Woman in 'Vegetative' State Like Schiavo Wakes for Three Days, Speaks, Eats Cake

COLORADO SPRINGS, March 7, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A woman who spent nearly seven years in a coma, woke up for a short time Sunday and started talking. Christa Lilly, a native of Colorado Springs, relapsed into her previous unconscious state today.

Lilly suffered a heart attack and then a stroke in November 2000 and was diagnosed as being in a "vegetative" state but with her eyes open. Like Florida's Terri Schindler Schiavo, she is being kept alive by a feeding and hydration tube while unconscious.

During her short period of wakefulness, Lilly spoke with CBS affiliate KKTV news reporters, saying, "I think it's wonderful. It makes me so happy." She said that she was having difficulty re-learning how to speak, but was eating cake. Lilly had experienced periods of wakefulness before, but had never spoken.

The neurologist overseeing her case, Dr. Randall Bjork, told reporters that he had no answer why Lilly woke up. "This is all mystical and I can't explain it."

The so-called persistent vegetative state diagnosis is commonly used to justify the removal of artificial nutrition and hydration tubes and has added fuel to the euthanasia and assisted suicide movement.

The diagnosis, however, is increasingly being questioned as more patients such as Lilly wake up unexpectedly.

Last year, a report was issued by a group of researchers from Cambridge University in England showing that patients who are apparently unconscious often have more brain functioning than previously suspected.

The research showed that responses to verbal stimuli in a comatose patient were similar to those of conscious volunteers. Dr. Adrian Owen at the Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit at Cambridge, told The New York Times he was "absolutely stunned" by the discovery.

Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
"Vegetative" Patient Shows Conscious Awareness
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/sep/06090804.html

So, if somebody does something that you disagree with, is it because they are anti-Christian? Or are they doing it to defy you simply because you are a Christian?

To answer both questions, no. Those were two very stupid questions. How on earth did you get the notion that because someone disagrees with me on an issue that I automatically classify them as anti-Christian? I would like to have an answer to this question please.

Three months after the crushing deathocrat electoral defeat in 2004, the issue of Terri Schiavo's execution became a national issue. I remember very well how the deathocrats were absolutely insatiable in their lust to see Terri killed. It was a mad rush to execute Terri as quickly as possible. Why? Because the "Christian right" (and a couple of leftist Christians too) were arguing on the side of life. The deathocrats wanted a victory (ANY victory) over the "Christian right".The deathocrats wanted to see Terri dead not so much as a principle of end of life issues, but because they are reflexively anti-Christian. The libertarian element wanted to see Terri executed so that they could show the world that they weren't like the "Christian right".

There was absolutely no reasonable excuse to execute Terri. None. The parents offered to pay for Terri's care. The parents even offered to sign a contract guaranteeing that they would not sue Michael Schiavo. Terri was not harming anybody and she was not threatening anybody. There was simply no good excuse. Society (led by the deathocrats and the losertarians) voted to err on the side of death.

Don't take yourself so seriously. Nobody but you cares about your religion.

"My" religion? "My" religion, if it can be correctly referred to in the possessive sense, has founded universities, built hospitals, fed and clothed the poor around the world, inaugurated the abolition movement, built and maintained orphanages, built and maintained homes for the elderly and feeble, provided counseling for those who are heading down the wrong path, and provided hope to the hopeless. What has "your" religion done?

Don't take yourself so seriously. Nobody but you cares about your religion.

"My" religion? "My" religion, if it can be correctly referred to in the possessive sense, has founded universities, built hospitals, fed and clothed the poor around the world, inaugurated the abolition movement, built and maintained orphanages, built and maintained homes for the elderly and feeble, provided counseling for those who are heading down the wrong path, and provided hope to the hopeless. What has "your" religion done?

Amen to that! Well said and God Bless

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