How severe is it? Will it have a short or long course?

Why are you asking us those questions? If you are a good doctor, you should know the answers yourself.

What kind of treatment do you think the patient should receive? What are the most important results you hope she receives from this treatment?

You should give Lia medicine to take for a week but no longer. After she is well, she should stop taking the medicine. Long-term treatment should be spiritual and involve restoring her soul. During her illness, the Lees employed several traditional remedies to restore her soul. For instance, they sacrificed a cow to boost Lia's health because the souls of sacrificed animals are precious and vitally connected to human souls. They spent money on amulets filled with sacred herbs and even tried to change Lia's name so that the dab who stole her soul would be tricked into thinking she was someone else. According to Lia's mother, this plan was foiled because the doctors persisted in calling her Lia and not by her new name. The Lees also believed that doctors should not treat Lia by taking her blood or the fluid from her backbone (lumbar puncture) as this only aided the dab. The conflict between testing and treating Lia in hospital or treating her at home with Hmong medicines and spiritual events was a constant source of tension for the Lees but did not really enter into the thinking of Lia's doctors. Finally, the parents hoped that Lia would be healthy, but they were not sure they wanted her to stop shaking forever, because qaug dab peg made Lia noble in the Hmong culture, and when she grew up she might become a shaman.

What are the chief problems the illness has caused?

It has made us sad to see Lia hurt, and it has made us angry at Yer (Lia's older sister).

What do you fear most about the illness?

The Lees were most worried that Lia's soul would never return. Most of their actions involved trying to protect her soul. They attempted to feed her herbal remedies through the nasogastric tube. They demanded that the subclavian line be removed and that all medications be discontinued. They believed that Lia was so sick that she might die and concluded that the medicines weren't working and possibly making her worse. They were very angry with the doctors for being specific about when Lia would die after her IV was removed because they thought that this knowledge would embolden the dab and he would come closer to Lia. Her father's attempt to take Lia out of the hospital was a last-ditch effort to thwart the dab.

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