What Are The Most Memorable Cases In The Book By Oliver Sack?

After my best friend Lily Warren was assaulted, she took her own life. I was the only person who knew who had done it. And I was the one who helped cover for him. When Lily's mother knelt at my feet, begging me to tell the truth, I turned away with a cold face. When the people in town called me heartless and smashed my door, I let my dog, Buddy, attack them without hesitation. Ten years later, I was dying. My long-lost best friend, Claire Sutton, returned as the wealthiest woman in the country. The first thing she did was drag me onto the memory-trial platform normally reserved for death-row prisoners. "Rachel Vale, you disgusting animal. You protected a rapist. Lily and I were blind to ever call you our friend! "Lily has been dead for ten years, and you let her attacker walk free for ten years! "Today, I'm going to use the memory extractor I developed to see exactly who you've been protecting!" But when the real culprit appeared before everyone, Claire Sutton collapsed on the spot. She could barely stay on her knees.

I was the sole heir to the Thirteen Needles of Revival, a legendary healing art. My consultation fee was twenty thousand dollars per visit, yet every year countless tycoons, politicians, and powerful elites lined up outside my door. As long as a patient still drew breath, the Thirteen Needles of Revival could pull them back from Death's doorstep. Over the past five years, I had awakened a wealthy businessman who had been declared brain-dead after a car accident. I had also prolonged the life of a centenarian suffering from multiple organ failure. Even terminally ill patients whose families had already been told to prepare for the worst were able to walk out of the hospital on their own after receiving my treatment. There was only one ironclad rule. I treated no more than ten patients a year. Once those ten slots were filled, no amount of money, power, or influence could change my mind. Whoever came next would have to wait until the following year. This year, only one slot remained. Suddenly, a group of bodyguards dressed in black burst through the door. They carried in a man covered in blood and dropped to their knees before me. “Please save our boss! We'll pay whatever it takes!” I looked at the man they carried inside and spoke coldly. “Take him out. I wouldn't save this man even if it killed me.”

This year, as the country's leading neurosurgeon, I was invited to perform a high-profile specialist surgery at a hospital in another state. Twenty years ago, I stood in this very operating room. My mother suffered a cerebral hemorrhage, and the surgeon's hand slipped by less than a quarter of an inch. She died. Back then, it was my first love, Ethan Lancaster, who helped me through the grief. Only later did I learn the truth. The surgeon listed on the case was Ethan's father, the hospital's renowned Chief of Neurosurgery. But the one actually holding the scalpel was Ethan himself, still a surgical resident at the time. He and Vanessa Hart had planned it all along. They used my mother's operation as a practice case to advance his career. After the tragedy, Vanessa used her status as the hospital director's daughter to bury the entire incident. From that day forward, I gave up my guaranteed research placement and sat for medical school entrance exams again. I studied from undergraduate through postdoctoral training. I spent twenty full years turning myself into the kind of surgeon who would never make that mistake. All so that one day, no one else would have to suffer the same tragedy my mother did. Today, my assistant slid a patient's file across the desk. Brainstem tumor. Late stage. Extremely high risk. The face in the photo had aged considerably, but I recognized it at a glance. I handed the file back to my assistant and removed my surgical coat. “I can't perform this surgery.”

Anthony Seymour couldn't wrap his mind around it. He was the one who'd saved them. And yet, in the end, they kept pushing him away. They toyed with him using false confessions, treated him as someone else's stand-in, and left him gravely injured. He never got so much as a scrap of the good fortune he deserved. Instead, after one emotional wound too many, he developed a disorder that stripped away his ability to feel, and little by little, he lost all attachment to the world. Then, one day, Anthony made a decision. He would end his life, and when he did, he'd use his own organs to save seven others. That would be his final goodbye to the world. From that day on, he began searching for strangers who needed help, using death as his purpose and his method of choosing who to save. But once word got out, the very women who'd once hurt him came flooding back, begging him through tears not to die. Anthony, who'd already lost every last one of his emotions, only found it puzzling. After everything that had happened, he wondered—what were they even crying for?

On my birthday, my mother-in-law had just been wheeled out of surgery, only to be sent straight back into the ER. In a video newly posted by an intern, he was shown holding a scalpel and cutting my mother-in-law open, while the lead surgeon, who was my wife, was nowhere in sight. “Who says interns aren’t qualified to operate? No worries. My Dr. Lover dotes on me.” Colleagues flooded the comment section, saying the couple was sweet and that they were shipping them. I forwarded the video straight to the hospital director. Not long after, my wife called me. Her breath ragged and voice fragmented. “So I forgot your birthday. Is that reason enough for you to go to the director and accuse me of violating hospital rules? “I’m so done with your unreasonable behavior! Even if my mother sides with you this time, I’m still getting a divorce…” She hung up before I could respond. What she didn’t know was that her mother wouldn’t be taking my side anymore. Because the patient who went into massive postoperative hemorrhage and died during resuscitation, under the lead of an intern, was her mother.

My fiancé's junior colleague went around the hospital every day calling herself "the best girl". When a patient with acute appendicitis was admitted, she mistakenly prescribed laxatives instead of proper treatment. The patient nearly went into shock and died. After the hospital was reported by the patient's family, she simply smiled and said, "I don't even need a supervising doctor to prescribe medication anymore. I'm such a good girl!" On another occasion, she failed to order routine pre-op blood work for a surgical patient. During the procedure, a visiting senior surgeon was exposed and later contracted HIV. She actually puffed out her chest and said, "Even if everyone had to stay up all night helping me save the doctor, I'm still the best girl!" I protested more than once and urged my fiancé to dismiss her. He refused every time. He brushed it off with a laugh, saying "this good girl" just needed time and experience. Then, a prominent patient was transferred from a military hospital for surgery. She secretly tampered with the medical records, switching the pathology findings from the left lung to the right. She even revised the surgical plan, recommending removal of the patient's completely healthy right lung. Luckily, I caught the mistake in time, restored the correct pathology report, and performed the surgery successfully. After the patient recovered, he asked for our team to be recognized. To my disbelief, Elena Bakers ran to my fiancé in tears. "I wrote the entire report by myself! All by myself! I'm the best little girl! "Why do you always take credit away from me? It took so much courage for this little girl to be brave just once! "You're all horrible!" Elena stormed out of the hospital and was struck and killed by a car on the spot. My fiancé did not say a word. However, on the very day I was appointed hospital director, he produced falsified evidence accusing me of altering records and causing multiple medical accidents to advance my career. I was arrested, tried, and sentenced to death. As the verdict was delivered, he looked at me with unmistakable satisfaction. "You'll never make up for what you owe Elena. Not in this lifetime." When I opened my eyes again, I found myself back on the day Elena altered the surgical plan.