Posted on 11/29/2009 10:42:29 AM PST by wagglebee
It is remarkable how frequently we underestimate the most powerful force in the known universe: a mothers love. The story of Rom Houben is further proof, if proof were needed. Houben spent 23 years in what doctors regarded as an irreversibly vegetative state after a car crash at the age of 20. His mother, Fina Nicolaes, a nurse, was at all times convinced that her only son was sentient alive, in the fullest sense of the word. Yet all the experts involved in Houbens care declared her son was simply a breathing cadaver. Nicolaes even took Houben to the United States, but there, too, she was told he was completely unresponsive.
In the end it was a specialist in their native Belgium, Steven Laureys of the coma science group at Liège University, who through a technique known as a tomography brain scan determined that Houbens cerebrum was functioning normally.
Thus encouraged, Laureys found Houben had some marginal movement in his right leg and by training that to push a button for yes and no re-established his patients communication with the rest of the world. That was three years ago: now, after extraordinary efforts, Houben is able to use his right index finger to communicate via an electronic keyboard. When he was visited by Der Spiegel, which broke the story last week, the first journalist to see him asked the obvious question: How did you survive for those 23 years, Mr Houben? On the monitor the reply flashed up: I meditated. I dreamt that I was somewhere else. And please call me Rom.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
Yes it is!
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General Petraeus’ approach also works: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV2r42l6sQo
Coma Science Group Coma Science Group Cyclotron Research Center & Neurology Dept University of Liège Allée du 6 août n° 8. Sart Tilman B30 - 4031 Liège - Belgium ... Email: steven.laureys@ulg.ac.be. How to get to the Cyclotron Research Center (follow parking N°45 & 46) ... The Neurology of Consciousness, Laureys S and Tononi G (Eds), ... www.coma.ulg.ac.be/ - Cached - Similar
Another little known medical group and their milestones in better medicine.
Wags, i’m so glad you wrote on this; I’ve been telling everybody about it.
Thanks AV.
We need General Petraeus in the White House rather than the limpwristed left wing radical that we have now. God Help Us!!
Terri WAS NOT on “life support”, she was murdered by forced dehydration and starvation. Water and food DO NOT constitute “life support”, they are basic necessities of life.
One would THINK there would be a medical protocol recognized over widespread regions of the world to diagnose this kind of almost-locked-in syndrome.
I don't think they want to diagnose this, they want to diagnose PVS and kill the patient.
Visit this link to read about a case in Michigan where 2 parents, accused of sexually abusing their autistic daughter, suffered the humiliation of "testimony" using FC. Thankfully, the charges were ultimately dropped. But not after the girl and her brother were placed in separate foster homes, the mother placed on house arrest, and the father was jailed.
Of course it's natural and definitely good to keep hope alive, and I'm very happy that Rom's mother has been by his side for the 23 years he's been in this unfortunate condition, whatever it is.
But for a "therapist" to fabricate a response from these kinds of patients is at best, giving the family false hope like in Rom's case, and at its very worst, completely selfish and destructive.
I honestly don't know where I even stand on this issue. To remove life support and wait out the inevitable is so very wrong, and to administer a fatal dose of something is undeniably, murder. And while there is no price, no dollar amount that can be placed on life itself, the psychological and financial burden of keeping someone "alive" has to be immense. Technological advances in the medical field have come a long way, and we have to ability to sustain life where without, death would surely occur. At what point does this become "playing God" as well?
Providing hydration and nutrition IS NOT "playing God", it is doing EXACTLY what God told us to do (read Matthew 25: 31-46). Additionally, the annual cost of a feeding tube is quite low in terms of medical expenses.
Another reason NOT to sign a DONOR card!!!
Unfortunately, since Terri’s case, water and food ARE considered artificial life support. During my father’s end stage illness, we learned his doctor had entered a Do Not Resuscitate order, despite my father’s consciously expressed wishes. We got a lawyer—twice—to make sure Dad’s wishes were followed. The standard forms had food and hydration listed under extreme measures. The doctors and nurses were quite devious about trying to persuade Dad to choose death.
**Heres the case for not pulling the plug, doctor**
My case for not pulling the pluf — Why commit murder and go to hell?
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