Posted on 07/05/2006 6:14:19 AM PDT by NYer
Mountain View, Arkansas, July 4, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – On Monday The Journal of Clinical Investigation published new research on the recovery of a brain damaged man from his 19 years in a minimally conscious state, adding to the growing evidence that those with “hopelessly” severe brain injuries may be able to recuperate with therapy or other kinds of assistance.
The Journal’s research focuses on the sudden recovery of Terry Wallis, who experienced a car wreck in 1984 when he was 19 years old. The accident sheared the nerve connections in his brain, putting him in a minimally conscious state (MCS) and rendering him a quadriplegic. Terry, a young husband with a newborn child, was considered a hopeless case, especially considering that his family could not pay the $120,000 needed to consult a neurologist about any possibility of recovery. However in 2003, during one of the regular visits of his mother, who had regularly visited him at the Rehabilitation Centre in Mountain View, Arkansas, he made what seemed a sudden recovery, and spoke “mom”, his first word in 19 years.
The research indicates that Terry’s brain grew new tiny nerve connections over time, creating a new nerve network to replace the old one that was severely damaged in the car accident. While doctors and neurologists are still baffled as to ‘why’ Terry recovered, the doctors at the rehabilitation centre have indicated that Terry’s recovery might be attributed to the visits of his family, who took him out on weekends and special occasions. This may have acted as a mental therapy to help his brain recover.
“He now seems exactly like his old self,” says Jerry Wallis, Terry’s father. Over the 19 years of Terry’s coma, both Jerry and his mother Angilee had doubts at some time or another about whether or not it was better for Terry to be alive. However, now both are glad they never caved into those doubts. Since then they have seen their son make strides in his recovery with the ambition of walking for his daughter. “He very often tells us how glad he is to be alive,” says Terry’s father.
Terry Wallis’ remarkable recovery after 19 years, however, stands in stark opposition to the case of Terri Schindler-Schiavo, who received no therapy from her philandering husband after her 1990 collapse. She was instead dehydrated to death by court order in March 2005. Although some doctors claim that Terri Schiavo could not have made Terry Wallis’ recovery since she was in a persistent vegetative state (PVS), witnesses such as former nurse Carla Iyer maintained that with therapy, Schiavo, who said words like “mommy, help me”, could have indeed recovered over time.
New research on the ability of the brain to recover over time questions the hastiness of many in the medical profession to condemn patients as irreversibly brain-dead or damaged. Back in May, South African researchers discovered a drug that helps PVS patients temporarily recover to a fully conscious state. In a BBC interview Dr. Ralf Clauss, a scientist in nuclear medicine and one of the drug researchers, stated that “For every damaged area of the brain, there is a dormant area, which seems to be a sort of protective mechanism. The damaged tissue is dead, there’s nothing you can do,” he explained. “But it’s the dormant areas which ‘wake up’.”
No one said that. What people are saying is that so-called irreversible brain damage may not always be so. This case adresses many of the arguments that came up during the Schiavo case.
Bears repeating that the government ordered her to be killed.
Unfortunately you need more than a medical example to stop judicial murder and turn back the Culture of Death.
You need to take back the courts, the news media, and the culture, against the screaming protests of the leftist elitists who currently have seized the levers of cultural power.
"This particular patient did have some established cognizant ability ..." And video of Terri taken in a wheelchair prior to the court awards of millions her husband-in-name-only sued for show Terri with some cognizant abilities, such as following directions on where to look around a lake. Terri was an inconvenience to the husband's lifestyle goals. Additionally, Terri was a goal for the euthanasia movement so Greer and Felos needed her to be dehydrated to death to point the movement onward and upward. Murdering Terri was far too easy ... I believe a direct result of thirty plus years of serial killing protected by a subpreme court. The state of Florida was the perfect location to vault the euthanasia agenda forward.
There are many now stinking up FR who enjoy rubbing salt in wounds. They are mostly in the Neal Boortz faction of libertarian lalaland and take great pleasure in being as cold and dead-souled as they can convey with their offensive posts. Don't feed the pissants.
Amen, GS. Wise words ...
But I wouldn't agree that it was too late ... but then I'm an eternal optimist.
Yes. This is the scariest point of all. The government denied Terri's civil rights: of religion and LIFE! Terri's first amendment rights were violated, as well as her fifth.
Terri was a lifelong Catholic--as witnessed at her baptism, and confirmation; and then reaffirmed at her wedding. All very public and witnessed by her friends and family. Terri never renounced her religion---and the state forced her to be a participant in an act which is a sin in her religion.
The Terri Schiavo case is a very clear case of FEDERAL civil rights violation, by the state, of an American Citizen. The "American with Disabilities act" is clearly violated:
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA),42 U.S.C. Sections 12101 provides that necessary and appropriate rehabilitation services and physical/motor skill therapy may not be denied a substantially disabled patient in the United States of America.
Cf 28 CFR, Ch 1, Subpart B, Sect 35.130 States "Nothing in the Act or this part authorizes the representative or guardian of an individual with a disability to decline FOOD, WATER, medical treatment, or medical services for that individual."
Finally, think about this: A PROBATE judge in Florida, ordered Terri Killed. A judge who decides the division of property on the event of death, had power over the LIFE of Terri Schiavo. Terri was treated as her husband's PROPERTY---instead of an individual.
Treating women as property was outlawed over one hundred years ago....yet it was done.
I would love for the family to take that case to the Supreme Court.
I think Terri really was hopeless by the first time her feeding tube was pulled. Even so, I didn't agree with the decision. She was a very unusual case, in that she really didn't require anything but tube feeding to stay alive, and her parents and siblings were willing to do this at home at their own expense, so there was no issue of taxpayers or insurers being forced to foot the bill for long-term futile care. In addition, according to all the really qualified neurologists who examined her, she was utterly incapable of any kind of awareness, so there was also no issue that she would be forced to suffer when she might have preferred to have been let go.
Michael's behavior was so appalling from start to finish, that as far as I'm concerned, his feelings shouldn't have been part of the equation (I also don't happen to believe that government should recognize marriage at all, and Michael is a simply awesome poster child for that viewpoint -- that government-issued/recognized piece of paper was the ONLY thing that gave him standing to be involved in the decisions for Terri). Which leaves the feelings of Terri's parents and siblings as the only issue to consider. Even though I think they were deluding themselves that she still had any awareness, there was simply no harm to be done by letting them continue to be comforted by this delusion -- no expense to anyone who didn't share it, no suffering on Terri's part -- and a lot of harm to be done by having them believe she was aware while starving to death.
In addition, in the absence of any written directive from Terri as to what she would want in a situation like that, and in the absence of any objective credibility to Michael's claim that she told him she'd want to die, the best and most objective evidence available as to what she would have wanted was that she had been a very seriously practicing Roman Catholic right up until her "collapse", and that church's position is that food and water must be continued (it authorizes the withdrawal of mechanical support like ventilators, dialysis, etc., but not withdrawal of food and water).
GOOD! Ask away!!! I'd like to hear these answers try to measure up to what was done.
I am fully aware of the circumstances. The medical field is also well aware of people coming back after a coma/ brain damage against all odds. Problem is that it's far and few between. Majority of people DON'T recover is the point. My comments have nothing to do with the legal aspect but the medical aspect. Seems people on here are having a knee jerk reacion to what I typed without fully comprehending what I wrote, which is really annoying. But, it just reminds me that tere are knee jerkers on the left and on the right and both want to see what they want and ignore everything else. Schiavo was a unique case between family members. It's not representative of other people who happen to have brain damage.
Per my post #51, I didn't agree with the decision to pull Terri Schiavo's feeding tube. But there is simply no connection between the Wallis case and this one. Wallis' brain was physically intact, just not working. Most of Terri's brain, and especially the thinking/awareness parts, were simply gone; the space they had once occupied was filled with fluid. Even in a case like Wallis' where the brain is physically all or mostly intact, recovery from long-term coma or persistent vegetative state is extraordinarily rare; with most of the brain absent, it's just not possible. Even if we could learn to re-grow a brain the way we hope to regrow other organs, from stem cells, it would be a new brain and thus not the same person. In addition, Wallis had been in a "minimally conscious state" all those years, not in a coma or "persistent vegetative state" (the latter being what Terri had been in for a long time).
There was no doubt an upsurge in living wills and wills in general. That's useful. But the immediate condition of Terri when she was put to death is directly related to what happened to Terri in the past that put her in the condition she was in when the state ordered her to be put down like some useless pet. And I'm referring to more than the initial event which caused her collapse.
Terri's final brain condition was the result of a cascade over years rather than a few minutes of oxygen deprivation. Her initial trauma was truly severe, but she showed evidence of some recovery from that brain trauma as seen in videos taken during the first year or two after the initial trauma.
As far as I've been able to uncover, no thorough investigation was ever done to assess changes in Terri's condition over the many years her adulterous husband held her life literally in his treacherous, abusive hands. It is still not too late to look more deeply into the cascade of change that Terri went through and correlate those changes with what was happening in her life during each phase. As a writer, I've been itching to get at it ... but the effort is useless without her family's assistance and interest. It doesn't appear that anyone in her family wants to have that occur, so the effort will languish and her abusive husband and his hench ghouls will get away with murder by judicial fiat and national apathy.
Please don't feel that you are being snubbed. They have contractual obligations as a foundation.
Thanks for your post and stay tuned. Someday, what happened to Terri will be exposed and it will be by a whistleblower or two rather than her parents or siblings.
It may not be until after Jeb or his older brother term out and imo, it will be a bust at the federal level. It can't happen at the state level because they conspired and/or covered it up.
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