Lia was the Lees favorite child and was energetic and full of spirit. When diagnosed with epilepsy, the Lees did not want to treat their daughter with the prescribed medications because they believed that Lia's seizure condition was honorable, known as quag dab peg in Hmong (Fadiman 1998: 22).
Who are the doctors who treated Lia Lee?
Ms. Lee’s primary doctors, Neil Ernst and Peggy Philp, said the girl and her family profoundly changed medicine. “Lia’s a game changer,” Ernst said.
How long did Lia Lee live in her condition?
But Lia’s underlying medical issues were more complex still, for she had lived the last 26 of her 30 years in a persistent vegetative state. Today, most people in that condition die within three to five years. Lia Lee in 1988.
What caused Lia’s condition?
That cultural divide — despite the best intentions of both sides, Ms. Fadiman wrote — may have brought about Lia’s condition, a consequence of a catastrophic seizure when she was 4. Over the years, whenever Ms. Fadiman lectured about the book, readers would press a single question on her before any other: “Is Lia still alive?”
What is Lia Lee’s legacy?
“Lia’s legacy is to give families with sick children the strength and courage to question their doctors,” Mai Lee said. “We didn’t ask those questions.” Ms. Lee’s primary doctors, Neil Ernst and Peggy Philp, said the girl and her family profoundly changed medicine.
Why did the Lees not give Lia her medicine?
Perhaps, the Lees believed, Lia was destined to become a shaman herself. The Lees did not always give Lia her medication, Ms. Fadiman wrote, because they did not want to interfere with qaug dab peg entirely. To encourage her soul's return, her parents gave her herbs and amulets.
What happened to Lia in the spirit catches you?
Ms. Lee was born July 19, 1982. The day before Thanksgiving in 1986, she suffered her near-fatal seizure at the family's kitchen table. Her father declared, “When the spirit catches you, you fall down,” meaning a powerful spirit was locked inside her body, Mai Lee said.
When was Lia Lee diagnosed with epilepsy?
When she was 3 months old, she had her first seizure. American doctors eventually diagnosed epilepsy. Her mother, Foua Yang, and her father, Nao Kao Lee, called it qaug dab peg (pronounced “kow da pay”).
Why did the doctors at MCMC fail to correctly diagnose Lia with epilepsy at first?
Why did the doctors at MCMC fail to correctly diagnose Lia with epilepsy at first? Lia's seizures had stopped by the time she got to the hospital, and there was no interpreter to explain what had happened.
What's the cause of epilepsy?
When epilepsy is diagnosed in older adults, it's sometimes from another neurological issue, like a stroke or a brain tumor. Other causes can be related to genetic abnormalities, prior brain infection, prenatal injuries or developmental disorders. But in about half of people with epilepsy, there's no apparent cause.
Who is the only one to ask what the Lees are doing to heal Lia?
Jeanine Hilt was the only one who ever asked the Lees how they were treating Lia's developmental delays. She had secured them their disability money and so was held in high esteem.
What do the Lees believe is the cause of the seizures Lia suffers from?
Lia's own family believed her seizures were caused by her soul leaving her body, which could be returned to her via animal sacrifice. Throughout the book, we see Lia's Hmong family constantly questioning the doctor's intention as the doctors uselessly battle against the family's inability to carry out instructions.
What is the illness disease and sickness experienced by Lia as described in The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down?
Beginning in infancy, Lia experiences severe seizures due to Lennox–Gastaut syndrome, a rare form of epilepsy. Anne Fadiman: author and narrator of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, writing about her experience with Lia and her family.
How do the Hmong view epilepsy?
The Hmong name of epilepsy is qaug dab peg, which translates to "the spirit catches you and you fall down*" illuminates the Hmong belief that those who are epileptic are gifted with the ability to enter the spirit realm.
Why did the MCMC doctors have such a difficult time communicating with Hmong patients?
-Doctors have a hard time taking medical histories of Hmong patients due to language barriers. -the hospital has a large number of Hmong patients, yet it has no budget for interpreters. Why did the doctors at MCMC fail to correctly diagnose Lia with epilepsy at first?
What difficulties does the Merced medical Center face treating the Hmong community and Lia specifically?
What were problems with the way Lia's parents were treated in the Merced hospital? - failure to work within the traditional Hmong hierarchy of male/elders making decisions lead to confusion because information was being relayed to people that could not act on it.
Why did the Lees not give Lia her medication?
The Lees did not always give Lia her medication, Ms. Fadiman wrote, because they did not want to interfere with qaug dab peg entirely. To encourage her soul’s return, her parents gave her herbs and amulets.
What caused Lia Lee to die?
The immediate cause was pneumonia, Ms. Fadiman said. But Lia’s underlying medical issues were more complex still, for she had lived the last 26 of her 30 years in a persistent vegetative state. Today, most people in that condition die within three to five years. Image. Lia Lee in 1988. Credit... Anne Fadiman.
Why did Lia have no seizures?
Lia no longer had seizures, because she now had vastly reduced electrical activity in her cerebral cortex, the brain’s outermost layer. She grew only slightly, as is typical of children with severe brain damage: by the age of 30, she was 4 feet 7 inches and weighed 47 pounds.
When did Anne Fadiman meet Lia Lee?
In 1988 , when Anne Fadiman met Lia Lee, then 5, for the first time, she wrote down her impressions in four spare lines that now read like found poetry: barefoot mother gently rocking silent child. diaper, sweater, strings around wrist. like a baby, but she’s so big. mother kisses and strokes her.
Where was Lia Lee born?
The 14th of 15 children born to her mother, Foua Yang, and her father, Nao Kao Lee, Lia Lee was born on July 19, 1982, in Merced, Calif. — the first of her parents’ children born in the United States, and the first born in a hospital. She was plump, porcelain-skinned, lively and beautiful.
Who is Lia's father?
Nao Kao Lee, Lia’s father, died in 2003. Besides her mother, Foua Yang, and her sister Mai, her survivors include a brother, Cheng, and six other sisters, Chong, Zoua, May, Yer, True and Pang. In Merced and far beyond, Lia’s legacy is pervasive.
Where did the Lees live?
In the United States, the Lees eventually settled in a modest apartment in Merced, about 120 miles southeast of San Francisco. By the time Ms. Fadiman met them, Merced’s population was one-sixth Hmong. Image. The book is required reading at the Yale School of Medicine.
What is Lia Lee's medical case?
Lia ’s medical case challenged the Merced hospital by presenting difficult... (full context) Chapter 1: Birth. Lia Lee was not born in the highlands of northwest Laos, where twelve of her older... (full context) Lia was the first Lee child born in America.
What chapter does Fadiman describe Lia's life?
Chapter 18: The Life or the Soul. Fadiman considers whether or not Lia ’s life would have been better if she had been treated by somebody like Arthur Kleinman... (full context) Chapter 19: The Sacrifice. Fadiman describes a healing ceremony for Lia that she attended at the Lees’ apartment in Merced.
What chapter does Foua give birth to?
Foua gave birth to her in Merced... (full context) Chapter 3: The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. Three months after her healthy birth, Lia went into a seizure after her older sister Yer loudly slammed the apartment door. Foua... (full context) ...Jeanine Hilt, a social worker who worked closely with the Lees, once said, ...
Is the Hmong vantage harmful?
What’s more, if they continue to press their patients to comply with a regimen that, from the Hmong vantage, is potentially harmful, they may find themselves, to their horror, running up against that stubborn strain in the Hmong character which for thousands of years has preferred death to surrender.
How old was Lee when she had a seizure?
At 4-foot-7 and 47 pounds, Ms. Lee could speak only with her eyes and her cries. Stricken by seizures since she was a few months old, she battled through, singing Hmong folk songs and joyfully running around her neighborhood. At 4, she suffered a grand mal seizure that stole her speech and her ability to move.
Who is Mai Lee's sister?
But when her parents removed her feeding tube, Ms. Lee cried out. Her sister Mai Lee, 32, said Ms. Lee’s strong will to live, nurtured by her family’s love, faith and constant care, proved the doctors wrong.
What book did Anne Fadiman write about her family's struggles with hospitals, doctors and social workers?
Her family’s struggles with hospitals, doctors and social workers were chronicled in Anne Fadiman’s best-selling 1997 book, “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down ,” which altered Americans’ views on cross-cultural medical treatment. She became a symbol for disabled children and immigrants intimidated and confused by Western medicine.
Where did Foua Yang live?
Foua Yang crumpled in tears on the staircase in her south Sacramento home, just feet from the empty hospital bed where her daughter Lia Lee lived most of her life.
Who said there are no villains here?
Fadiman said there are no villains here — that both the Lee family and the doctors had the best intentions. Ms. Lee was the center of every family ceremony, every birthday, smiling with her eyes and even giggling occasionally. Every day, her mother and sisters would talk to her, feed her, hold her and caress her.
What is the Lia Lee story?
Lia Lee Story. A true story example of when medical anthropologists were not utilized and cultural competency not present at first due to communication and cultural barriers.
Who was the social worker who taught Foua how to administer medication?
A social worker, Jeanine Hilt, made an outstanding patient advocacy effort to speak to Neil for the Lees, teach Foua how to administer the proper amount of medication, and eventually be known as a “large pain in the ass” to Neil (Fadiman 1997: 114).
What was the name of the Hmong baby girl?
The story discusses how a Hmong family came from Laos to America, with no insight on the language or Western way of medicine. Their baby girl, named Lia , began to have seizure type activity at the age of four months. She was brought to the hospital receiving the initial diagnosis of pneumonia.