Posted on 10/10/2006 4:04:27 PM PDT by wagglebee
GRESHAM, Oregon October 10, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A young boy, who had previously been diagnosed as being in a “permanent vegetative state,” has awakened from a 22 month-long coma and is breathing on his own.
Devon Rivers collapsed in a seizure during a phys-ed class in 2004 and his condition was never explained, though some doctors suggested it was caused by an unknown viral infection. Doctors agreed, however, that he had little hope of recovery.
His mother, Carla Rivers, visited him regularly and, in addition to physical therapy by his paediatric nursing home to keep his limbs supple, she talked to him in the belief that coma patients can retain their hearing and some understanding.
"For two years the doctors said there was no hope," said Carla Rivers. "Everything that happens in Devon's life is a gain. There's no losses."
Despite the doctors’ gloomy prognosis, eleven year-old Devon is now being prepared for occupational therapy to help him re-learn motor skills and is able to play with his siblings. Doctors cannot explain the reason either for his unexpected awakening or for his steady recovery.
In August of this year his mother, Carla Rivers, noticed that he began turning his head to follow movement; instead of a blank stare, he was reacting to his environment. Days later Devon was breathing without a respirator.
Carla Rivers said, “Devon may make a full recovery or what we see today may be what we get…God's plan is greater than ours. There's nothing we can do to force it any sooner or hold it back,” she said.
Coma patients and others with severe cognitive disabilities have been labelled “hopeless” only to recover frequently enough that some doctors and ethicists are questioning the accuracy of the diagnosis of “persistent vegetative state” (PVS).
The diagnosis is ambiguous in that symptoms of patients can vary greatly and still be called “vegetative.” A 1996 study published in the British Medical Journal showed that 43% of patients diagnosed with PVS do not qualify for the diagnosis.
In 2003, Kate Adamson, a former coma patient who had been diagnosed PVS, appeared on the television talk show the O'Reilly Factor. She said that, like Terri Schiavo, the hospital had removed her feeding tube that was only reinserted after eight days when her lawyer-husband threatened to sue the hospital.
Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Diagnosis of Persistent Vegetative State Questioned as Former Patient Speaks Out
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2003/nov/03111207.html
That was what was such fun in their collision with a highly articulate radiologist / Freeper. See the link in #151 if you haven't. The whole thread is priceless :-)
The autopsy report is written mostly in medical language. It's tough sledding if you don't have background in medicine and language. Presumably that's why the non-doctors here -- like the drive-by media reporters -- don't read it and don't know what it says. Well, more accurately, they are unable to read it. They get someone to interpret it for them. Naturally it ends up sounding like their agenda.
The report does have some Q&A sections at the end written in plainer English, but that won't satisfy them either. For instance, it says in plain English that an autopsy CANNOT confirm a diagnosis of PVS. True believers have to plug their ears and pretend they don't hear.
Two of the final sections are devoted to Dr. Thogmartin's demolition of the silly bulimia theory. This is surely the most important finding of the autopsy. Our visitors should be able to read it, or much of it, but they aren't going to like it. It shoots down Michael's only alibi.
If Terri's injury was due to domestic violence, as seems likely, Michael is the only suspect. That would mean our self-righteous right-to-die squadrons have very diligently been helping a murderer finish off his victim and dispose of the evidence.
In record time I may add. Terri died on a Thursday, had the autopsy on Friday and was cremated on Saturday. The only thing faster than that was Mickey getting into court 2 hours after her death ( probably the delay was that he had to wait for Greer to show up who then signed the document that "Michael Schiavo" was deceased) to seize what was left of her estate.
I should be fair to the other side though, Michael said she "didn't like bugs" for the reason for cremation.
Meaning, she would have divorced him if she'd had a chance.
Reports were that Debbie Bushnell led the charge and was dragging him behind her. He seized far more than assets. He seized rights -- the rights to Terri's estate. That gives him control over future movie, TV and book deals, among other goodies.
Or to put it another way: he gets to go right on making money off her and abusing her memory for the indefinite future.
"I kept my promise"
""and the boy was completely normal."
Not if he had most of his brains blown out."
He might have been a democrat. Then no one would have noticed he was missing most of his brains.
Someday perhaps he'll tell us what the promise was. I'm pretty sure it had to do with punishing her severely if she dared to waste $80 getting her hair cut and colored blonde.
:-)
That was the apex all right. Poor Terri wanted to get rid of him before that.
The count is nearly fifty good neurologists on Terri's side. Note their call for new testing by "unbiased" neurologists. Perhaps these doctors take a dim view of neurologists-for-hire who style themselves "Dr. Humane Death" or such, and boast of how many patients they have sent to their death.
"I have spent the past ten days recruiting and interviewing neurologists who are willing to come forward and offer affidavits or declarations concerning new testing and examinations for Terri. In addition to the 15 neurologists’ affidavits [attorney David] Gibbs had in time to present in court, I have commitments from over 30 others who are willing to testify that Terri should have new and additional testing, and new examinations by unbiased neurologists. Almost 50 neurologists all say the same thing: Terri should be reevaluated, Terri should be reexamined, and there are grave doubts as to the accuracy of Terri’s diagnosis of PVS. All of these neurologists are board-certified; a number of them are fellows of the prestigious American Academy of Neurology; several are professors of neurology at major medical schools."
“On the Record” with Greta van Susteren
Interview with Dr. Michael Baden, Forensic Pathologist, New York , October 24, 2003 [slightly abridged; emphasis added]
Greta: Dr. Baden, a potassium imbalance, let’s first talk about if you have a potassium deficiency, can that cause the condition that Terri Schiavo has?
Baden: Um, can, but... that’s very unusual, Greta, extremely unusual.
Greta: Is there any explanation then in your mind ... why would a woman at her age have a potassium imbalance?
Baden: Extremely unusual unless she had certain kinds of diseases, which she doesn’t have. She was in her twenties. The reason that she’s in the state she’s in is because there was a period of time, maybe 5 minutes or 8 minutes, when not enough oxygen was going to her brain. That can happen because the heart stops for 5 or 8 minutes, but she had a healthy heart, from what we can see. .... I’m sorry Greta?
Greta: No, go ahead.
Baden: [Terri had] a bone scan... from her initial admission in 1991 to the hospital. And that bone scan describes her as having a head injury. That’s why she’s there, that’s why she’s getting a bone scan. And a head injury can cause, lead to the vegetative state that Ms. Schiavo is in now, and it does show evidence that there are other injuries, other bone fractures...
Greta: So, let me back up a second. Head injury. Could she have had, could she have passed out from a potassium imbalance causing a falling head injury? ...
Baden: Something totally different. That it’s extremely rare for a 20-year-old to have a cardiac arrest from low potassium who has no other diseases. So the other issue is could it have been due to some other cause... has to be looked at.
Greta: All right, other injuries and bone injuries, what does that suggest to you?
Baden: Some kind of trauma. The trauma can be from an auto accident, the trauma can be from a fall, or the trauma can be from some kind of beating that she obtained from somebody somewhere. It’s something that should have been investigated in 1991 when these findings were found....
Statement by Dr. William Hammesfahr in response to the autopsy report on Terri Schindler Schiavo (CLEARWATER, Fl., June 19, 2005):
“We have seen a lot on the autopsy of Terri Schindler Schiavo in recent days, that I feel needs to be addressed. To ignore these comments will allow future ‘Terri Schiavo's’ to die needlessly after the wishes of clinicians and family are ignored.
“Considering that there were so many physicians and therapists who were willing to step forward to treat Terri Schiavo, from university based practitioners to those in private practice, it clearly shows that the mainstream medical community across the board, those involved in treating patients, knew that they could help Terri.
“The record must be set straight. As we noted in the press, there was no heart attack, or evident reason for this to have happened (and certainly not of Terri's making).
“Unlike the constant drumbeat from the husband, his attorneys, and his doctors, the brain tissue was not dissolved, with a head of just spinal fluid. In fact, large areas were "relatively preserved."
“The purpose of the therapies offered by so many, from major universities, brain injury centers, and from private practice physicians, is to improve and restore quality of life, and function, which the mainstream medical community clearly tried to get to her.
“I have had a chance to look at Dr. Nelson's analysis of the brain tissue, and essentially, as a clinician, these are my thoughts.
“The autopsy results confirmed my opinion and Dr. Maxfield's opinions, that the frontal areas of the brains, the areas that deal with awareness and cognition were relatively intact. To use Dr. Nelson's words, "relatively preserved." In fact, the relay areas from the frontal and front temporal regions of the brain, to the spinal cord and the brain stem, by way of the basal ganglia, were preserved, thus the evident responses which she was able to express to her family and to the clinicians seeing her or viewing her videotape. The Spect scan confirmed these areas were functional and not scar tissue, and that was apparently also confirmed on Dr. Nelson's review of the slides. Dr. Maxfield's estimates of retained brain weight were apparently accurate, although there may have been some loss of brain weight due to the last two weeks of dehydration.
“Dr. Maxfield and myself both emphasized that she was a woman trapped in her body, similar to a child with cerebral palsy, and that was borne out by the autopsy, showing greater injury in the motor and visual centers of the brain. Obviously, the pathologists comments that she could not see were not borne out by reality, and thus his assessment must represent sampling error. The videotapes clearly showed her seeing, and even Dr. Cranford, for the husband, commented to her that, when she could see the balloon, she could follow it with her eyes as per his request.
“That she could not swallow was obviously not borne out by the reality that she was swallowing her saliva, about 1.5 liters per day of liquid, and the clinical swallowing tests done by Dr. Young and Dr. Carpenter. Thus, there appears to be some limitations to the clinical accuracy of an autopsy in evaluating function.
“With respect to the issue of trauma, that certainly does not appear to be answered adequately. Some of the types of trauma that are suspected were not adequately evaluated in this assessment. Interestingly, both myself and at least one neurologist for the husband testified to the presence of neck injuries. The issue of a forensic evaluation for trauma is highly specialized. Hence the wish of the family to have observers, which was refused by the examiner.
Ultimately, based on the clinical evidence and the autopsy results, an aware woman was killed.”
– Dr. W. Hammesfahr
Reference: Official Terri Schiavo Autopsy Report from Pinellas County Medical Examiner
Note: Dr. Hammesfahr was one of five neurologists assigned by the court to examine the condition of Terri Schindler Schiavo. After spending some hours reviewing her medical records, Dr. Hammesfahr (who did his work pro bono) spent approximately ten hours working with Terri, over three visits, examining her in person. This was more time with her than the other four doctors combined. In contrast, the late Dr. Ronald Cranford spent only 42 minutes with Terri, and reported findings to the court puzzlingly at odds with his videotaped examination.
"Neuropathologic examination of the decedent’s brain – or any brain, for that matter – cannot prove or disprove a diagnosis of persistent vegetative state or minimally conscious state."
A couple of points. (1) Terri's vision was observed; by many observers, in fact. Her cortical blindness was deduced post mortem. (Obviously, it is impossible to test sight after death.) Observation is far more persuasive than deduction.
(2) It is perfectly possible that all doctors and observers were correct, if the cortical blindness was caused by Terri's terminal dehydration. It is also possible that Dr. Thogmartin misguessed. For instance, if the occipital lobes were not quite so bad, or if Terri's brain rewired its optical function a bit. The third possibility, that the ME deduced rightly and everybody else's observations were wrong over all the years, is too far-fetched to consider. Terri clearly had (limited) vision and some hearing as well, being responsive to both visual and audio stimuli. That was tested and observed repeatedly.
Dr. Hammesfahr commented, reasonably enough (#253), "Obviously, the pathologist's comments that she could not see were not borne out by reality, and thus his assessment must represent sampling error. The videotapes clearly showed her seeing, and even Dr. Cranford, for the husband, commented to her that, when she could see the balloon, she could follow it with her eyes as per his request."
" A couple of points. (1) Terri's vision was observed; by many observers, in fact."
It was observed by none. That includes Cranford, which I already pointed out made an off the cuff remark, which was caught on media and used by the parents as part of their con. Cranford's conclusion after the full evaluation was that she was unresponsive to visual stimuli.
"Her cortical blindness was deduced post mortem. (Obviously, it is impossible to test sight after death.) Observation is far more persuasive than deduction."
It was determined that she was blind at autopsy, because they found no working mechanism to provide for the function of visual stimuli reception and processing. Note that the cause for the visual cotical loss was hypoxia and it loss meant the person was blind.
"It is perfectly possible that all doctors and observers were correct, if the cortical blindness was caused by Terri's terminal dehydration."
Note that the cause for the loss was hypoxia and the damage was old. Dehydration does not result in brain atrophy.
<" It is also possible that Dr. Thogmartin misguessed.
Amazing! I thought he was beyond questioning. Looks like that's the case only when he says something that fits your desired scenario.
"Terri clearly had (limited) vision ...being responsive to ... visual ... stimuli. That was tested and observed repeatedly.
No it was not. As the autopsy proved, she was blind. Bambekidis also concluded, that she was unreponsive.
I am
Our son was "blind" like Terri all his 26 year life, yet at times he could lock eyes with us ever so briefly, not as well as with Terri. When he did, he would beam a smile unmistakeable to us and anyone around. Doctors said he was blind. No autopsy for him, although his eyes hadn't dried out for thirteen days as did those of Terri.
I am fascinated how some are so anxious to prove justification for her killing. They will go to great lengths in detail just to find a flaw and somehow excuse the execution of an innocent.
Me, I am an unabashed conservative, do not track in the same footsteps of the far left, all of whom favored her killing and floated or pushed their agenda through attempted debunking of what actually happened.
I don't know T'wit, if it was found that she could see that would pretty much rule out PVS wouldn't it? If was found that she could swallow, that would pretty much rule out PVS, wouldn't it? Then there is the 'pain' factor that is a prerequisite for PVS. I didn't see where he wanted to address that issue since records indicated that she was treated for pain over the years and even into the 'death process'.
I guess we'll never know if Terri Schindler could have recovered!
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