Posted on 10/02/2014 8:16:22 PM PDT by Tired of Taxes
According to the State of California, JahiMcMath has been dead since December 9, 2013, when she went into cardiac arrest after catastrophic side effects from throat surgery.
Oakland Children’s Hospital doctors insisted she was brain dead, that is, she had experienced total brain failure. Under California law, brain death is dead.
When the doctors stated their intention to remove the life support from Jahi, her mother sued. A brouhaha ensued.
A judge appointed an independent physician from Stanford to examine the girl, and he too found she was dead. The judge declared her dead and the state of California issued a death certificate.
But the compassionate judge also pushed the parties into a settlement that released Jahi to the coroner–still on a ventilator–and thence to her family. She was taken out of state.
At the time, I wrote here and elsewhere that I thought she was dead. But I also said that if her body did not deteriorate–as almost all brain dead bodies do–my eyebrows would be raised. Over the last few months my eyebrows have migrated past my receding hairline.
I also wrote that if she was found to not actually be dead, there would be “hell to pay.” That bill may be coming due if the McMath attorney Chris Dolan, succeeds in having the state declare her alive. From the San Francisco Chronicle story:
Nearly 10 months after doctors found that Oakland teenager Jahi McMath was brain dead, an attorney for her family has petitioned an Alameda County judge to have her declared “alive again.” “I have medical experts, including world-class experts on brain death, who will testify she is not brain dead,” attorney Chris Dolan said Wednesday, calling a judge’s refusal last year to compel a hospital to care for her “a grave injustice.”
Oakland Hospital has been just abysmal in its PR in this case–and that maladroit insensitivity continues:
Hospital officials did not return our call seeking comment. However, in their court filing, attorneys for Children’s said Grillo’s ruling upholding the death declaration was “well-supported in fact and law.” What’s more, they said, Dolan missed the deadline to request a rehearing by seven months, and therefore the court no longer has jurisdiction to hear it.
Dolan argues that the court does have the legal authority to rule “in the interests of justice, which are literally those of life and death.”
Good grief. This isn’t about legal procedure. If evidence exists that she is alive, the hospital should be supporting that data coming out.
If evidence exists that Jahi is alive, it needs to be heard! That’s what we do in death penalty cases, after all: Permit new evidence even after procedural deadlines have passed.
Dolan is a well-respected lawyer. He is not saying that Jahi’s mother believes she is still alive, or that family members have detected interactivity in their deep love for her. He is not contending that the California law on brain death is wrong.
He is saying objective medical tests demonstrate that she is not brain dead. Or to put it another way, Dolan apparently believes that he can prove to the court, based on evidence, that Jahi McMath has positive brain function. If so, she is not dead.
Please note, this isn’t the same thing as saying she is awake. A persistently unconscious person is alive. A brain dead person isn’t in a coma, but deceased.
If Dolan successfully proves the case, there will be much hell to pay. There will be consequences.
Fasten your seat belts: This is going to be a bumpy ride!
LifeNews.com Note: Wesley J. Smith, J.D., is a special consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture and a bioethics attorney who blogs at Human Exeptionalism.
Terri Schindler Schiavo was alive, but that didn’t stop the State of Florida from dehydrating her and starving her to death.
Multiple neurologists and pediatric neurologists have found compelling evidence of brain activity and are willing to testify to that.
She’s started puberty. Her hormones are working.
Either it’s a misdiagnosis, a miracle, or the definition of ‘brain death’ isn’t as clear cut as we’d like to think.
One of the “doctors” involved is a psychologist who studied at an online college, among other things that make me think this is another hoax from the family...
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2012/01/meadowlands_hospital_neuroscie.html
http://sfbay.ca/2014/10/02/jahi-mcmaths-family-insists-shes-alive/
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-medical-experts-jahi-mcmath-20141002-story.html
Just a general shout-out.
Please FReepers, please don’t be evil on this thread.
No matter how you feel about this, there’s a mom who loves her daughter and is really trying to do her best with an impossible situation and a little girl who’s really sick.
If you feel hostile toward the mom for having faith that her daughter might live, ask yourself why your feel ‘hostile’ toward the concept.
Then do what your grandmother advised you to do. “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”
Please don’t be mean. I’ve seen these threads go very bad and it breaks my heart. Every article on this topic is laced is venom If you check out the donation site for the girl, you’ll find that people donate just so they can leave and evil comment. (Check out the comments thread. A poster found that)
The *desire* that some people seem to have to see this girl die is astounding. The hatred toward her mother for having faith and trying is astounding. The glee that people are finding in clinging to rumor as truth is stunning.
This case has brought out true evil in so many people.
At least have the grace to have disinterest.
Honestly, I had compassion for the family for personal reasons. I still say the occasionally prayer for the girl, but it’s not the center of my life.
But, as of today, it’s becoming that.
Because I’m coming to honestly believe that something bad wants this girl to die. I cannot find another explanation for the vitriol that people express when it comes to this story. The hatred toward anyone who wants to even *try* to give this girl a chance is irrational. The poison that pours out of every conversational thread is insanity.
Try it, people.
Google “Jahi McMath” then click on any article and begin to read the comments. You’ll find an evil that ISIS would envy.
I didn’t believe in Satan until this.
Why don’t you bring up Calixto Machado?
And, by the way, what about all those experts on brain death who initially diagnosed her, who swore that she’d be dead-dead within 30 days, even with life support, without a brain?
They were wrong abut that... why can’t those experts be wrong about her chances to have some form of brain activity?
(And there was another ‘expert’ who flat-out has a problem with declaring brain death in children as their brains have the ability to repair... was his opinion chopped liver? Apparently not.)
You’re infected.
(proofread, marie... ALWAYS proofread.)
I apologize for spouting off without checking my spelling and grammar. I need to do that because I *know* that my fingers get ahead of my brain.
‘an’ always becomes ‘and’ when I type it. And I mean every single time I try to type ‘an’ I get ‘and’. Spell check doesn’t account for muscle memory.
Please look past my mistakes and hear the message.
For the record, I hope the family’s claims turn out to be true and this young girl is alive.
I posted the article here because, if they prove their case, this case is going to be explosive.
Wouldn’t be the first miracle. I remember hearing of at least one other instance where a patient was declared brain dead and awoke prior to organs being removed.
Maybe that’s why people are so hateful.
They’re afraid that if they let Grandma go on the advice of the docs, they’ll be considered evil. So they have to defend the docs to the death. (Not true)
My husband had a firm DNR. But then I explained to him that a DNR would leave me powerless to trust my gut. My husband *really* trusts my gut. (Bad experiences! lol!)
So he changed it. He trusts me to let him go and not allow him to suffer, but he also trusts me to fight for him if that’s the right thing to do. My gut rules everything. It’s taken a quarter of a century for him to gain that trust in me, but now I have it. (And my family has mine)
The bottom line is that this situation may mean the difference in the control of power over life and death. It in the hands of the doctors or the family?
Even if you find the case unpleasant, don’t you want your family to have the power to resist doctors who don’t know you and don’t care?
Absolutely, I do. I find it interesting that, according to one news report, Jahi is in a hospital in New Jersey. And the reason why is that, apparently, NJ is one of the few states that allow a family to reject a "brain death" diagnosis.
They declared me PVS (I know... that’s not the same as brain dead) and tried to get my mother to sign me over to an institution without even seeing me. They told her that she could have other children and to let me go. They told her that I’d never eat, learn how to use the toilet, or speak. That I was a ‘lump’. A vegetable.
(On some days I would have to grudgingly admit the ‘lump’ part - that’s still a little insulting - but I can use the toilet just fine and I do cook a mean pot-roast.)
It took three months before I cried for the first time. Then I wouldn’t shut up. (That was the first time that I’d ever reacted to pain. My poor mom was dressing her ragdoll with cloth diapers and accidentally pinned the diaper to the baby. I was finally uncomfortable enough to let her know about it. Her guilty admission was that she was so delighted that I was crying like a normal baby - for the first time - that it took her more than an hour to discover the pin. Poor mom! She was trying! lol!)
I healed. I did well. I went to college and married a great guy (who doesn’t see anything abnormal about me... okay, I’m as abnormal as everyone else. I’m sorry) and we have two grown kids that we love to death. First grandchild came this year.
So let the MOM rock. Let her fight and do her thing. She’s feeding her baby’s brain fish oil and fighting for her child.
And, even if the situation were hopeless, isn’t that what moms are supposed to do?
Wow, wow, wow! Thank for sharing your story, I am truly moved.
I agree with what you are stating, it IS what a Mother does.
Will keep this child in my prayers. Looking so forward to see what happens next.
I also thank you for sharing your story-You are a living example of why it is best to side with life. Doctors just don’t know everything.
If indeed there is any brain activity measurable which would indicate a person is actually alive...not just any brain movement....then what's there is likely soup or close to it by now.
I understand you slow down the decomposing process considerably by intravenous means for a time, which is what this looks as to me, but the process does continue.
Why doesn’t her hand look like that in later photographs? You don’t ‘reverse’ decompose.
“So let the MOM rock. Let her fight and do her thing. She’s feeding her baby’s brain fish oil and fighting for her child.”
I agree - let mom do her thing. Of course, if this girl is declared “alive”, she then becomes the financial responsibility of the taxpayers. Right now all her care is at someone’s private expense (or probably being provided at little or no charge by the hospital).
“The uncle would not reveal Jahi’s location. Dolan said he would neither confirm nor deny published reports that she is in the pediatric intensive care unit at St. Peter’s University Hospital in New Brunswick, N.J.
“Nor would Dolan say who is paying for Jahi’s stay. He says the latest legal maneuver is not about money, but he acknowledged that ‘she would be eligible for the same state benefits as every other person not brain-dead on a ventilator, and who gets full medical care.’”
Well let’s see those current photograph’s for comparison.
I also have issue with the mother’s covering her nails with polish. Nails can reveal much about this situation.
There are some who are saying the mother is using this to generate money....but who's to know either way unless someone investigates further.
I just thing there are too many side issues that things are not the way the mother wants them to be.
It was said one of the authorities saying she has brain activity received his certification with an on-line program....so there's just a lot of questions about motives in this situation.
The mother could've settled in a lawsuit against the hospital, if money was her incentive.
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