Excerpts

Now Released

 
     

The Last Collaboration

by

Martha Deed

with Millie Niss
(May 6, 1973 - November 29, 2009)

 

The Last Collaboration is now available free online at

http://www.furtherfield.org/friendsofspork/

or in book form with updates at

www.amazon.com

The Last Collaboration is a re-construction of Millie Niss's life and death in a community hospital icu. Because Millie was intubated but alert, her side of every conversation was recorded in a series of notebooks she sent home with her mother, Martha Deed. Millie's notes, emails, the daily diary she sent home, and posts to her blog are set into frames constructed from her mother Martha Deed's log, Millie's medical records, clinical guidelines, and the outcomes of two New York State Department of Health investigations of Millie's care. Millie wanted her story told. She wanted an autopsy performed if she died. Because of the autopsy, we have the story. Because Millie was an artist and a poet, because her mother is also an artist and a poet, because Millie Niss and Martha Deed often made art together, and because both mother and daughter were trained patient advocates, we have this multimedia fatality review.

The Last Collaboration and City Bird are companion books,
designed to represent Millie's poetry and advocacy for herself and other chronically-ill people.