Chapter VII Summary and Analysis

Sometimes the well-meaning hospital staff made things worse by their euphemistic approach to treatment. Phrases like "This won't hurt much" or "How are we today?" or "Did you meet with Pain Management?" began to seem cruel and absurd.

To understand exactly what a subject went through when waterboarded, Christopher arranged to have the procedure done to him. He found that it was not a simulation of drowning, it was actual drowning. Christopher had undergone this torture for an article in Vanity Fair some time before his diagnosis. From that experience, he suffered from a post-torture stress, a fear of asphyxiation, which was triggered during his illness by the aspiration of moisture in preparation for his daily tube feeding.

Christopher laid in many American hospitals. Often religious orders operated these hospitals. The crucifix was a standard feature in every room...