Posted on 09/11/2006 8:17:41 PM PDT by aculeus
We have always been told there is no recovery from persistent vegetative state - doctors can only make a sufferer's last days as painless as possible. But is that really the truth? Across three continents, severely brain-damaged patients are awake and talking after taking ... a sleeping pill. And no one is more baffled than the GP who made the breakthrough. Steve Boggan witnesses these 'strange and wonderful' rebirths
For three years, Riaan Bolton has lain motionless, his eyes open but unseeing. After a devastating car crash doctors said he would never again see or speak or hear. Now his mother, Johanna, dissolves a pill in a little water on a teaspoon and forces it gently into his mouth. Within half an hour, as if a switch has been flicked in his brain, Riaan looks around his home in the South African town of Kimberley and says, "Hello." Shortly after his accident, Johanna had turned down the option of letting him die.
Three hundred miles away, Louis Viljoen, a young man who had once been cruelly described by a doctor as "a cabbage", greets me with a mischievous smile and a streetwise four-move handshake. Until he took the pill, he too was supposed to be in what doctors call a persistent vegetative state.
Across the Atlantic in the United States, George Melendez, who is also brain-damaged, has lain twitching and moaning as if in agony for years, causing his parents unbearable grief. He, too, is given this little tablet and again, it's as if a light comes on. His father asks him if he is, indeed, in pain. "No," George smiles, and his family burst into tears.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Ah, the "No Thread left Untarnished" rule.
And your medical degree is in...?
While my grandmother wasn't bedridden, I took care of her for over ten years as she had dementia. I included her in a lot of activities and chores around the house. There just wasn't a whole lot she could do without risking her life and mine.
A few months ago, it reached a point where it was getting virtually impossible and my whole life was put on hold because I was basically caring for my grandmother who had trouble putting her own clothes on properly or turning on the faucet for the bath tub. So my father (her son), my mother and I moved my grandmother into a nursing home facility.
If that isn't enough, THEY are having a helluva time trying to keep her from wandering outside the building, getting her into bed at night at a decent hour (she harasses other residents until 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning).
Now my aunt (dad's older sister) is threatening to have dad turn off the water, and the utilities in my grandmother's house that she has promised is mine when my grandmother passes on, because my aunt has NO compassion for me, my father, or her OWN MOTHER. She's worried about the inheritance money.
I've pretty much stayed out of the fight as I have very little to say regarding the matter, but silly family disagreements like this is enough to set anyone off.
I've seen it all first hand. I don't need to be lectured by holier-than-thou types about what's right and what's wrong.
Not once, have I, my father, or my mother made money an issue in this.
I never read that original post. I was busy responding to another post. When I'm on that screen I don't always see all of the posts that come up while I'm typing It came to my attention when you so prominently brought it there. I have never advocated anyone using threats on any forum, so quit trying to align me with that poster.
In any case good for you for defending Hildy, but I don't see how one can defend someone by insulting the name of a dead young woman.
Damn straight it does. Becaise your only arguement rests on the assumption of the extortion of wealth from the aggregate of society to sustain one, or the mere concept of the electorate [individually] of their "one" being sustained and milking votes, and at this point in time, the electorate will vote for anything that will "save them"...
you should rejoice that individuals can be saved by this, and merely work to insure that the process that created it can continue...
Yup Send him to the Gallows.
People who actually LIVE these life stories know it's not about money or anything else.
It's one thing to post day in an day out on an internet forum.
It's quite another to actually sign a DNR.
Well, in reading the article, I see that it is called "zolpidem" - overseas and "Ambiem" in the US - it's the one advertised on TV with the ethereal luna moth fluttering about.
Exactly. Terri Shiavo and two buzz words right from the start: murderers and thug.
Can't stay on topic and discuss this possible break through. Oh no. Must eneact the "No Thread Left Untarnished" rule.
good one ;o)
Tragic situation. It's also sad that your grandma didn't deed her house to you before her dementia set in.
Isn't that just what these people do 24/7 on this site by speaking for her like she was their best friend or their child?
Exactly. Not once has money been an issue between my grandmother and I. I pay my own bills (internet and satellite TV), and I still pay my grandmother rent each month.
There are those out there who have made Terri their poster child for one side or the other.
I feel her case is relevant in the discussion of end of life issues. That case can be made in a respectful way. On both sides.
Her case is no relevant to every single thread on this forum.
Oh yes she did. It's even written in her will. My father and her went to her attorney and had it written into her will 10 years ago before the dementia set in. In fact, before she had her will revised, she promised me at the kitchen table over dinner one day that the house and everything in it were going to be mine someday. Her car has been willed to me. She is still alive, so legally, they're still hers, and I treat them as if they were hers.
Not.
Then tell your aunt to mind her own business.
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