'It's OK if you die' — why Ben Taub is the people's hospital (Essay)
I read about Alvaro’s many surgeries: hip surgery, belly surgery, large portions of his intestines removed. For months, he couldn’t eat, his only nutrition delivered through an IV and then a tube in his stomach. It started as colon cancer. It had spread throughout Alvaro’s body to multiple organs and joints. Over the prior nine months, he’d only spent a couple of weeks out of the hospital.
When I was on my way into his room, the nurse had stopped me. There was a decision I had to make, the quicker the better. “MAP is 60,” she said.It took me more than a second to realize what she was saying. The mean arterial pressure tells us if our vital organs are receiving an adequate amount of blood and nourishment. If this number is too low, then organs aren’t receiving the blood supply needed to survive.
Alvaro told me about the past nine months of his life — not about the pain or the vomiting or the bloody stools constantly filling the bag attached to what remained of his intestines, but how he had become a burden to his family. He was the same age as my grandfather; maybe that’s why I said what I did. Or maybe seeing the fear in his eyes when we discussed what might happen next, that this could go on, gave me the courage to be frank.
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