2:55am October 12, 2010

➸ Attitudes about Disability Prove Almost Lethal

A red star, scrawled in hasty magic marker, screamed a coded message beside my friend’s name and patient number, at the door of her hospital room. “What’s that red star mean?” I asked a nurse, afraid of the answer I suspected. “That’s the DNR” - her offhanded answer confirmed my fear.

I’d already heard about the “do not resuscitate” order earlier that day. A fellow advocate, a mutual friend of Ginny’s and mine, had talked to a nurse who divulged more than she probably should have: When admitted to the hospital with pneumonia two weeks ago, Ginny had acceded to the DNR – but only after having been “counseled” by a doctor for over an hour.