title: Raising the Dead: A Doctor's Encounter with His Own Mortality
author:  Richard Selzer 
description: The former surgeon recalls his own near-death experience after being diagnosed with Legionnaires' disease and lapsing into a coma. <BR>Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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  _For Tabby . . . and for Al Kooper,_
  
  
  _who knows the playing-field._
  
  
  _No fault of mine._
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## PROLOGUE
  
  
  
  
  
  ### WINDING THE DEATHWATCH (I)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  >
  
  
  Old age is an island surrounded by death.
  
  
  
  
  
  Juan Montalvo
  
  
  ‘On Beauty’
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### 1
  
  
  
  
  
  No one – least of all Dr Litchfield – came right out and told Ralph Roberts
  that his wife was going to die, but there came a time when Ralph understood
  without needing to be told. The months between March and June were a jangling,
  screaming time inside his head – a time of conferences with doctors, of
  evening runs to the hospital with Carolyn, of trips to other hospitals in
  other states for special tests (Ralph spent much of his travel time on these
  trips thanking God for Carolyn’s Blue Cross/Major Medical coverage), of
  personal research in the Derry Public Library, at first looking for answers
  the specialists might have overlooked, later on just looking for hope and
  grasping at straws.
  
  
  
  
  
  