There is no medical argument that touches any of that.

The rightness of the decision and the theft of the fifty-one hours are two entirely separate things and everybody who tries to use the first to settle the second is doing something I have had to learn to interrupt.

Part Ten: What He Signed

The consent document is one page.

It is a standard form.

There is a box for the patient’s name, which has my son’s medical record number in it because he did not have a legal name yet on the morning of the fourth of March.

There is a paragraph of text.