Posted on 07/14/2010 9:05:26 PM PDT by Nachum
It is a decision no parent ever wants to make. But as the Rudd family watched their 43-year-old son lying paralysed and comatose on a life support machine, they came to a terrible conclusion.
Recalling a conversation where Richard told them he wouldn't want to be trapped in a useless body, his relatives agreed it was time to let him go.
Yet even as the Rudd family mentally prepared to say goodbye, his doctor made a startling discovery.
Despite his devastating spinal injuries, Richard Rudd was still able to blink his eyes in response to simple questions.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
This reminds me of book, “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” a true story by journalist Jean-Dominique Bauby who decribed his life is like after suffering a massive stroke that left him with a condition called locked-in syndrome. Bauby, the editor-in-chief of Elle magazine, suffered a stroke and lapsed into a coma. He awoke 20 days later, mentally aware of his surroundings but physically paralyzed with the exception of some movement in his head and eyes (one of which had to be sewn up due to an irrigation problem). The entire book was written by Bauby blinking his left eyelid, which took ten months (four hours a day)
The will to survive. Powerful.
All the more reason to learn Morse code.
Wink-wi-wink-wi Wink-wink-wi-wink.
I was going to make the same observation.
I saw the movie for the first time about a week ago. Pretty amazing.
Scenes from that were used in Metallica's "One" video.
Great news ping!
A keynote speech at UseNIX told of a patient whose
brain was surgically split at the corpus callosum to
isolate left and right hemispheres. Left and right
sides operate differently, but cooperatively to
form concepts and solve problems. The interesting
observation is that the patient would draw pictures
or letters in the palm of each hand. The separated
hemispheres of the brain realized they could
communicate via touch and shapes to bridge the
surgically cut communications path.
Maybe I should learn Morse Code for, "Don't f@#$ing kill me!"
If all I could do is blink at someone, I believe I’d MUCH rather find out what the ‘next world’ is like. However, to each his own.
Wouldn’t a neurologist, as standard procedure, check for blinking responses in a paralysis/coma victim or is this the cut-rate care you get with British socialized medicine? Geez.
This bears repeating.
>>When we are healthy and in good condition, it’s easy to say you would want to be switched off but when it actually happens it’s completely different,’ he said.>>
CQ
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Ping!
Never expected to LOL on this thread! :)
Morse code is an excellent idea, probably useful in
more contexts that sign language, even simple sign language.
Unhappily the “incredible” part of this story is that
the family and medical staff recognized that the man was
communicating and did not ignore what he was saying.
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