in. This means that I can sit like a slug nearly anywhere in the house, enjoy beautiful views and no one can see me being a slug.

Unfortunately, The Girl hates to be inside and always wants to go to the mall or Target or some other place. Groan.

Right Now:

I sit here with a cup of coffee in hand but I may have to cut back. At my appointment last week, my blood pressure was alarmingly high. I don’t think the nurse took it correctly because it dropped nearly 60 points when the doc took it himself but the retake was still a little high and I am battling this damn headache. It could be my eyes too. So much computer work. For now, I will enjoy this cup and cut back starting Monday. I only have 1-2 cups a day but I will probably have to knock it down to half a cup.

This morning we will head to church and then most likely Juice it Up for smoothies which is a treat The Girl looks forward to.

This Week:

The Teen’s performance in The 39 Steps is this week. We are all looking forward to it. I am going to get my shopping done this week in-between the normal stuff. In my attempt to keep it simple, I am looking for a few specific items and hope to be successful.

Reading:

I am reading The Rosie Effect. It’s darling and sweet but I am wondering if a sequel was needed.

Watching:

I haven’t been able to watch a thing yet. This was my busiest week but I ordered Home for the Holidays (Holly Hunter and Robert Downey, Jr.) which is one of my fave Christmas movies and I hope to watch it tonight. If you enjoy crazy family type movies, this is a good one to see.

Making:

Spaghetti, is the plan for today.

Grateful for:

As always, friends and family. I am also grateful for the rain we had earlier in the week. It wasn’t quite as much as they predicted but it was a good start. Also glad that my brakes held out through those two rain storms and gave me enough time to safely get to the mechanic to get them replaced.

Happy Thought For the Week:

The countdown to my time off has started. Ten more days.

Your turn. Tell me what you are doing today and if you are including any holiday traditions in the mix.

Five Days at Memorial
By Sheri Fink
(Crown, Hardcover, 9780307718969, September 2013, 576pp.)

The Short of It:

A nearly impossible to believe account of what happened at Memorial Medical Center after the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

The Rest of It:

I don’t know what I was doing when Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005 but let me tell you, I had no idea that any of the accounts in this book took place. Fink provides a detailed account of the five days immediately following Hurricane Katrina and the devastation that affected Memorial Medical Center. I will provide some highlights:

The lack of power was a problem, as was the lack of fuel for the emergency generators which happened to be below flood level.
Hospital staff was limited, and those that were there had their families and pets staying there with them.
No running water, meant no use of the facilities and the back-up of human waste was impossible to contain.
Many patients required life-saving assistance and without power, the care of said patients posed a problem.
Rescue was made by helicopter but getting patients to the helipad without elevators presented a huge challenge.
It was hot. SWAMPY hot and without AC or fans, some of the patients declined rapidly.
DOCTORS ADMINISTERED LETHAL DOSES OF MEDS TO THOSE WHO MAY NOT SURVIVE THE ORDEAL.

Did you read that last one? After five days, there were still patients in the building with no way to get them out. These were the most critical cases or in some cases, the most elderly. The staff was told that they MUST evacuate which meant leaving these patients behind. One doctor in particular, Dr. Anna Pou, made the choice to “make patients comfortable” by giving them what was essentially a lethal concoction of two medications to make them sleep…forever.

The first half of the book provides a detailed account of those five days and the second half covers the legal proceedings that followed. The first half was riveting, the second half, not so much and could have been shortened up, in my opinion. This was a hard book to digest for many reasons. The idea of a doctor deciding a person’s fate is alarming but don’t they do it all the time?

While reading, I found myself thinking “No! These people are bat-shit crazy!” but then a few pages later my opinion would change. In the back of my mind, I have convinced myself that something else could have been done, but these people were exhausted. Were they even capable of making such big decisions? No sleep. Limited food. Horrible conditions. I’m not sure.

My main problem with the book, and one that kept coming up for me over and over is that Fink didn’t appear to have an opinion of her own on the situation. She’s a journalist but she received her M.D. from Stanford so she must have a medical opinion on what took place. Right? If it was there, I didn’t read it.

I think anyone who works in the medical profession can learn something about disaster recovery by reading this book but really, anyone interested in disaster recovery can learn a lot from all of the mistakes made. The hospital and the administration and staff were not prepared for such a disaster. Simple things like outlet placement by windows, or the fact that the generators were in the basement below the flood plain, stuff like that.

This book was read for my book club and it was a lively discussion.

Source: Borrowed
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

Chatting with friends about books and life…