Millicent's Fall: The Width of Time
Update: 2015-01-29
Description
As an oncologist and palliative care specialist, Larry Cripe treats critically ill patients. Two years ago, he found himself on the other side of the healthcare system after his college-aged daughter suffered a 30-foot fall. In this series of essays, Dr. Cripe shares what he learned about how better to communicate with the critically ill and their families, and how to move forward in the face of an uncertain future. *** As I was sitting in the intensive care unit watching my daughter breathe, I realized time has width as well as length. The length of time was marked by the ever-changing bright red numbers of the digital clock at the head of her bed. I experienced the length of time as it passed faster or slower. If I watched the monitors that displayed the spikes of the electrical activity of her heart or the peaks and valleys signaling the rise and fall of her chest too closely, then time passed more slowly. If I willed myself to ignore the clock and monitors and instead watched the
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