Summary:
An artist, Ruth, lives with quadriplegia and manages to drive
(and dance) with a special wheelchair that she controls with her chin. She also
enjoys terrorizing doctors in the hospital corridors, where she is seen on a
regular basis because of frequent bouts of infected bedsores. She has a new
computer and is “patiently waiting for” a biomedical engineer to set it up to manage, like her chair, with her chin. She wants to write, to draw, to
create. But the wait list is long, technicians scarce, and every candidate
deserving.
On one of her admissions, Ruth meets the physician-narrator who is appalled by a medical resident’s lack of
empathy in relating her case as if she were not present. Distressed by the
encounter, the doctor is all the more disturbed when he notices that Ruth’s
birth date is the same as his own.
He tries to make it up to her by
withdrawing from her care in order to be her “friend,” one who tries to
understand and will defend her strong desire to live despite her disability. Driven
by curiosity about her past, her sharp wit, and how she faces each day, the
doctor never quite achieves his goal and constantly feels guilty for letting
her down as an advocate and a friend, and possibly also for being able-bodied
himself. He never visited her in her
group home, and when she comes to hospital in florid sepsis, he is unable to prevent
his colleagues from letting nature take its course. His own bout with severe
illness, possibly MS—more likely a stroke--resonates with Ruth’s plight. Long
after her death, he can imagine the acid remarks that she would make about his foibles.
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