Posted on 03/07/2007 7:50:20 AM PST by OB1kNOb
Doctors call it a miracle. A Southern Colorado woman was in a vegetative state for more than six years, but now, she's talking for the first time. She spoke exclusively to 11 News.
Christa Lilly had a heart attack then a stroke. That's the last thing she remembers. It was November of 2000, when Lilly slipped into a vegetative state, which is essentially like a coma, but with the eyes open. Lilly was unconscious and unaware of her surroundings. Now, for the first time in six and a half years, she's awake, alert, and talking. "I think it's wonderful. It makes me so happy," Lilly tells us.
The last time Lilly was aware of the world around her, Bill Clinton was in office and the September 11th attacks hadn't even happened. Lilly was also surprised to find out her youngest daughter is now 12. "It's kinda exciting," Chelcy says. She’s Christa’s daughter. And she's also a grandmother of three, that's new too. "Seeing her talking," Latiana says, is the greatest gift of all. She's 6-years-old and the oldest of the grandchildren.
“To come back out of it... God is good," Minnie Smith, Lilly’s mother, says. She has been taking care of her all these years. She says this past Sunday, her prayers were answered. "Every morning, I always check on her when I wake up, before I go to the bathroom. I always say, ‘Hi baby, how are you doing?’ She said, ‘I'm fine’ and that's when I knew she was awake." A two-word answer that changed everything.
Lilly says her biggest frustration is learning how to talk again. "I've been eating cake." Eating is no problem for this woman, who had been kept alive by a feeding tube.
“This is a miracle,” Lilly's neurologist, Dr. Randall Bjork, tells us. He checked to see her how her brain is functioning. He says he's as surprised as everyone else. "This is all mystical and I can't explain it."
Uttering her first sentences in more than 6 years, Christa has a lot of catching up to do.
Lilly's mom says her daughter has awakened 4 other times in the past, but not completely, not like this. There's a chance Lilly could slip back into her vegetative state, but the family is hoping she's back for good.
Last night on an episode of HOUSE doctors removed the entire right hemisphere (HALF) of a man's brain because they believed by so doing his overall brain function would vastly improve. He was neither in a coma or vegetative state before or after the surgery. And the entire program is based on real medicine.
Terri who was not brain dead, or in a comatose or vegetative state, was brain damaged. After Michael left her languishing for over ten years with no therapy what so ever, some recovery for Terri was less promising, but not hopeless. And as cases like the one in this article prove, doctors are frequently wrong.
Without the Schiavo case the media wouldn't be scouring hospital records for such events with such deliberate scrutiny.
Schiavo is iconic, a standard against which all such episodes shall be henceforth measured.
And wouldn't even return her ashes. Michael Schiavo is despicable.
Sounds like a future ad campaign for Verizon or Cingular.
Terrific story but think of the questions and realizations yet to come about what has gone on in the world in just 6 year's time.
Truely, it would be a real Rip van Winkle experience, so to speak.
Wonder what this woman's brain would have weighed if she had been (mercifully) starved and dehydrated to death? (And no, people don't recover from being starved and dehydrated to death.)
Brains are usually dead after a person is killed.
That is usually the case when you are killed slowly for thirteen days of starvation and dehydration. Take a look at her while she was recovering, and before Mikey did further work on her. This was a couple years after the incident. Her many broken bones from the "mysterious incident" had already pretty much mended.
Terri on the road to recovery before the second stage began.
Did anyone tell her what happened to Terri? Thank God nobody found her existence an "inconvenience!"
It helps when your brain isn't pudding.
Next, you need to understand that diagnoses by anonymous keyboard junkies with no sources don't carry any weight around here. All of the doctors who examined Terri Schiavo and testified in court stated under oath that she was aware. Even the doctors who were paid by Michael out of the money he took from Terri's medical funds. The experts on both sides agree, she wasn't dead until after she was starved and dehydrated to death.
There are many threads here detailing the life and death of Terri Schiavo. There are links to documentary evidence which you should become familiar with if you'd like to know what really happened.
Happy FReeping!
Thanks for the condescension and the absolutely masterful spin job.
You have a great future in politics.
Where did you learn to be so paranoid? It really would benefit you to find out the facts. If you aren't interested, that's your own fault, not mine.
> It really would benefit you to find out the facts.
I'm familiar with the facts. I don't recognize them in your telling.
Ms Schiavo's brain was less than half the mass it should have been and there was 4 times the cerebro-spinal fluid there should have been in her skull. There is no way on earth she was "aware".
You can plausibly argue that, despite the fact she had no hope of recovery, in the absence of a living will she should have been remanded to the custody of those family members who wished to maintain her in life.
That's a defensible point of view, and one I happen to share.
So you don't believe the testimony of the doctors Michael hired to testify on his behalf?
Fabulous. God Bless you.
Continuing to pray for Terri's family.
Love your tagline!
Your position is that Dr. Ronald Cranford testified Ms Schiavo was "aware"? Really? Who are you trying to kid?
I'm not rehashing the case with you.
The autopsy closed any door for any but the highly self deluded to think Ms Schiavo was or ever could be consciously aware.
Then again, there are those who insist the world is 6000 years old.
I'm sorry. I thought you said you were familiar with the facts. My mistake.
Okay, since you haven't read the court transcripts, I'll see what I can do to come up with a link for you.
And the autopsy too. It doesn't say that she was never or could never be consciously aware.
8mmMauser & T'wit, do you have links to the court transcripts where the doctors testified about Terri's level of consciousness, and the autopsy report? I promised to look for the links, but something came up and it will be a while before I have the chance. Thanks.
It can't. An autopsy is basically useless in diagnosing PVS. Both the M.E., Dr. Thogmartin, and the assisting neurologist, Dr. Nelson, were at pains to state in writing that diagnosis of PVS must be done clinically with a living patient. (It also requires repeated testing over time, i.e., it's not something that one can do in a single 39-minute session.) Dr. Nelson was asked in a press session if his findings ruled out Terri being conscious to some degree and able to communicate with her family? "No," he said.
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