Do you really need a frontal lobe?

Free Republic ^ | 3/19 2005 | Salamander

[TASMANIANRED]

I have the consent of Salamander to post this.

In the interest of clarity for those undecided about Terri's quality of life and her potential for recovery, I post Salamanders story. A fascinating take on the nature of brain injury and its effects on consciousness.

I have no frontal lobe. It was destroyed in an accident in 1981. All that's filling up the space is scar tissue and spinal fluid. Apparently I'm still functioning and "thinking" to some extent. I won't bore you with the details of the damage I also sustained in my temporal and parietal lobes and cerebellum.

Suffice it to say that I was declared "hopeless" by the doctors in the hospital and that *if* I ever awoke, I'd be a "vegetable" for life. They told my parents that injuries *much* less severe than my own usually killed people, outright.

After an 11 day hospital "death watch", I simply awoke and asked for a cheeseburger. There was no gradual "improvement" in health. I just woke up and that was it. [I had my cheeseburger and walked out of the hospital that same day and went out to dinner and dancing, that night] Miracle? Probably. With the exception of anosmia and a balance problem [inner ear bones damaged too], I was "fine". I have to work a little harder to recall things due to short-term memory problems and my fine motor control isn't as fine as it used to be, but and I *am* "functioning and thinking to some extent".

I hope you understand now why I am so disgusted by people who say that "this part or the other of her brain is missing and therefore there is no hope". I am lacking major parts which are supposedly "vital" to consciousness and "self" yet here am I, lucid and functioning superbly.

My point is, there is always -hope- and science doesn't even begin to understand how the brain can "reroute circuitry" to compensate for damaged areas.

Having nearly been like Terri, myself, I have a vested interest in her welfare.

She deserves an attempt at rehabilitation. She deserves physical and mental stimulation. The brain will "atrophy" when deprived of such things and my doctors have flat-out told me that my own efforts to "exercise" my mind, post-injury are responsible for the fact that I am "firing on [almost] all cylinders", today.

I ~could~ have "been her" and she could yet have a chance to "be me"....or at least greatly improved, if only her adoring spouse would allow her that chance.

[TASMANIANRED]

For the fence sitters, Consider a first hand account from one of our own.

[BCrago66]

What's the point in posting stuff already posted on another Free Republic thread? When there's already 50 Schiavo threads?

[King Prout]

does Salamander have current high-res MRI and PET images we could take a look at?

[Imaverygooddriver]

If brain damage is a fctor in removing someones food, then when can we remove Hitlery Clintons?

[muawiyah]

Why post it again?

Well, it's a hot topic and some of the participants in the various Schiavo threads might have missed it.

I missed it.

Funniest thing, I had always thought that when they remove your frontal lobes you turned into a modern Liberal ~

[PhiKapMom]

Thanks for posting this off another thread that some of us might never see! Ignore the naysayers! What an incredible story and one that should make everyone think that Terri deserves the right at rehab which is being denied by her husband.

[King Prout]

possibly because this is a rather singular bit of data, far more medically interesting than the emotionally charged usual from both sides of the issue, which deserved being rescued from a 2000+post thread and presented as a stand alone?

[Solamente]

I remember reading about WWI soldiers who had substantial parts of their head and brains blown away, yet survived, the theory being a split second transference of memory and motor skills to an "unused" part of the remaining brain.

I guess some people have RAID backup.

[TASMANIANRED]

Ask him, I don't know what documentation he/she has.

I know that I personally had to fight a physician through the ethics committee over a patient he insisted was in PVS.

I knew the kid was trying to come up and he thought I was a stroppy nurse.

[King Prout]

interesting: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1366396/posts

[pieces of time]

In the past few days I've heard more stories like this. People who were considered finished by the medical community who are alive, kicking and functioning well. I don't know what's in Terri's future but she should be given and should have been given) the chance to find out. Medicine has come a long way in the 13 years that Michael has denied her attention.

Remember when they thought that Down's Syndrome babies were worthless? Or that Cerebral Palsy was caused by a lack of oxygen at birth and was the fault of the delivering doctor? How long ago was it that children died of measles, whopping cough, scarlet fever? Just because one, or several doctors say something is so doesn't mean it is. Here's a perfect example.

[Salamander]

LOL!
I have tons of them, somewhere.
[4 or 5 of them stacked together are wonderful for watching eclipses]

I've never had PET scans done.

CAT scans were done at the time of the accident and in the mid-80s, they switched to the "new" MRIs.

[Mo1]

What's the point in posting stuff already posted on another Free Republic thread? When there's already 50 Schiavo threads?

I haven't seen this before

Thanks for posting this BCrago66

[Salamander]

I was a liberal -before- the accident.
A year later I switched to Republican.

[guess I had to have some sense literally knocked into me]

[TASMANIANRED]

Thanks,

[KoRn]

"When there's already 50 Schiavo threads?"

That's a conservative estimate. I would think it to be around 100 or so. I was completely sick of this story before, it's reached a terminal case with me now. By the time this is all over I may be ready to be 'put down' too. lol

[socialismisinsidious]

isn't the frontal lobe suppose to be for emotions/affect? you know the whole lobotomy thing to "calm" unruly patients years ago?....if you don't mind me asking have there been changes in that area?

[STARWISE]

Incredible story bump!!! Thank you SO much for posting this, and God Bless You, for having the courage and support to survive this unbelievable challenge. Thank you for sharing your heartwarming and inspiring story.

[King Prout]

side-trivia: I lmao when they had to change the name from "nuclear magnetic resonance" to "magnetic resonance imagery"

another side-trivia: I wish I had a copy of the MRI the Army ran on me at old Madigan in '91.

if you don't mind posting the images of the insides of your melon, I'd be interested in looking at 'em.

re: Terry - to me, at this point, the fact that the court is preventing a full battery including PET is "curious to the point of damnatory"

[TASMANIANRED]

King, you know that I am a nurse.

I have participated in DNR orders, I have turned ventilators off. I have lived through both sides of the issue here.

I also find the issue of "prevention of re-evaluation" damnable.

I also find the prevention of any therapy for spoon feeding damnable.

I also find the pretense of dehydrating/starving an adult with a healthy body as painless beyond abhorent.

I have with held food an fluids on patients that were in the process of dying. It was never the deciding factor.

Usually it was done to prevent aspiration or because every vein in their body's were used up and the patient/or family said no more sticks.

It was the last thing you did, not the first.

I resent the debasement of the Art of Medicine .