Unit 3 A Crime of Compassion“Murderer,” a man shouted. “God help patients who get you for a nurse.”“What gives the right to play God?” another one asked.It was the Phil Donahue show where the guest is a fatted calf and the audience is a 200-strong flock of vultures hungering to pick at the bones. I had told them about Mac, one of my favorite cancer patients. “We resuscitated him 52 times in just one month. I refused to resuscitate him again. I simply sat there and held his hand while he died.”这是菲尔·多纳休显示客人的热情款待和观众是一个200人的群秃鹰最渴望的骨头。我对Mac已经告诉他们,我最喜欢的一个癌症病人。“我们复苏他在仅仅一个月52次。我拒绝他再次复活。我只是坐在那里,握住他的手,他死了。”There wasn"t time to explain that Mac was a young, witty, macho cop who walked into the hospital with 32 pounds of attack equipment, looking as if he could single-handedly protect the whole city, if not the entire state. “Can"t get rid of this cough,” he said. Otherwise, he felt great.没有时间解释,Mac是一个年轻的,诙谐的,男子气概警察走进了医院与攻击设备32磅,看起来好像他可以一手保护整个城市,如果不是整个国家。“不能摆脱这种咳嗽,”他说。否则,他感觉很棒。Before the day was over, tests confirmed that he had lung cancer. And before the year was over, I loved him, Maura, and their and three kids as if they were my own. All the nurses loved him. And we all battled with his disease for six months without ever giving death a thought. Six months isn"t such a long time in the whole scheme of things, but it was long enough to see him lose his youth, his wit, his macho, his hair, his bowel and bladder control, his sense of taste and smell and the ability to do the slightest thing for himself. It was also long enough to watch Maura"s transformation from a young woman into a haggard, beaten old lady.在一天结束之前,测试证实,他有肺癌。在今年结束之前,我爱他,莫拉,他们的三个孩子就像我自己的。护士们都热爱他。,我们都与他的疾病死亡6个月没有给一个想法。六个月不是这么长时间在整个计划的东西,但它是足够长的时间看到他失去他的青春,他的智慧,他的男子气概,他的头发,他的肠和膀胱控制,他的味觉和嗅觉,能够为自己做任何的事情。也足够长的时间看莫拉的转换从一个年轻的女人变成一个憔悴,打败了老夫人。When Mac had wasted away into a 60-pound skeleton kept alive by liquid food we poured down a tube, i.v. solutions we dripped into his veins and oxygen we piped to a mask on his face, he begged us: “Mercy…for God"s sake, please just let me go.” 当Mac浪费了走到60磅骨架而继续我们倒液体食物管,这些解决方案我们滴进了他的静脉和氧气输送到面具上他的脸,他恳求我们:“怜悯…看在上帝的份上,请让我走。”The first time he stopped breathing, the nurse pushed the button that calls a “code blue” throughout the hospital and sends a team rushing to resuscitate a patient. Each time he stopped breathing, two or three times a day, the team code team came again. The doctors and technicians worked their miracles and walked away. The nurses stayed to wipe the saliva that drooled from his mouth, irrigate the bug craters and bedsores that covered his hips, suction the lung fluids that threatened to drown him, clean the feces that burned his skin like lye, pour the liquid food down the tube attached to his stomach, put the pillows between his knees to ease the bone-on-bone pain, turn him every hour to keep the bed sores from getting worse and change linen every two hours to keep him from being soaked in perspiration. At night I went home and tried to scrub the smell of decaying flesh that seemed woven into the fabric of my uniform. It was in my hair, the upholstery of my car-there was no washing it away. And every night I prayed that Mac would die, and his agonized eyes would never again plead with me to let him die. 他第一次停止呼吸,护士推按钮,调用“蓝色代码”在整个医院和发送一个团队急于恢复病人。每次他停止呼吸,一天两到三次,团队代码团队又来了。医生和技术人员工作的奇迹,走开了。护士留下来擦小儿子从嘴里的唾液,灌溉错误陨石坑和褥疮,盖住他的臀部,吸入肺部液体,威胁要淹死他,清理粪便,烧毁他的皮肤像碱液,倒液体食物管连接到他的肚子,把膝盖之间的枕头,以减轻骨头疼痛,把他每小时阻止床溃疡恶化和改变亚麻每两个小时让他被浸泡在汗水。晚上我回家,试图擦洗腐烂的肉的味道,似乎融入了我的制服。在我的头发,我车的内饰没有洗掉。每天晚上,我祈祷Mac会死,和他的痛苦的眼睛永远不会再次恳求我让他死。Every morning I asked the doctor for a “no code” order. Without that order, we had to resuscitate every patient who stopped breathing. His doctor was one of the several who believed we must extend life as long as we have the means and knowledge to do it. To not do it is to be liable for negligence, at least in the eyes of many people, including some nurses. I thought about what it would be like to stand before a judge, accused of murder, if Mac stopped breathing and I didn"t call a code. 每天早上我问医生“代码”。如果没有订单,我们必须恢复每一个患者停止呼吸。他的医生是一些人认为我们必须扩展生活只要我们有能力和知识去做。不做要承担过失,至少在很多人的眼中,包括一些护士。我想到什么就喜欢站在法官面前,被控谋杀,如果Mac停止了呼吸,我不调用代码。And after the 52nd code, when Mac was still lucid enough to beg for death again, and Maura was crumbled in my arms again, and when no amount of pain medication stilled his moaning and agony, I wondered about a spiritual judge. Was all this misery and suffering supposed to be building character or infusing us all with the sense of humility that comes from impotence? 2代码之后,苹果还足够清醒的时候再次乞求死亡,和莫拉又碎在我怀里了,当再多的止痛药压抑了他的呻吟和痛苦,我想知道一个精神上的法官。应该是这一切的痛苦和苦难建筑性格或注入我们谦卑的感觉来自阳痿吗?Had we, the whole medical community, become so arrogant that we believe in the illusion of salvation through science? Had we become so self-righteous that we thought meddling with God"s work was our duty, our moral imperative and our legal obligation? Did we really believe that we had the right to enforce “life” on a suffering man who begged for the right to die? 我们,整个医学界,变得如此傲慢,我们相信救恩通过科学的幻想吗?如果我们变得如此自以为是,我们认为干涉上帝的工作是我们的责任,我们的道德义务和法律义务?我们真的相信,我们有权执行“生活”在一个痛苦的人求死的权利吗?Such questions hunted me more than ever early one morning when Maura went home to change her clothes and I was bathing Mac. He had been still for so long. I thought he at last had the blessed relief of a coma. Then he opened his eyes and moaned. “Pain…no more…Barbara….do something…God, let me go.” 这些问题被我比以往任何时候都更一天清晨当莫拉改变她的衣服和我回家洗澡。他仍然一直这么长时间。我认为他最后的祝福救援昏迷。然后,他睁开眼睛,抱怨道。“疼痛…芭芭拉……。做一些…上帝,让我走。”The desperation in his eyes and voice riddled me with guilt. “It"ll stop,” I told him as I injected the pain medication.I sat on the bed and held Mac"s hands in mine. He pressed his bony fingers against my hands and muttered, “Thanks.”Then there was one soft sigh and I felt his hands go cold in mine. “Mac?” I whispered as I waited for his chest to rise and fall again. 他眼中的绝望和声音我内疚。“它会停止,我告诉他我注射止痛药。我坐在床上,Mac的手在我的。他瘦骨嶙峋的手指按在我的手,低声说,“谢谢。“那有一个柔软的叹息,我感到他的手在我冷。“苹果呢?”我低声说,我等待他的胸口起伏了。A clutch of panic banded my chest, drew my finger to the code button, urged me to do something, anything…but sit there alone with death. I kept one finger on the button without pressing it, as a waxen pallor slowly transformed his face from person to empty shell. Nothing I"ve ever done in my 47 years has taken so much effort as it took not to press that code button. Eventually when I was as sure as I could be that the code team would fail to bring him back, I entered the legal twilight zone and pushed the button. The team tried. And while they were trying, Maura walked in the room and shrieked, “No…don"t let them do this to him…for God"s sake….please, no more.” 一群恐慌联合我的胸口,把我的手指代码按钮,催促我做点什么…但坐在那里独自面对死亡。我把一个手指放在按钮没有按它,作为一个蜡制的苍白慢慢地将他的脸从空壳。没有我在47年已经做过努力了不是新闻,代码按钮。最终我相信我可能是团队的代码将无法把他带了回来,我走进法律模糊地带,把按钮。团队尝试。,当他们尝试,莫拉走进房间,尖叫,“不…不要让他们这样做是为了他…看在上帝的份上…。请,没有了。”Cradling her in my arms was like cradling myself, Mac and all those patients and nurses who had been in this place before who do the best they can in a death-denying society. 抱着她在怀里就像抱着自己,Mac和所有那些病人和护士都在这个地方之前最好的他们可以在一个远离死亡的社会。So a TV audience accused me of murder. Perhaps I am guilty. If a doctor had written a no-code order, which is the only legal alternative, would he have felt less guilty? Until there is legislation making it a criminal act to code a patient who has requested the right to die, we will all of us risk the same fate as Mac. For whatever reason, we developed the means to prolong life, and now we are forced to use it. We do not have the right to die. 因此,电视观众指责我谋杀。也许我有罪。如果医生写了没有代码的顺序,这是唯一合法的选择,他会觉得没那么内疚吗?直到立法使其有犯罪行为代码的病人要求正确的死亡,我们将我们所有的风险一样的命运。不管是什么原因,我们开发了延长寿命的方法,现在我们不得不使用它。我们没有正确的去死。
