Reborn [Pill reverses "vegetative state"]

The Guardian (UK) ^ | September 12, 2006 | by Steve Boggan

[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.

[Protagoras]

Just for clarity, you oppose all medication and medical care paid for at the public expense?

[Mr. Silverback]

What does that mean? Really? So, let's say...people under a certain age, we'll say, 50, should be kept alive no matter what

That's three times with the same strawman and I haven't even gotten to post yet...

[Mr. Silverback]

I'm just asking a question....and it's a valid question...if you want every body and I mean BODY to be kept alive, no matter what, by whatever means possible, ARE YOU READY TO PAY 80% OF YOUR SALARY TOWARDS TAXES. I'll respect you if you say yes. But that makes you more of a Dem than me, doesn't it?

That's four...

[Mr. Silverback]

No, I'm the person who keep asking WHO IS GOING TO PAY TO KEEP EVERYBODY ALIVE?

That's five...

[AFreeBird]

He suffered several strokes and has many reduced function portions in his brain.

After reading about this, I started thinking along the same lines as you. I'd be interesting in hearing about your experiences with this "experiment". My father has suffered a seiries of strokes. Nothing paralyzing, but enough to make his left side numb and subject to shakes. He also had a brain hemorrage from all the coumadin(sp?) they gave him.

Brain damage is brain damage, I guess it shouldn't matter if the cause was external or internal. But then I guess it depends on the area damaged too. But he does take a sleeping pill, just not Ambien.

[Zechariah_8_13]

YES...the price tag. WHO IS GOING TO PAY? That is a valid question and one, as a Society, we have to face.

Gee, Hildy, I'd happily donate the money for Ambien for all of these people if necessary.

But let's extrapolate a little bit on your "logic".

WHO IS GOING TO PAY?
For heart surgeries
For c-sections
For defibrillators
For artificial limbs
For transplants
For antibiotics

Who pays for these things right now?

What right do you have to determine who is "worthy" of medical attention and who is not?

[T'wit]

>> a hand wringing drama orgasm

:-) :-) Now there's a penetrating concept that ought to find its way into the language! What would you think of calling it an EMOTIGASM?

[T'wit]

>> It's like some scent is released for the Calvary.

Eh? No offense, I'm just curious. Calvary is the hill where Jesus was crucified. Did you mean cavalry -- horse soldiers?

[JMJJR]

bookmark ping

btt

[freedumb2003]

He was her legal husband, no matter what you think of his character. The law is crystal clear. It doesn't allow buttinskys to retroactively apply their moral outrage. And, yes, "food and water" currently are classified as medical care (as it were).

Even if they were following "the law as written" (HA!) they were just doing the same thing that Northerners did when they followed the Fugitive Slave Law and sent escapees back down the river. They're only doing the same thing that an abortionist does when he follows the law as written and rips a small child limb from limb before throwin it in the trash. Keep on cheering for it and pretending you're a moral human being.

I can be against something and recognize the legality of it. You get to pick and choose which laws should be followed? Must be nice.

[Mr. Silverback]

You know, as well as I, that if there's a pill out there that will do that, ANYBODY who believes their loved one will benefit from it will want it and DEMAND it.

I have a dilemma now...do I call this number six, or is it a whole new strawman?

I do think it's very revealing that we may--MAY!--have a cheap treatment for PVS here, and you're busy arguing that it's a bad thing and will cost us all beaucoup money. Y9ou seem far more interested in "liberating" a lot of souls from their bodies than in providing the best care, which would be recovery for these people and a comfortable passing for those who can't be helped.

[Mr. Silverback]

How much is that life worth - $100,000 ? $1,000,000 ? $100,000,000 ? ... a Billion Dollars ? ......... The GNP of the U.S. ?

Why are you supporting her strawman? No one on this board has advocated spending millions of government dollars to keep PVS patients alive. Can you show me some Freepers who have?

[Mr. Silverback]

It's very revealing how nobody wants to answer that question. I've asked it at least 5 times in this thread alone, and people would rather call me disgusting or bitter than address the monetary issue.

Why should somebody answer a strawman? I could go around asking you and the other members of the Kill Terri Brigade "How many puppies do you guys support drowning each year," but I'd be an idiot to expect an answer to an irrelevant and insulting strawman question.

[AFreeBird]

Strokes are brain bleeds which cause damage so I don't see how it can hurt to try.

Strokes are caused by a disruption to the flow of blood to the brain. Such as when plaque breaks off from an arterial wall and travels into the brain where the vessels are too thin to allow the passage of the plaque particle thus starving the cells downstream of blood and oxygen.

But I agree with the second half of your statement; can't hurt to try.

[Mr. Silverback]

He was her legal husband, no matter what you think of his character.

He was also an unfit guardian and unquestionably a perjuror. The law provides for him to be removed, and if the judge had been a judge instead of a death cult hck, that's what would have happened.

[Mr. Silverback]

The thread went nasty right here in post #5.

Funny how some people think it's more "nasty" to call the odious-long-before-Terri Felos and his crowd something bad than it was for them to starve a woman to death and claim she was loving it.

[freedumb2003]

He was also an unfit guardian and unquestionably a perjuror. The law provides for him to be removed, and if the judge had been a judge instead of a death cult hck, that's what would have happened.

The law had a provision, perhaps. But in these cases the legal marriage would take precedence. Had the judge granted the change, it would have been overturned as a matter of law in minutes.

In today's world, catting around isn't considered to be bad character (perhaps that is sad, but it is true).

[Orange1998]

I meant the latter. Thanks for the point.

[RS]

Strawman or not, it's still a question that noone ever seems to want to answer.


As far as your puppy question - None - lethal injection should be used for those unfortunate ones that cannot find private owners to support them.

[JustaDumbBlonde]

Somebody forgot to ping you on 264.