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 ...
Actually, I think I've mistaken you for another person who follows me around calling me names..so let's talk here. What have I said that makes me so bitter? I just want to know who is going to pay to keep everybody alive no matter what? That doesn't make me bitter, that makes me a realist. And no, I don't think people's bodies should be kept alive by any means possible...I don't think that's humane. Wanting to return loved ones to health is one thing, but doing that against all hope is clearly another. Medical advances enable people to keep bodies alive but I believe their souls should be set free from the confines of a body that does not work. That is spiritual. THAT is religion, is it not?
See #81....I mistook you for someone else
If the family wants to pay or can fund raise to do it, why should you object.
I do not object to that one bit. But that's not what we're talking about. You know, as well as I, that if there's a pill out there that will do that, ANYBODY who believes their loved one will benefit from it will want it and DEMAND it. Then what?
Just wanted to voice my support for your stand...
How much is that life worth - $100,000 ?
$1,000,000 ?
$100,000,000 ?
... a Billion Dollars ?
......... The GNP of the U.S. ?
What price would you put if it was someone elses's money keeping your loved one's body functioning ?
In Terri's case it was more like "against all machinations of the death lobby using hubby in name only as a pawn" than "against all hope." Felos and ilk are professionals at flinging lethally toxic bull crap.
I have a dear gentle cousin who has a PHD in Biophysics. He suffered several strokes and has many reduced function portions in his brain. After reading the article, I intend to contact his neurologist and have him put my cousin on Ambien to see if it could release the locked off portions of his brain. He can write quantum mechanics equations but he cannot explain what they mean, for example. He can write left handed (was right handed) but cannot read. Sometimes when I'm taking him to an appointment or the store, he just breaks out in German and we carry on a halting conversation (my three years of German was back in college, so my Deutsch isn't as fluid now), then just as suddenly he switches to English and confesses he cannot form the words to continue the conversation.
If a pill can help somebody beat Methuselah for the record, I say wonderful.
WOW!!!! This is such an amazing article
It's very revealing how nobody wants to answer that question. I've asked it at least 5 times in this thread alone, and people would rather call me disgusting or bitter than address the monetary issue.
But the pill just keeps you alive, who takes care of you?
Nobody could quote a ceiling but there's certainly a floor you're ignoring.
How does it effect autism?
How do you know that this was not Terri's wish? When it comes down to it, it's really only 50-50.
Hildy,
Why should you care. Isn't that the concern of these families?
Has anyone asked you to pay for keeping someone alive?
Unless and until they do it looks like it's none of your business.
If my family wants me around to talk with me, even if this is only made possible by a "sleeping pill," don't go shouting down my family. This is not rocket science in 24/7 intensive care.
huh?
This whole thing started because someone injected Terri Schiavo into this story, that's all.
Firstly, I'm a student again. 80% of my salary won't keep anyone alive. Thank God for savings and prior gainful employment!
Secondly, if a family member is tasked to care for a loved one the right thing to do is spend the insurance money slated for medical bills on medical bills, not shacking up with some tart and creating bastards.
Thirdly, that whole "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" thing apparently didn't apply to T. Schiavo. I'm sure it's in the founding documents somewhere...
Fourth, and lastly, your rabid and tenacious defense of euthanasia makes me wonder if you made the call to pull your loved ones plugs and are now trying to rationalize it.
I really hope that I'm not hitting too close to home with that fourth point. It is a tough call to make when it is necessary. I just don't believe that it is necessary in every case.
I don't see anything in the articel regarding autism, but the newest research I've seen on autism seems to place the culprit for the autistic brain on another cell functioning apparatus. With this PVS problem, it appears a shutdown mechanism has over workled the function and now it takes some blocking agent to return the brain to normal functioning or near normal. If I can find it, I read a recent article in the BBC medical archives that addressed the latest findings on autism. I'll go dig a bit ... knew I should have linked to that one.
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