Posted on 10/25/2003 11:35:53 AM PDT by ambrose
Normally in a brain injury, the whole brain is still there --- just parts of it have become inactive from lack of oxygen which destroyed the function of the neurons --- but they neurons don't go anywhere. If her brain is actually physically gone ---- then where did it go? There is a blood-brain barrier --- so it's unlikely the brain got absorbed into the blood stream. Brain tissue doesn't just poof and disappear into thin air.
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Please expand your comment a bit. The court held an evidentiary hearing to assess Terri's chances for recovering "increased cognitive function".
"On the issue that caused this court to reverse in our last decision, whether new treatment exists which offers such promise of increased cognitive function in Mrs.Schiavo's cerebral cortex that she herself would elect to undergo this treatment andwould reverse the prior decision to withdraw life-prolonging procedures, the parents presented little testimony."
I don't see the point of the doctor's opinions, at the evidentiary hearing, unless they hazard predictions of the liklihood of "increased cognitive function".
I know one thing that happens quite commonly with real terminal patients ---- those actually in the process of dying from something like cancer. They're given pain killers and their doctor will tell them --- "Take one of two of these pills for pain, if you take six or more you'll probably go to sleep and never wake up." Then at some point the patient does take 6 or more and never wakes up ---- no one really knows if the patient forgot and took too many or if the patient made a conscious choice to go to sleep forever. Of course this is in a conscious person and one so terminal they're having to live on pain killers.
Acute contusions show hemorrhagic necrosis and brain swelling. Gradually, macrophages pick up necrotic brain tissue and blood. Eventually, the contusion evolves into a yellowish plaque.
http://www.akronchildrens.org/neuropathology/CHAPTER_FOUR.html
Now to google "macrophages".
OTOH, suppose she has cognition.
Suppose that she can't see, can't speak, can't hear, can't move, but her damaged nerve endings are communicating to her brain that she is in a burning lake of sulfur.
I know about macrophages and how that might work with contusions and hemorrhagic necrosis ---- but that didn't seem to be Terri's diagnosis --- or did she have contusions from certain head injuries? I read somewhere it was insufficient circulation to the brain which damaged neurons.
Dr. William Hammesfahr claimed that vasodilation therapy and hyberbaric therapy "could help her improve."
Dr. Webber was denied the opportunity to examine Terri. Therefore he cannot speak on specifics of Terri.
Dr. Hammesfahr was asked to testify on "specifics" that would be improved.
So the parents didn't present little testimony. The courts didn't allow room for Dr. Webber's evidence and Dr. Hammesfahr was asked to predict how Terri's theray would leave her in the end.
If this isn't the response you were looking for, please be more clear on your question.
Of course she's alive, she breathes on her own and her heart beats regularly without external electrical stimulation. Her digestive system works and her blood circulates at the direction of her living brain. That doesn't happen when people are dead. It isn't too hard to tell if someone is dead or alive as long as you don't have a vested interest in their being dead.
Question, if Mrs. Schiavo has no concious knowledge of her condition or her suroundings as the pro-euthanasiacs claim, why do they want her dead? If she is not aware of anything and has no sensations in her body as they claim, IOW if she is just a vegetable, how can she be suffering or even mildly uncomfortable? Why are they so anxious to see her distressed parents and siblings grieving over her death as soon as possible? As long as life is in her body her family has some degree of hope to help assuage their grief. Maybe the money Mr. Schiavo stands to gain at her death explains why he apparently wants her dead, but what motivates those other people who have nothing to gain by her death?
Most Christians and Orthodox Jews believe only God has the right to say when a person dies, so that explains their desire to have her live until natural death overtakes her. But what drives non-believers to so passionately want her killed? The Judeo/Christian religions celebrate life as a gift from God, what kind of perverted religion or philosophy celebrates death?
http://www.uvm.edu/~jkessler/NP/neuropbr.htm
Cranford referred to Terri's "anoxic/ischemic" trauma. Loss of oxygen ("anoxic") causes the neuron to die.
I thought she had a 10 minute loss of circulation from a heart attack, causing the anoxia.
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