Posted on 07/06/2006 12:39:40 PM PDT by wagglebee
On a July evening 22 years ago, 20-year-old Terry Wallis climbed into a pickup truck with two friends and rode off down a rural Arkansas highway. He never came back -- or, more precisely, he never came back the same.
The truck went off a bridge.
One of Wallis' friends was uninjured; the other died. Wallis barely made it. First, he was in a coma, then in what doctors called a "vegetative state," and then in what they called a "minimally conscious state."
He was paralyzed from the neck down and couldn't talk.
His parents assumed legal guardianship from his wife, made sure he was cared for at a rehabilitation center and brought him home for regular visits. Then on July 11, 2003, when Mrs. Wallis went to see her son, as the Chicago Tribune reported it then, Terry spoke his first word in 19 years: "Mom." Soon, he was able to converse.
"There is nothing I know of to explain scientifically what happened," Terry's doctor, James Zini, told USA Today. "I think it was a miracle."
Understandably, a group of medical researchers decided to seek a natural explanation. They did two sets of scans of Terry's brain 18 months apart, and compared these to scans from healthy people, and from another man who had suffered a similar injury six years ago, but had not recovered. They published their findings this week in the Journal of Clinical Investigation (JCI). Their conclusion: "We propose that axonal regrowth may underlie these findings and provide biological mechanisms for late recovery."
In other words, they believe Terry's brain is repairing itself.
Since this revelation, some media reports have cited doctors keen to draw a distinction between Wallis and Terri Schiavo, the Florida woman whose deliberate killing by dehydration last year ought not to have been allowed, even if she had had no hope of recovery. Nonetheless, these reports suggest that Schiavo could not have experienced a recovery like Wallis did, because her brain injury was more severe.
CBS Evening News reported: "Now this discovery will change the way doctors think about patients in the so-called minimally conscious state. But it won't affect all patients, like Terri Schiavo, who was in a kind of coma known as a persistent vegetative state."
The Associated Press noted of Wallis' recovery: "(D)octors said the same cannot be hoped for people in a persistent vegetative state, such as Terri Schiavo."
This type of not-like-Terri claim is not new.
Donald Herbert, a New York state firefighter, went into a "decade-long stupor" in 1995, according to the Buffalo News, after "a roof collapsed on him" and "he was deprived of oxygen for up to 10 minutes." Herbert, who died of pneumonia this February, suddenly began talking again in April 2005 after his doctor, Jamil Ahmed, treated him with a drug cocktail. Ahmed told the New York Times his patient's pre-recovery condition had been "close to the persistent vegetative state."
But NBC's "Today Show" quickly cited doctors who drew a line between Herbert and Schiavo. "Neurologists who examined Terri Schiavo say her case was different, that she was in something called a persistent vegetative state, from which there is almost no chance of recovery," the show reported
Yet, truly the most telling fact about Wallis' recovery was stated by Dr. Nicholas Schiff of Cornell University, who co-authored the JCI study of Wallis' case. "We read about these widely publicized cases of miraculous recovery every few years, but none of them -- not one -- has ever been followed up scientifically until now," he told the New York Times.
Dr. Steven Laureys, a Belgian neurologist who co-authored a commentary in JCI that accompanied the Wallis study, told the Los Angeles Times: "It obliges us to reconsider old dogmas."
So why should anyone now want to draw a bright line between Schiavo and almost-unstudied recoveries like the one Wallis made?
Lady MacBeth could never rub out the spot of a king's blood she imagined on her hand -- and no matter what science tells us tomorrow, there's no erasing what's already been done to Terri Schiavo.
So why should anyone now want to draw a bright line between Schiavo and almost-unstudied recoveries like the one Wallis made?
The Culture of Death will NEVER admit it's errors.
Terri Ping.
DISCUSSION ABOUT:
What's the difference between Terry and Terri?
The Culture of Death is evil and must be stopped.
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Terri's brain was liquified...Terry's brain wasn't. You asked the difference, I'm telling you. Now go ahead an insult me...that's what you wanted, right?
Great post!
GOD IS GREAT! Doctors are mere men, they should never have ANY clout on playing God and decisions of life or death.
another great miracle..... Hope you enjoy it....
http://www.patsysmiracle.com/
There was a good deal of deterioration of Terri's brain - a lot of fluid replacement - but there was still brain tissue left.
Mrs VS
insult you?
actaully I pity you....and am praying for you as well....
believing the media is not a wise move, and research is a good thing....not to mention faith, love, support, etc.....
Keep your prayers, please. I answered a question...
Please look at post 94 on this thread, by Polybius - don't know if you saw it already.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1659932/posts?q=1&&page=51
Mrs VS
Please look at post 94 on this thread, by Polybius - don't know if you saw it already.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1659932/posts?q=1&&page=51
Mrs VS
Never indeed. And we're 'mean-spirited' if we dare remind them!
Their big concern with Terri was how much Michael (!) would suffer watching her die. It's revolting.
But major congratulations to Terry and his very devoted family - he clearly benefited from their efforts. Something Terri's family wanted to give her but were blocked from doing by her husband. And the valuable lessons doctors (those not enmeshed in the culture of death) can learn from Terry will give help and hope to future Terrys and Terris everywhere.
People will always see what they want to see...on both sides of any issue.
LOL!
you did answer a question. with a point of view, not facts, and then proceeded to assume ill will towards you. then- applied another opinion in the form of a question- challenging that the person you were addressing would want to flame you....what is so cute about the whole thing is that you are the one who was trying to flame...but you did it in such a coy way....
very clever...but the libs have wore that trick out by now...
I enjoy praying....and will especially enjoy praying for you....
Terry's wife didn't want to marry someone else, so Terry wasn't "standing" in her way, so she didn't kill him?
oy. How wonderful you must feel about yourself.
You obviously buy into the picture was posted on the Internet. How do you know that the picture was actually of Terri Schiavo? It was just posted and we were told it was from Terri's scan. I don't believe anything that Michael's side said about her because he could never tell the public when Terri changed her mind. To get a big settlement, Michael told a courtroom that Terri wanted to live. After the settlement was paid, Michale told a courtroom that Terri would really want to die. I doubt seriously that the scan on the Internet was actually Terri's. I am for choosing life for the disabled unless there are written instructions FROM THEM to the contrary. Period.
Oh yes, the big conspiracy.
Oh yes, the big conspiracy.
>>>What's the difference between Terry and Terri?>>>
TERRI is dead. Was murdered in one of the cruelest manners by a government since Nazism. Even Saddam killed his citizens quickly.
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