The story is simple to tell, there is a middle-aged couple and Changwa Fumiko, on the eve of their divorce, they suddenly hear bad news - their six-year-old daughter Mizuho drowned while swimming, and the doctor determined that it was infinitely close to brain death. Just as the two were about to sign the organ donation book, Mizuho's fingers suddenly moved. This accident ignited the last glimmer of hope in the heart of her mother Fumiko, who wanted to save her daughter like a mad demon, and in three years, the fate of everyone involved in this matter changed.
It is generally believed that Keigo Higashino is a master of writing speculative fiction, but in fact, the emotional elements in his novels are not worse than those of traditional novels. In addition to reasoning, the writing is also affectionate, such as "The House of the Sleeping Mermaid", although it is full of doubts and branches. Later, we will also be moved by the mother-daughter relationship, ethical speculation and medical dynamics in it, or fall into contemplation.
An unexpected human tragedy
Ignoring everyone's doubts and even some strange eyes, Fumiko took her sleeping daughter home to take care of her. She also learned the complicated nursing routine, taking care of her daughter every day without clothes, and even learning to control her daughter's limbs using the latest high-tech equipment from her husband's company. I only hope that my daughter will suddenly wake up one day and call "Mom" again. Mizuho's body looks better and better every day, like a sleeping mermaid, beautiful and cute and full of elasticity. In Kaoru's eyes, Mizuho is like a sleeping angel.
Everyone already knew what had happened to Fumiko's daughter, and they were cautious when speaking, and they seemed to think that they should avoid saying words like daughter, girl, or sister in front of Fumiko. Although Fumiko didn't care, he didn't say anything specifically. Because I said it, everyone was embarrassed.
But his father and Chang thought differently. As the president of a high-tech company that studies human brain function, he is the kind of successful middle-aged man who is busy at work and rarely comes home. Because of the infidelity in marriage was discovered by his wife, he and Kaoru have been separated for half a year, only to wait for their daughter to go to elementary school and then formally divorce, but they did not expect that at this juncture, their daughter had an accident.
As a father, Hechang used his convenience as an executive at a high-tech company to do a lot for his daughter's recovery. At first, he not only purchased the latest technology respirators for his daughter, but also asked the company's researchers to create a set of high-tech rehabilitation equipment tailored for Mizuho to stimulate the spinal cord to exercise the child's muscles.
With the blessing of high technology, although Mizuho is always asleep, she can move her arms and legs in a small range, and her muscles are not only useless, but also grow like ordinary children. Mizuho grew taller in three years, her heart beating strongly, her blood flowing smoothly, and her complexion rosy, like a child who was asleep and could wake up at any moment. However, brain-dead people are so easy to resurrect, there will be no miracles like the fairy tale "Sleeping Beauty" in real life, and Keigo Higashino will not write a fairy tale for everyone to come back from the dead.
Over time, Mizuho's condition did not improve in the slightest. He Chang began to wonder if she would agree if she could rely on these cutting-edge technologies to "live" her child, but could not speak, move and communicate, but could breathe like a walking dead, and could even do some simple movements under the manipulation of a machine. Is this good for my daughter?
However, due to his regrets, Hechang is not determined to tell his wife what he really thinks. The book describes his hesitation and embarrassment as follows:
Even after refusing to donate organs, Wasa chang never thought of discharging Mizuho from the hospital. Although Mizuho still had a heartbeat, it was only like this, he felt that he could only accept the fact that his daughter was dead, and he was also mentally prepared that in the near future, Mizuho would stop breathing in that hospital. No, Hechang is still mentally prepared for this. The smoker should be the same.
It's just that the smoker didn't give up. No matter how slim the medical basis, she was still willing to bet on not knowing if there was a one in ten thousand chance. Perhaps even for a very short time, she still thinks that her daughter is still alive, otherwise it is impossible to plan to bring her daughter in that state home.
Hechang felt that Fumiko was a strong woman, and he couldn't reach it at all.
The attitude of their relatives and friends around them is very subtle, every time everyone comes to visit and sees the sleeping Mizuho, there is a sense of sight like seeing a living corpse. It's just that Kaoru's face is obstructed, and everyone is not easy to say.
Especially since Fumiko controlled Mizuho's body with electric waves, the doubts from her family and the outside world have become more and more intense - having endured all the pain and hardship, and endured all the criticism from the outside world for the awakening of her daughter, is it really worth singing? In addition, is it against the norm for high-tech means to control the child's body and create the illusion that the child is still alive? Where is the legal and moral boundary for judging a person's life and death? These are all questions that need to be answered in a hurry, but cannot be achieved.
Legal, ethical and medical entanglements
Judging by law, if a child is confirmed to be brain dead, it can basically be determined to be dead, either for parents to decide whether to donate organs or sent to be cremated for burial. But the law's definition of life and death must be through medicine, and when doctors can't conclusively determine death, the law can't start. Moreover, the law can never solve people's emotional problems, and it will not pay attention to the grayscale range between life and death, let alone consider human affection.
From an ethical point of view, the behavior of the smoker is well understood. But any parent must understand that Fuzi clings to a glimmer of hope in despair, she is hoping for a miracle, hoping for the child to wake up. What power can make a mother abandon her child?
Law and love, reason and emotion, sometimes it is difficult to choose between the two, just as we know it is better to do that, but we refuse for emotional reasons, and everyone understands because of empathy. For example, what we often call "moral kidnapping" does not belong to the legal category, but it belongs to the moral category.
So, can medicine be used to solve the problem? Unfortunately, out of prudence, the definition of "brain death" in Japanese law is already very vague, and in the current situation of Mizuho, doctors cannot directly determine Mizuho's death.
Current criteria for determining "brain death" in the world include reversible deep coma, no spontaneous breathing, loss of brainstem reflexes, and loss of electrical activity (electrostatic rest).
In 2003, the first patient diagnosed with brain death appeared in Chinese mainland, but brain death is not a death judgment in clinical applications, but a diagnosis, and only in hospitals with brain death determination qualifications can be performed brain death determination test.
In the novel, the doctor is faced with the dilemma that the patient's family is unwilling to give up due to a special situation in the case that medicine has been powerless.
In the end, whether to continue to let the little girl exist in the heavenly world like this, in fact, Higashino Keigo did not give a clear answer, he just borrowed the psychology, behavior and attitude of different characters in the novel, presenting the pluralistic dilemmas of law, ethics and medicine from different angles - the hospital represents advanced science and technology, which can create many human miracles, but also powerful and unsuccessful, at this time, the "ruthless rationality" of the hospital is difficult to accept.
The balance of reason and emotion
Fumiko accidentally found a collection slip in the teacher's bag, and a child wanted to raise high medical expenses to go to the United States for treatment because there was no organ transplantable in Japan. Fumiko took to the streets to collect donations in the name of her teacher, wanting to know if her actions could be understood.
The child didn't raise enough money and died. This incident made Fumiko feel something, she could not be unaware of the slim chances of her daughter's resurrection, but she just did not want to accept reality. Time passed slowly, and no one was willing to speak to the sleeping Mizuho anymore, even Mizuho's younger brother had an opinion.
On the day of her birthday, Fumiko held a birthday party for the living person, and wanted to invite friends and classmates to participate in the event, and also hoped to take this opportunity to tell everyone that Mizuho was not dead. The student did not inform his classmates, because he had a sleeping sister in his family who had been bullying him, he became an outlier in everyone's eyes, and the students were even more reluctant to let the classmates see that his sister was still at home.
Smoke broke down, and she took a knife and called the police to come to the house and forced the police to ask the police - if she stabbed the knife into the chest of her sleeping daughter, was it a murder? If Mizuho is dead, then she is not murdering; if she is not dead, then she will serve her sentence with joy when she is convicted of murder, because she proves that the child is alive and proves the definition of death in her heart. This question from the soul stumped the policeman, believing that even if the doctor was present, the situation would be the same.
After that, Fumiko no longer insisted that "even if the world goes crazy, I have something that I have to guard." "I no longer force others to accept my ideas, but try to accept the fact that my daughter is dead." One night, Fumiko dreamed that Mizuho stood up and said to herself, "Mom, thank you for everything you have done for me, I am very happy, goodbye, you need to take care." Mizuho's physical characteristics data took a sharp turn, and this time Fumiko was finally relieved, and she offered to donate her daughter's organs to pass on her daughter's love. The episode is not so much a farewell from Mizuho as it is a reconciliation between Fumiko and herself, and as a mother, she hopes to perform a warm farewell ceremony in the name of her daughter.
After full communication with the doctor, the Hechang couple agreed to let their daughter undergo the last two rounds of brain death determination tests. In the novel, it is described as follows:
After turning off the power, everyone looks at the monitor that shows the breathing level. One minute, two minutes — the passage of silent time. Hechang felt Mizuho's face gradually turn pale.
The prescribed time ends and confirms that there is no spontaneous breathing. The power to the AIBS was turned on again and Mizuho began to breathe. And Masamune saw it, and once again realized that she was breathing by the power of the instrument.
In the final round of testing, the Hechang couple did not go to the scene, but waited for the news in the family lounge, and when the expected result arrived, everyone put their minds at ease.
This reminds me of another book, The Best Choice by two Harvard Medical School professors, Jelm Gropman and Pamila Hatsband. The book mentions that although technology is currently advancing, many medical fields are still in a gray area, and doctors cannot provide a clear answer to some diseases, when and how to treat them. This is an unsettling reality.
Doctors are not omnipotent, and the best treatment results cannot only be expected by science, but also by democratic consultation. For doctors, the treatment plan is not based on a certain authoritative test data can be hastily decided, doctors need to understand the patient's life situation outside the condition, enter the scene where the patient is, and fully communicate with the patient. If the patient himself is unable to communicate with him, like the little girl Mizuho in the novel who is deeply comatose or even brain dead, it will require full and comprehensive communication and consultation between the doctor and the patient's family, respecting and empathetic.
summary
Keigo Higashino's novel explores the kind of social problems that are very difficult to choose: how to choose when emotions and ethics are in conflict, and how to make decisions when the definition of law and the judgment of society deviate. No one tells us how we should do it, or even the question itself has no answer. Just like in the novel, Kaoruko is forced to accept the bad news of her daughter's accident from grief, to the moment she touches her daughter's hand, to raise hope, and then to help her daughter "live". Guarding like a warrior what she thought she should guard, Kaoru was relieved to see Mizuho in her dream and decided to donate her daughter's organs. Such a mental journey is logically and self-consistently written by the author, which is not easy. Kaoru's every decision, and the ambivalence that accompanies it, is written reasonably. By reading the whole story, we can all understand what the writer is trying to say.