She was starting to grasp that this is what the closing phase of a modern life often looks like—a mounting series of crises from which medicine can offer only brief and temporary rescue. She was experiencing what I have come to think of as the ODTAA syndrome: the syndrome of One Damn Thing After Another. It does not have a totally predictable path. The pauses between crises can vary. But after a certain point, the direction of travel becomes clear.
