Opiod crisis, health care, false certainty

The New York Times published a thought-provoking article today about the opioid crisis and the healthcare industry's evolving response to it, but also about second chances and human nature.

Injecting Drugs Can Ruin a Heart. How Many Second Chances Should a User Get?

By Abby Goodnough, April 29, 2018

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. — Jerika Whitefield's memories of the infection that almost killed her are muddled, except for a few. Her young children peering at her in the hospital bed. Her stepfather wrapping her limp arms around the baby. Her whispered appeal to a skeptical nurse: "Please don't let me die. I promise, I won't ever do it again."

Ms. Whitefield, 28, had developed endocarditis, an infection of the heart valves caused by bacteria that entered her blood when she injected methamphetamine one morning in 2016. Doctors saved her life with open-heart surgery, but before operating, they gave her a jolting warning: If she continued shooting up and got reinfected, they would not operate again.

With meth resurgent and the opioid crisis showing no sign of abating, a growing number of people are getting endocarditis from injecting the drugs — sometimes repeatedly if they continue shooting up. Many are uninsured, and the care they need is expensive, intensive and often lasts months. All of this has doctors grappling with an ethically fraught question: Is a heart ever not worth fixing?

I highly recommend reading the full article. A few thoughts below.

"The Education of Little Tree"

Truly a story, at any rate

"The Education of Little Tree" is a coming-of-age story set during the Great Depression. After his parents' death, the young Forrest "Little Tree" Carter moves in with his Cherokee grandparents in the mountains of Tennessee and learns the importance of self-reliance and understanding others. But the book is not what it seems – though allegedly autobiographical, it is actually a work of fiction written by the infamous Asa Earl Carter.

Minor spoilers below.