2030_ The Real Story of What Happens to America - Albert Brooks [39]
The President was always amazed at how fat doctors were. How can they ever give you medical advice when they need to lose a hundred pounds? And why don’t they take the weight-loss drug? Do they know something we don’t? He asked to talk to the doctor privately.
They went into a small office and the President said, “Give me the truth. Real information. How long will she live?” Martinez didn’t hesitate.
“She could live for years, sir, as long as the machines are connected.”
“Really?” the President asked flatly. “Can she come out of the coma?”
“At this age and with the extent of the bleeding, I would say no.”
“Is she brain-dead?”
“No.”
“So she is not brain-dead but will remain this way?”
“So it seems, sir.”
“And whose decision is it to keep the machines running forever?”
“Did she have a DNR, sir?”
“I know a lot of abbreviations,” the President said, “but remind me what that is.”
“‘Do not resuscitate,’ sir.”
“I don’t know if she did. Would that be in her will?”
“In her will or special instructions, Mr. President.”
“I’ll see. We’ll look into it and let you know. Obviously she can’t take up the intensive care unit forever. What will happen to her?”
“She would go to a facility.”
“That’s wonderful, it sounds so inviting. She can have lunch with Ariel Sharon.” The doctor didn’t laugh. He didn’t know who that was.
Bernstein was on the plane back to Washington when he broke down. He wasn’t crying for any simple reason. He was sad about the coma, he was sad that their relationship had deteriorated to such a degree, and he was sad that at the very moment in his presidency when he wanted to approach the subject of keeping dead people alive, it was taken from him by his own mother. Then he started to laugh. Do not resuscitate. How funny. He actually thought his mother might have had an “RAAC,” “resuscitate at any cost.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
It took about fourteen days for the military to get completely in place in Southern California. The work was so overwhelming that no one knew exactly where to start, but the first order of business was to bury the dead and to try to locate and attend to the injured. One hundred triage stations were set up in strategic points around Los Angeles. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers worked day and night to restore as much electricity and water as possible. Generators were installed where landlines were completely destroyed, and electricity was fed neighborhood to neighborhood, if there were still standing buildings that could receive it. Water mains were repaired where the damage could be seen, but there were so many breaks in the system that even when large mains were fixed, nothing flowed.
Hundreds of trucks with drinking water were sent around the city, and people stood in line to get their few gallons. It was like Bangladesh, with the people of Los Angeles lining up with buckets and thermoses waiting for fresh water and precooked food. Helicopters flew over the city with loudspeakers directing people to the food stations, and the army tried to space things out so no one would have to walk more than four miles.
The government was trying to help the physically injured, but mental illness was not on the radar. The thought was that if they could get food to people and keep disease away, that would be ninety percent of the game. But what happened when people lost hope and gave up? That was never really planned for, certainly not on a scale this size. Here were millions of people who had had the life literally shaken out of them, with no one to tell them it would get better. There was a general sense of chaos, except chaos was slowly being accepted as the norm. It was amazing how fast