Posted on 09/11/2006 8:17:41 PM PDT by aculeus
We have always been told there is no recovery from persistent vegetative state - doctors can only make a sufferer's last days as painless as possible. But is that really the truth? Across three continents, severely brain-damaged patients are awake and talking after taking ... a sleeping pill. And no one is more baffled than the GP who made the breakthrough. Steve Boggan witnesses these 'strange and wonderful' rebirths
For three years, Riaan Bolton has lain motionless, his eyes open but unseeing. After a devastating car crash doctors said he would never again see or speak or hear. Now his mother, Johanna, dissolves a pill in a little water on a teaspoon and forces it gently into his mouth. Within half an hour, as if a switch has been flicked in his brain, Riaan looks around his home in the South African town of Kimberley and says, "Hello." Shortly after his accident, Johanna had turned down the option of letting him die.
Three hundred miles away, Louis Viljoen, a young man who had once been cruelly described by a doctor as "a cabbage", greets me with a mischievous smile and a streetwise four-move handshake. Until he took the pill, he too was supposed to be in what doctors call a persistent vegetative state.
Across the Atlantic in the United States, George Melendez, who is also brain-damaged, has lain twitching and moaning as if in agony for years, causing his parents unbearable grief. He, too, is given this little tablet and again, it's as if a light comes on. His father asks him if he is, indeed, in pain. "No," George smiles, and his family burst into tears.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
I thought it was too. I know if my sick loved one had a chance with this med I would find a way to get it for them. Thankfully I don't have anyone in such a condition.
Her so heartfelt wishes, which hino's family was eventually so eager to aver to, only came to light after hino got his insurance money which was claimed for the purpose of what? For the purpose of TAKING CARE OF HER FOR LIFE. From there it appears to have morphed from initial greed into an ego grudge against the family as the funds dwindled away spent on lawyers rather than nursing care.
As a matter of fairness I'd have wanted to see Terri given a chance at the hands of someone who wasn't permanently cheating on her as well as p*ssing her money away on lawyers to kill her.
Hey I'm not going to join in the whole pile on, but you raised your issue already so to keep repeating is like an attention hording thread jack
This stuff costs about $4 a pill in a month's supply. As a generic it will be significantly less. Family would almost certainly be likely to spring for that if it actually does something.
The floor being what the family would be willing to pay. This is talking about plain vanilla invalid care in a whole lot of cases.
Also George Taylor was on Earth all along.
Just curious - I have no particular insight.
the person who hijacked this thread is the person who invoked Terri Schiavo's name, not me.
I want to know who is going to pay to keep all these bodies alive???
Well for starters we could stop our tax dollars from going to keep murderers, killers Pediphiles and rapists in PRISON for 20-50 yrs who are on death row and unworthy of Our Dime, There are Ropes for that! And as for PVS patients...Miracles happen every day,My Nephew is a Prime Example, He was dianosed PVS 3 yrs ago this month... He stood up in Church the past 2 weeks during the entire service... Some Doctors need a Here's Your Sign Banner waving over their heads with bright red lights.
I think Terri's case is relevant. Why do you have a problem with that? It's a fair reference in this discussion.
Also, I do remember that Terri had a family that was more than willing to care for her, even if her husband did not.
You don't accept that, you believe her husband's assertion about her having a death preference in a situation like this. That's okay. I disagree and so do many others.
No need to advocate for killing off all those in a vegetative state.
I agree with that one. And I'm happy to hear about your nephew....
How about your family. Sorry someone like you may not have somone who would do that. Or someone like you would not take care of a family member. You are getting things mixed up and making to broad a statement and question. What really costs money is intensive care in a hospital. It is not someone who is brain damaged and needs basic nursing care. Food, water, bathing, teeth brushed. All this COULD be done by family members but most will NOT do it as the GOVERNEMT now pays for it. So the family could do it. Would it be hard absolutely. Espically for the modern family. One where there a no or few children. Where children move away and expect the goverment to take care of momma and daddy etc. It is the breakdown of the family unit caused by the government programs that families feel no need to care for their elders or their sick. I know people talk about the high cost of Nursing Home care but that is bogus as it like everthing else depends on where you live. In Arkansas it is 1800 a month. Surly family members along with the patients SS check could if they HAD too pay the bill. But you are right they will not and no one will make them. Not even you.
When did I ever advocate that?
The "how much is a human life worth" question NEVER get answered, yet it seems like these days it comes up very often.
The question is really "how much does society value each individual life" ...
Privately supported life can exist as long as the funds can support.
Public supported life MUST ask the question - do I support ONE person at a million a year at this level or 50 families ?
I guess you didn't read my post #104.
No!
Really?!?
LOL!
[I love that movie...I have that and the first sequel on DVD....real classics]
Right here, isn't that what you are advocating when you say who's going to PAY to KEEP THESE BODIES ALIVE? What's the alternative? Starve them? Withdraw their oxygen? Isn't that basically killing them... or perhaps you prefer another word... letting them pass away (albeit through starvation, suffocation...).
Somebody please show me a human being who was ever in history, in a "vegitative state!"
It's time people of moral and intellectual honesty stop using that term and challenge everyone who uses it.
That is one of the very easiest challenges to win. There is no such thing. It is an ontological absurdity, as well as the fictitous condidtion to which it refers.
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