My son, Jeffrey, was a very tiny, very sick premature baby, born Feb. 9, 1985, at a gestational age of 25-26 weeks. During the almost two months of his life, he was on a respirator, with several lung diseases, a heart problem, kidney problems, and a brain bleed.
... Jeffrey had holes cut on both sides of his neck, another hole cut in his right chest, an incision from his breastbone around to his backbone, his ribs pried apart, and an extra artery near his heart tied off. This was topped off with another hole cut in his left side for a chest tube. The operation lasted 12 hours. Jeffrey was awake through it all.
The anesthesiologist paralyzed him with Pavulon, a curare drug that left him unable to move, but totally conscious. When I questioned the anesthesiologist ... she said Jeffrey was too sick to tolerate powerful anesthetics. Anyway, she said, it had never been demonstrated to her that premature babies feel pain. She seemed sincerely puzzled as to why I was concerned. It turns out that such care, or lack thereof, is possible because, as a neonatologist explained, babies, unlike adults, don't go into shock no matter how much agony they suffer.
"such care, or lack thereof" is heavily loaded; about the only objectively-sounding statements in the last paragraph are that Jeffrey wasn't able to tolerate anesthetics, and that "babies, unlike adults, don't go into shock", both of which add up to possibility of care where alternative was to leave the child to die.
I can barely read Jill Lawson's letter:
From: https://massagefitnessmag.com/massage/pediatric-pain-history... / https://archive.vn/5hTuT
Can we unbury the lede here? Did Jeffrey survive?
"such care, or lack thereof" is heavily loaded; about the only objectively-sounding statements in the last paragraph are that Jeffrey wasn't able to tolerate anesthetics, and that "babies, unlike adults, don't go into shock", both of which add up to possibility of care where alternative was to leave the child to die.
From the link in your parent: "Jeffrey passed away five weeks after the surgery at Children’s Hospital National Medical Center."
There's Descartes dog too.