Was it a desire... a loving, dominating desire to help the sufferer... to lighten her pain, to save her?

so extreme can the phenomenon be that the sufferer may fail to acknowledge the existence of the left half of the body

Care giving, as illustrated by our case, includes what happens when hope and consolation are abandoned, when theodicy ends, and when all there is to do is to be present with the sufferer, sharing his or her suffering by simply and usually silently being there.

She translates for a volunteer paramedic as he examines the painful feet of Karim, a Hazara school teacher and diabetes sufferer who has been walking for weeks with his family. He has deep tissue necrosis in both feet and will, it seems, have to undergo a double amputation.