Hi exDemMom,
Could you comment on post 77.
I accidentally addressed it to wagglebee.
Thanks
Hi MD Expat in PA,
Almost two years ago you wrote a lengthy and detailed post on Jahi McMath.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3108741/posts?page=26#26
Two paragraphs are:
“The heart has its own internal pacemaker (think of it like a battery pack for a laptop). With artificial respiration the heart continues to receive oxygen so the heart can continue beating after brain death, but without input from the brain, it will eventually stop even with artificial respiration, typically the heart can be kept beating in a brain dead person on a ventilator, but for not much longer than a month, although most people who have been verified to be brain dead are taken off life support by or before then so it is unclear how long the heart can be kept beating in a brain dead person while on vent.”
And
“It is unclear in Jahi’s case if her internal organs, other than her heart, are still functioning at this point and why a feeding tube is very likely futile and may even hasten her bodily deterioration as insertion and maintenance of a feeding tube has a high risk of infection and pumping nutrition directly into the stomach of a person who’s gastric system is likely no longer functioning, is probably why Children’s Hospital, and no doctor the family contacted, wanted to perform the procedure.”
Can you comment on Jahi McMath today, nearly two years later? It has certainly been much longer than a month.