Katy Butler
Thursday, September 12th 2013  7:30pm
Berkeley, CA

http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/436233

In the tradition of The Emperor of All Maladies and Far from the Tree, journalist Katy Butler delivers an exquisitely written, expertly reported memoir and exposé of modern medicine that blazes the way to more humane, less invasive end-of-life. Like millions of baby boomers, award-winning science writer Katy Butler lived thousands of miles away from her aging parents and assumed they would experience healthy and robust retirements before dying peacefully, at home, when the time came. Then, one fall day, her seemingly-healthy and vigorous 79-year-old father suffered a stroke and was left permanently incapable of finishing a sentence. His wife was thrust into the position of full-time caregiver: bathing him, feeding him, helping him fasten his belt. A year later, he visited the cardiologist and was outfitted with a pacemaker in a moment of hurry and hope. The device kept his heart going, but did nothing to prevent his slide, over five years, into dementia, incontinence, near-muteness, and misery. The burden of his care crushed Butler's mother, and Butler herself joined the 24 million Americans who help care for aging parents. Eventually it became clear that his brain and body were trying to diebut the pacemaker kept his heart beating. Butler and her mother faced a series of wrenching moral choices: when does death cease being a curse and become a blessing? Where do you draw the line between saving a life and prolonging a dying? When is the right time to say to a doctor, "let my loved one go"? When doctors refused her family's request to disable the pacemaker, Butler set out to understand why medicine was prolonging her father's suffering. Her quest had barely begun when her father died and her mother rebelled against doctors, refused open-heart surgery, and insisted on meeting death the old-fashioned way: head-on. KNOCKING ON HEAVEN'S DOOR is the fruit of the Butler family's journey.

Location:
Hillside Club
2286 Cedar Street
Berkeley, CA

Sponsored By:
Berkeley Arts and Letters