The Story - life changed in an instant


Variable, and therefore miserable condition of man! This minute I was well, and am ill this minute. I am surprised with a sudden change and alteration to worse. We study health, and we deliberate upon our meats, and drink, and air, and exercises, and we hew and we polish every stone that goes to that building; and so our health is a long and a regular work: but in a minute a cannon batters all, overthrows all, demolishes all; a sickness unprevented for all our diligence, unsuspected for all our curiosity; nay, undeserved, summons us, seizes us, possesses us, destroys us in an instant.
John Donne, 1623
Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions

John Donne penned these remarks after he was struck by a sudden, then often deadly influenza nearly 400 years ago. Yet even as an Emergency Physician well acquainted with the frailty of life in my 16 years and over 50,000 patient visit experiences, nothing really could prepare me for what would strike me on August 23rd 2004.... Continue Reading...