Oxygen
by: Carol Casella
Marie Heaton is an accomplished Seattle anesthesiologist who thrives on the precision and challenge of her job, until a nightmarish operating room disaster leaves a child dead and launches a complicated malpractice suit. Marie endures the weight of guilt, legal maneuvering, and the looming possibility of losing her career and her carefully ordered life, but through it all her friend and colleague Joe Hillary becomes her source of support and possibly more. Meanwhile, Marie's family is also in turmoil. Her father is losing his sight, and without an intervention, a series of accidents could worsen into something more serious. Marie’s sister is preoccupied with caring for her own family, and although Marie has been estranged from her father for years, she can no longer justify keeping herself at a distance. As her life and career fall to pieces, Marie uncovers the fault lines of responsibility, betrayal, and truth that can divide us, and the conviction and love that—like oxygen—can sustain us.
Questions:
1) After Jolene’s death, Marie thinks almost as much about her own experience. Why is it so important for her to see Bobbie?
Answer:
Bobbie Jansen is the mother of Jolene. Marie made a promise to Ms. Jansen that she will do her very best just to save Marie's life. That’s why it is important for Marie to see her to show up her sympathy. Since Jolene died because of the malpractice made by Marie, she feels shame to herself and wanting to ask for forgiveness she has gone through.
2) When Marie learns that Turner Syndrome revealed in Jolene's autopsy could make losing the case—and therefore her career—more likely, she wonders "if all money and possession were stripped away,what,exactly, would be left?" What choices does the case force Marie reconsider? What doubts does she have about her life and career?
Answer:
The choices that the case Marie reconsider is the wish or request of Jolene’s mother to do her best just to save the life of Jolene. Marie have made a promised that’s why she need to walk of her talk, meaning for Marie she really needs to fulfil her promised to Jolene’s mother, even though Marie is aware about the narrow line between life and death of the little girl. 3) The balance between vulnerability and control functions on several levels in the novel: between doctors and patients in the operating room, in the legal battle in the aftermath of Jolene’s death, and in Marie's relationships with her father and Joe. What happens when the balance shifts in each situation? What does Marie learn about control about control within each context, or from each person? Answer: The things happen is that in every shifts Marie feel down but in every struggles that she may face she become strong and courageous. For her relationship to her father she learned that after all the problems they have between father and daughter. Her father was always there to love and care for her. Everybody might destroy her but her father will never do that.
4) Joe is one of the most surprising characters in the book. He buoys Marie up, he gives her strength, but in the end he is revealed as the weak one. Were Joe's feelings for Marie genuine? Does his letter change your opinion of him? Ultimately, how does Marie feel about him?
Answer:
For me the feeling of Joe for Marie is not genuine, at the place first they already have this so called romantic relationship before the incidents happens. If Joe really love Marie he will not betray her and would not be the reason why Marie’s life ruined.
Even if Joe explained so much in the letter and asking for forgiveness it doesn’t change the fact that he betrayed Marie. Marie feel disgusted of what Joe did to her. Joe is one of her trusted friend but what Joe did is that he betray Marie the one that give all her trust and respect.
5) The ending of the novel is particularly bittersweet. Marie’s innocence is intact, but Joe's innocence, and her relationship with him, are undone. Were you surprised? Were you satisfied with this resolution?
Answer:
Of course I was surprise when the novel ended up with betrayal between Marie and Joe, they have this strong relationship as a lover and a best friend but Joe did respect Marie. The betrayal made by Joe almost ruin/destroy the career of Marie even her whole life. If I am going to rate the level of my satisfaction to the resolution of the novel it is 50% because for me it’s just alright that Joe admitted that it was his fault why Jolene died. And also Marie realizes that the guy she admire and trust the most would not the man she might be with for the rest of her life. I am also 50% dissatisfied because of the betrayal at the end part. I thought Joe is the one that will carry and help Marie in facing her problems but the novel ended up opposite to my idea.
Literary:
"I...We tried everything. All the drugs that might have helped. We all did everything we could to..."
Chapter 4 page 33
This passage manifest that the operation was unsuccessfully done. This passage tells that Jolene died. It is the day where all the struggles of Dr. Marie come out, all the problems and different cases was accused to her. I choose this passage because I think it is where the climax happens. The death of the little girl, Jolene, is where all the conflict started.
"Medicine is the most humanistic of the sciences as welk as the most scientific of humanities"
Chapter 5 Page 37
"We have enough gods here as it is"
Chapter 34 page 255
"I haven't thought of that in years", I say. "Decades now, I guess. Where were we?
Chapter 26 page 191
“She stares at me, struggling, hoping this foreign medical world holds all the power it promises. Take care of him. take care of my son”
Chapter 20 page 139
Central Message:
In this riveting new novel by a real-life anesthesiologist, an intimate story of relationships and family collides with a high stakes medical drama
Dr. Marie Heaton is an anesthesiologist at the height of her profession. She has worked, lived, and breathed her career since medical school, and she now practices at a top Seattle hospital. Marie has constructed her professional life according to empirical truths, to the science and art of medicine. But when her tried and true formula suddenly deserts her during a routine surgery, she must explain the nightmarish operating room disaster and face the resulting malpractice suit. Marie's best friend, colleague, and former lover, Dr. Joe Hillary, becomes her closest confidante as she twists through depositions, accusations, and a remorseful preoccupation with the mother of the patient in question. As she struggles to salvage her career and reputation, Marie must face hard truths about the path she’s chosen, the bridges she’s burned and the colleagues and superiors she’s mistaken for friends.
A quieter crisis is simultaneously unfolding within Marie’s family. Her aging father is losing his sight and approaching an awkward dependency on Marie and her sister, Lori. But Lori has taken a more traditional path than Marie, and is busy raising a family. Although she has been estranged from her Texas roots for decades, the ultimate responsibility for their father’s care is falling on Marie.
As her carefully structured life begins to shatter, Marie confronts questions of love and betrayal, family bonds, and the price of her own choices. Set against the natural splendor of Seattle, and inside the closed vaults of hospital operating rooms, OXYGEN climaxes in a final twist that is as heartrending as it is redeeming.
Vocabulary:
Coax- Page 2
Meaning: persuade (someone) gradually or by flattery to do something
Sentence: To coax and manipulate the human mind to give up its fierce cluth and control.
Hunched: page 9
Meaning: raise (one's shoulders) and bend the top of one's body forward.
Sentence: Joe Hillary is hunched over a small desk attached to his anesthesia machine.
Preanesthetic- Page 23
Meaning: A preanesthetic agent (or preanaesthetic agent) is a drug that is given before the administration of an anesthetic.
Sentence: I try to relax my posture, disguise the pre anesthetic checklist inside my head.
Splotches- Page 36
Meaning: a daub, blot, or smear of something, typically a liquid.
Sentence: But there are oil splotches on the parking garage wall I`ve never seen before.
Cordial-Page 37
Meaning: a comforting or pleasant-tasting medicine
Sentence: But he`s never touched me in anyway other than the most cordial handshake.
Capricious-Page 41
Meaning: given to sudden and unaccountable changes of mood or behavior.
Sentence: He has a capricious sense of humor.
Flailing- Page 49
Meaning: wave or swing or cause to wave or swing wildly
Sentence: Even nurses aided smirked at our flailing efforts to mesh aced exam with the practical realities of illness.
Marshaled- Page 49
Meaning: arrange or assemble (a group of people, especially soldiers) in order.
Sentence: By a time Lori and I were in high school she`d marshaled a standard list of excuses for missing pitches or walks or trips to the lake.
Carotid- Page 57
Meaning: each of the two main arteries that carry blood to the head and neck.
Sentence: It was a bilateral carotid in and obese woman.
Boxy- Page 73
Meaning: squares in shape.
Sentence: A boxy glass and stucco structure plunked between two pastel Victorian style mansions.
Ergonomically- Page 91
Meaning: an applied science concerned with designing and arranging things people use so that the people and things interact most efficiently and safely —called also biotechnology, human engineering, human factors
Sentence: Sculpting an ergonomically balanced restaurant to be hauled upon our backs.
Frail- Page 99
Meaning: (of a person) weak and delicate.
Sentence: The cashier behind a frail a woman with thinning orange hair.
Tangling- Page 106
Meaning: become involved in a conflict or fight with.
Sentence: The string tangling in grass and twigs.
Hemotocrit- Page 117
Meaning: the ratio of the volume of red blood cells to the total volume of blood.
Sentence- But his starting hematocrit was forty-three and his heart rates stayed in the sixties.
Tenacious- Page 159
Meaning: tending to keep a firm hold of something; clinging or adhering closely.
Sentence: The jet engines fight the tenacious grip of gravity.
Character:
Dr. Marie Heaton
*COURAGEOUS- Marie is courageous in the sense that she is willing to sacrifice her career knowing that she wasn’t sure that she can save the life of Jolene. She has this courage to conquer everything just to do her part as a doctor or anethesiologist.
*GENEROUS – Marie is very generous to all of his patients especially to Jolene.
*LOVING- Marie is very loving to her father and sister. And willing to sacrifice everything for the persons she loved.
Artist:
Discussion Director: Maria May D. Brigole
Literary Luminary: Queenezter V. Guira
Connector: Princess Eleanor M. Casiple
Vocabulary Enricher: Gielyn May F. Pancubila
Character Captain: Maria May D. Brigole
Artist: Jessa Mae P. Cosep
