“In the
middle of my intern year, I became Facebook friends with a young man who was
dying in the intensive-care unit. An investment banker in his mid-20s, he
thought he was healthy until a fluttering in his chest and swollen ankles took
him to a doctor. Now he was in the I.C.U. with a rare cardiac condition. And his laptop. That’s the first thing I
noticed the morning a group of us stood outside his room on rounds. He was
shocked by his internal defibrillator three times the night before — died, that
is, three times before being brought back with jolts of electricity. And this
young man with a steroid-swollen face was surfing the Internet.
“Are you
on Facebook?” he asked me. “I’ll friend you, and you can see the pictures.”
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