A former classmate of mine made the decision to pull his wife off life support, just last night.
She had been brain dead for 5 days; and, apparently the doctors use 5 days as a measuring stick. They told him ‘it was time to make some decisions’.
He obviously loved her very much - he poured his heart out for 5 days on a blog like site called Caring Bridge. His wife’s mother and sister were there, when they ‘pulled the plug’, so I think they were in agreement.
I was astonished that 5 days seemd to be the limit...the point at which the doctors started pressuring him to remove her from the machines. But, I have no medical expertise whatsoever, and I assume the doctors know when there is ‘no chance’.
Then this article comes along...and I don’t know what to think.
Try 30 seconds, and the brain still functioning. My Dad went on a ventilator, and within 30 seconds a little RAT-FACED Dr with a foreign accent was telling me to pull the plug.
Dad was still awake, and able to communicate by squeezing our hands. Once for yes. Twice for no. I told rat face that he was not God, and he couldn’t possibly know how things would turn out. I demanded that the antibiotics be given time to work.
Death panels have been here for a while already.
Sad story. I’m sure this article would freak him out. I’d hate having to make that decision for my wife.
In all reality doctors know very little about the brain. Medical tests are not reliable either, people showing severe effects of brain damage can have normal looking scans, and people with little effects can have scans that show a lot of damage.
It really is a world of mystery, and yet some doctors are willing to make huge decisions based on something they really don’t know about. It makes it very hard for family to make a decision as to care, though many families don’t know how little is really known about the brain.
There is a lot of research being done right now by the military and doctors working with the military because we have many who have suffered traumatic brain injury (TBI) in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“I assume the doctors know when there is ‘no chance’.”
I think that what doctors want people to assume. In reality, they have no more definitive answer than the rest of us as to whether or when people will recover from these traumatic brain injuries. They may have a general sense of the probabilities, but there is no way for them to accurately judge any specific case.
At the huge per day cost of a critical care unit most insurance is totally gobbled up in 5 days. The hospital and doctors are more concerned about the money than the patient.
This process can remove all doubt as to sentience of the “vegetative” one vs’s no personality response at all. It will make it easier to make decisions such as “pull the plug”...though in a lot of cases, folks who have “weathered” the initial storm or needing vent support are often vent weaned to just trach/collar O2 support with suctioning as needed with the patient breathing on his/her own but still in a coma/ semi comatose state. (many times a trach isn’t even needed as some patients have enough autonomic ability to cough and swallow with little air way management needed though they’ll still be Gastric tube fed)
It's an awful, awful decision one has to make and will likely have second doubts about it for the rest of your life. The only thing you can gain comfort from is knowing that another critically ill child or adult and their respective families will be given a second chance at life thru the harvested organs.......
My younger brother, then 38, was critically injured in a car accident back in 1998 while on business in California. He laid in a coma for a week before the decision was made. We were told that approximately 35 people would be the beneficiaries of his death....I just wish they could have know what a wonderful kid he was.
It's not "the doctors"--it is the hospital. The doctors do not set the policy. The hospital administrators do. The state boards that supervise hospitals do. The doctors are the agents.