![]() ![]() Thus, her doctors were able to determine her malady and come up with a game plan on how to treat it. ![]() The next time she arrived, however, she was actively seizing. When Lia first came to the hospital, the language barrier – an inability to take a patient history – caused a misdiagnosis. From this initial collision – different languages, different religions, different ways of viewing the world – sprang a dendritic tree of problems that resulted in a medical and emotional catastrophe for Lia, her family, and her doctors. ![]() None of those doctors spoke the Hmong language. They took Lia to Merced Community Medical Center, a county hospital that just happened to boast a nationally-renowned team of pediatric doctors. Her parents, Nao Kao and Foua, were Hmong refugees from Laos who didn't speak any English. Lia Lee was three months old when she suffered her first epileptic seizure. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down is a sad, beautiful, complicated story that is ostensibly about a tragedy that arose from a clash of cultures, but is really about the tragedy of human beings. In any event, I was locked in, totally absorbed. My wife would ask me what I was saying, and I’d tell her “I’m not talking to you I’m talking to the book!” Sometimes I agreed with Fadiman. During the course of this book, I found myself audibly voicing my opinions at the page like a crazy person. Anne Fadiman’s book is so engaging, and touches on so many sensitive subjects, that it’s more like a dialogue between author and reader. The author is telling you something and you listen. If nothing else can be said about this book, it should be said that it will cause a reaction. Ěnne Fadiman, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down They recognized the resulting symptoms as qaug dab peg, which means “the spirit catches you and you fall down”…On the one hand, it is acknowledged to be a serious and potentially dangerous condition…On the other hand, the Hmong consider quag dab peg to be an illness of some distinction.” Despite the careful installation of Lia’s soul during the hu plig ceremony, the noise of the door had been so profoundly frightening that her soul had fled her body and become lost. The Lees had little doubt what had happened. A few moments later, Lia’s eyes rolled up, her arms jerked over her head, and she fainted. They recognized the resulting symptoms as qaug dab peg, which means “the spi “When Lia was about three months old, her older sister Yer slammed the front door of the Lees’ apartment. “When Lia was about three months old, her older sister Yer slammed the front door of the Lees’ apartment. People are presented as she saw them, in their humility and their frailty-and their nobility.more Sherwin Nuland said of the account, "There are no villains in Fadiman's tale, just as there are no heroes. By 1988 she was living at home but was brain dead after a tragic cycle of misunderstanding, over-medication, and culture clash: "What the doctors viewed as clinical efficiency the Hmong viewed as frosty arrogance." The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down is a tragedy of Shakespearean dimensions, written with the deepest of human feeling. By 1988 she was living at home but was brain dead after a tragic cycle of misunderstanding, over-medication, and culture clash: "What the doctors viewed as clinical efficiency the Hmong viewed as frosty arrogance." The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down is a tragedy Lia Lee was born in 1982 to a family of recent Hmong immigrants, and soon developed symptoms of epilepsy. Lia Lee was born in 1982 to a family of recent Hmong immigrants, and soon developed symptoms of epilepsy.
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