real life wrote:Bella Dea wrote:rockpie wrote:what are your opinions on euthanasia? for me, i think it should not be allowed because it is my belief that it is morally, medically and socially wrong. but i'd like to hear some other views on this contraversial topic.
And keeping them artifically alive while they suffer and die painfully is not morally or socially wrong?
Putting them to death against their will, or while pretending to speak for them, would be wrong, would it not?
This would include all active or passive methods that bring about their deaths.
I DO NOT want to be kept alive by machines if that's what's keeping me alive. I DO NOT want to be subjected to tests, treatments and other medical horrors if I have a terminal disease with no hope of recovery.
Bella Dea wrote:real life wrote:Bella Dea wrote:rockpie wrote:what are your opinions on euthanasia? for me, i think it should not be allowed because it is my belief that it is morally, medically and socially wrong. but i'd like to hear some other views on this contraversial topic.
And keeping them artifically alive while they suffer and die painfully is not morally or socially wrong?
Putting them to death against their will, or while pretending to speak for them, would be wrong, would it not?
This would include all active or passive methods that bring about their deaths.
I DO NOT want to be kept alive by machines if that's what's keeping me alive. I DO NOT want to be subjected to tests, treatments and other medical horrors if I have a terminal disease with no hope of recovery.
So if you had to have dialysis, forget about it?
If a doctor told you there was no hope of recovery, would you want a second opinion? A third?
Withdrawal of food and water so that the patient starves or dehydrates over a period of days, is one example IMO of a route that is not a humane method.
real life wrote:Bella Dea wrote:real life wrote:Bella Dea wrote:rockpie wrote:what are your opinions on euthanasia? for me, i think it should not be allowed because it is my belief that it is morally, medically and socially wrong. but i'd like to hear some other views on this contraversial topic.
And keeping them artifically alive while they suffer and die painfully is not morally or socially wrong?
Putting them to death against their will, or while pretending to speak for them, would be wrong, would it not?
This would include all active or passive methods that bring about their deaths.
I DO NOT want to be kept alive by machines if that's what's keeping me alive. I DO NOT want to be subjected to tests, treatments and other medical horrors if I have a terminal disease with no hope of recovery.
So if you had to have dialysis, forget about it?
If a doctor told you there was no hope of recovery, would you want a second opinion? A third?
That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. You know what I mean and are intentionally trying to make me contradict myself.
real life wrote:
Withdrawal of food and water so that the patient starves or dehydrates over a period of days, is one example IMO of a route that is not a humane method.
Ah, you were one of those Shaivo nuts, weren't you? Didn't want to let the poor girl go did you?
Is euthanasia acceptable?
If a person makes it known they want to be taken off life support, it is their right, and there nothing wrong with that. A person in extreme pain, or dying a prolonged death, should be allowed to make whatever decision they want. It is nobody else's business. A law in Texas allows doctors to withdraw treatment from patients they deem "unsaveable." I have no quarrel with that. They allow the family time to look for care elsewhere, before the decision gets carried out. I only know of two situations in the news where the law came into play. In at least one case, possibly both, the patients were moved to other facilities.
May 24, 2006
Starving the Uninsured in Texas
Topics: Euthanasia, Futile Care Laws
Unfortunately, Texas hospitals continue to exploit futile care laws to forcibly remove care from their patients. Yesterday, we received the following alarming email from Texas Right to Life's Elizabeth Graham:
We have two new cases this week: one is a pediatric case in Dallas, and the other is in Houston. The Houston family is not ready to go public yet, or I would be shouting for assistance from the rooftops.
Regretably, they are a little squeamish about the name of the patient being in the press. I was invited to participate in the futility review process at the Houston facility, and it was disgusting and appalling. The attending physician stated that the patient was definitely NOT brain dead, simply brain damaged from a stroke. The paitent is NOT experiencing organ failure, meaning her lungs, heart, kidneys, liver,...everything is working. The patient has a trach collar, but she breathes on her own, and she processes food and hydration appropriately. She is free from infection.
During the meeting, I pointed out that the withdrawal of food and water would effectively starve the patient to death, and the doctors dismissed me as if I did not understand medical science.[/u] I am not sure what exactly is scientific about starvation, but the patient's mother agreed and was bewildered at the discussion of withdrawal of treatment including food and water.
Oh yes, did I mention that the patient has NO insurance? The medical folks involved in these cases adamantly avow that financial considerations never enter into the futility decisions; however, I have yet to hear from the family of any patients with good, adequate health insurance. Our Dallas attorney is working on the pediatric case, and the family was granted some additional days because the facility did not follow proper statutory procedure. This patient has only Medicaid.
Yenlang Vo's Struggle for Life
Several days ago we wrote about the case of Ms. Yenlang Vo, who like Andrea Clark, has been designated by her hospital for passive euthanasia:
Ms. Vo is in her 60's. She is a patient at St. David's North Austin Medical Center here in Austin, Texas. She has been diagnosed with persistent vegetative state--but that is disputed by the family. Ms. Vo's daugher, Loann Trihn, is an emergency room doctor and she disputes the diagnosis. Such a diagnosis is very subjective and involves clinical assessments. Dr. Trihn and her father have both witnessed her mother being responsive.................[/i][/u]
In Houston, 'Ethics' Kills (Andrea Clarke)
The Terri Schindler Schiavo, Center for Health Care Ethics Inc., Throws Support Behind Family of Andrea Clark
Houston's St. Luke's Hospital is giving the family of Andrea Clark until April 30th to find another facility to take Clark as a patient or doctors, under direction of an ethics committee, will remove her from life support.
Clark, who underwent open-heart surgery in January and then developed bleeding on the brain in February, is NOT brain dead and is NOT in a coma. According to her family Clark has also expressed her wish to live.[/i][/u]
[thud]
[clang]
CART MASTER:
Bring out your dead!
[clang]
Bring out your dead!
[clang]
Bring out your dead!
[clang]
Bring out your dead!
[clang]
Bring out your dead!
[cough cough...]
[clang]
[...cough cough]
Bring out your dead!
[clang]
Bring out your dead!
[clang]
Bring out your dead! Ninepence.
[clang]
Bring out your dead!
[clang]
Bring out your dead!
[clang]
Bring out...
[rewr!]
...your dead!
[rewr!]
[clang]
Bring out your dead!
CUSTOMER:
Here's one.
CART MASTER:
Ninepence.
DEAD PERSON:
I'm not dead!
CART MASTER:
What?
CUSTOMER:
Nothing. Here's your ninepence.
DEAD PERSON:
I'm not dead!
CART MASTER:
'Ere. He says he's not dead!
CUSTOMER:
Yes, he is.
DEAD PERSON:
I'm not!
CART MASTER:
He isn't?
CUSTOMER:
Well, he will be soon. He's very ill.
DEAD PERSON:
I'm getting better!
CUSTOMER:
No, you're not. You'll be stone dead in a moment.
CART MASTER:
Oh, I can't take him like that. It's against regulations.
DEAD PERSON:
I don't want to go on the cart!
CUSTOMER:
Oh, don't be such a baby.
CART MASTER:
I can't take him.
DEAD PERSON:
I feel fine!
CUSTOMER:
Well, do us a favour.
CART MASTER:
I can't.
CUSTOMER:
Well, can you hang around a couple of minutes? He won't be long.
CART MASTER:
No, I've got to go to the Robinsons'. They've lost nine today.
CUSTOMER:
Well, when's your next round?
CART MASTER:
Thursday.
DEAD PERSON:
I think I'll go for a walk.
CUSTOMER:
You're not fooling anyone, you know. Look. Isn't there something you can do?
DEAD PERSON: [singing]
I feel happy. I feel happy.
[whop]
CUSTOMER:
Ah, thanks very much.
CART MASTER:
Not at all. See you on Thursday.
CUSTOMER:
Right. All right.
Charlotte Paige Wyatt was born after an emergency caesareans at 26 weeks, three months early on the 21'st of October 2003 at St. Mary's Hospital in Porstmouth, England.
At birth she weighed only 458 grams, and was barely five inches long. She was immediately put in an incubator, and it was three months time before Darren and Debbie were able to hold her.
But Charlotte improved excellently, and by July of 2004 she was eating from a spoon, and required hardly any oxygen. At this time, she could see and hear without any problem.
St. Mary's hospital then decided that it was time to move Charlotte out of the intensive care unit, and into the children's ward. Almost immediately, she got a blood infection, and started needing more and more oxygen. Then the day came when her parents were rung up and told that Charlotte's lungs had collapsed, and she had been put on a ventilator.
Thrice Charlotte was put on a ventilator, leaving her in September needing an oxygen level of 100%. The doctors at Portsmouth then decided that she would never recover, she would be always blnd and deaf, in constant pain, and unable to communicate for the rest of her life. They urged Mr. Justice Hedley to allow them not to care for her if she would need to be ventilated again. Her parents felt she was a fighter and should be given every chance, and they pleaded for her right to life, but the medical establishment was all on the other side. The Judge decided in favour of the hospital.
After the Judge decided that she did not have to receive aggressive care, most Doctors thought that Charlotte would die within few months- during the winter, from another infection- but she did not die, and instead prospered. Slowly, slowly she started getting better. She started being able to respond to her parents again, to laugh, to cry, to smile, and now she can see and hear. She also has started to be able to take food by mouth again, when they place small amounts on her lower lip. Her lungs have grown stronger, and now she needs only 45%, instead of the 100% she had needed last autumn.
In the middle of March, her parents went again to the Judge, and asked him to rescind his order, telling him that their daughter was no longer in constant pain, and was no longer unable to respond. The Judge "was pleased" with Charlotte's improvements, but listened to the hospital, which said that they were not good enough to warrant resuscitation if she got sick again..........
You are doing quite well contradicting yourself without my assistance.
So, dialysis for you, or not?
Is there a list of 'acceptable' machines to keep you alive and 'unacceptable' machines?
Would some machines be 'acceptable' to you depending on how long they were needed, or anticipated to be needed?
If you needed an operation, would you allow them to use machines during the operation to keep you alive?
-------------------------------------------------------
You mentioned that you don't want treatment if there is 'no hope of recovery'.
Are you aware that some illnesses that once were regarded as 'no hope of recovery' are now treated with moderate or high success rates?
Did that happen because people refused treatment?
What if a treatment that wasn't successful with you allowed doctors to learn something that led to a successful treatment? Would you consider that worthwhile (especially since you were gonna die anyway) ?
real life wrote:
You are doing quite well contradicting yourself without my assistance.
So, dialysis for you, or not?
Is there a list of 'acceptable' machines to keep you alive and 'unacceptable' machines?
Would some machines be 'acceptable' to you depending on how long they were needed, or anticipated to be needed?
If you needed an operation, would you allow them to use machines during the operation to keep you alive?
-------------------------------------------------------
You mentioned that you don't want treatment if there is 'no hope of recovery'.
Are you aware that some illnesses that once were regarded as 'no hope of recovery' are now treated with moderate or high success rates?
Did that happen because people refused treatment?
What if a treatment that wasn't successful with you allowed doctors to learn something that led to a successful treatment? Would you consider that worthwhile (especially since you were gonna die anyway) ?
And where have I contridicted myself?
If I was brain dead, I wouldn't want dialysis. Or an operation that would keep me alive. Or anything else because I AM DEAD. What part of that don't you get? You are talking about something completely different.
Dialysis BETTERS someones life as well as prolongs it. Many operations BETTER someones life as well as prolong it (ie, heart transplant). Many treatments for terminal diseases only prolong life but don't allow any quality of life. Nothing like living out the last extra "bonus" 6 months of your life sicker than a dog and wishing they'd have just let you go.
If there is no hope, that means NO HOPE. No one knows what will happen in 10 years or 20 or even 1 year. Maybe I'd wake up again, but science says I won't. And if I did, I wouldn't be me, so what's the point of keeping my body alive when my mind is dead? Maybe they find a treatment in 5 years but my brain is mush and my family is broke. Fun. As well, if I have to sustain a life of crappiness for 5,10,20 years waiting for a treatment, what the hell kind of life is that?
I don't want the burden placed on my family, keeping me alive, wasting money, waiting for a miracle that might never come. I'd rather they let me go and move on with their lives.
Man's brain rewired itself, doctors contend
Nerve connections severed in accident nearly 20 years ago
By Karen Kaplan, Los Angeles Times | July 4, 2006
LOS ANGELES -- Terry Wallis awoke from a coma-like state 19 years after tumbling over a guardrail in a pickup truck and falling 25 feet into a dry riverbed. Now doctors armed with some of the latest brain-imaging technology think they may know part of the reason why.
Wallis showed few outward signs of consciousness, but his brain was methodically rebuilding the white-matter infrastructure necessary for him to interact with the outside world, researchers reported yesterday in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
``I believe it's a very, very slow self-healing process of the brain," said Henning Voss, lead author of the study and a physicist at Weill Cornell Medical College's Citigroup Biomedical Imaging Center.
Wallis emerged from a minimally conscious state in 2003 at the age of 39 and uttered his first word since Ronald W. Reagan was in the White House: ``Mom." Since then, the onetime mechanic from Big Flat, Ark., has regained the ability to form sentences and recovered some use of his limbs, though he still can't walk or feed himself.
Using both Positron Emission Tomography scans and an advanced imaging technique called diffusion tensor imaging, the researchers examined Wallis's brain after he regained full consciousness......
What's more, Jim says Sarah is showing "uncanny recall. It's amazing how -- considering how severe and profound her injury was, her ability to recall -- it's astonishing."
Sarah's doctor, Bradley Scheel, adds that, "It's just been amazing. We're all thrilled. And it seems, almost from day to day, she's able to make more responses. We're really anxious to see how she does from here."
Scheel said physicians are not sure why she suddenly began talking but believe critical pathways in the brain may have regenerated.
"It is extremely unusual to see something like this happen," Scheel said.
Wallis showed few outward signs of consciousness, but his brain was methodically rebuilding the white-matter infrastructure necessary for him to interact with the outside world, researchers reported yesterday in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
Wallis emerged from a minimally conscious state in 2003 at the age of 39 and uttered his first word since Ronald W. Reagan was in the White House: ``Mom." Since then, the onetime mechanic from Big Flat, Ark., has regained the ability to form sentences and recovered some use of his limbs, though he still can't walk or feed himself.
For 20 years, Sarah Scantlin has been mostly oblivious to the world around her -- the victim of a drunken driver who struck her down as she walked to her car.
"It is extremely unusual to see something like this happen," Scheel said.
These people still had some form of congnitive function. Many people, like Terri Schaivo, do not.
Quote:
Wallis showed few outward signs of consciousness, but his brain was methodically rebuilding the white-matter infrastructure necessary for him to interact with the outside world, researchers reported yesterday in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
He had SOME outward signs.
Quote:
Wallis emerged from a minimally conscious state in 2003 at the age of 39 and uttered his first word since Ronald W. Reagan was in the White House: ``Mom." Since then, the onetime mechanic from Big Flat, Ark., has regained the ability to form sentences and recovered some use of his limbs, though he still can't walk or feed himself.
He maintained SOME consciousness.
Quote:
For 20 years, Sarah Scantlin has been mostly oblivious to the world around her -- the victim of a drunken driver who struck her down as she walked to her car.
Mostly oblivious, but not entirely.
Quote:
She could communicate which means she wasn't brain dead.
Quote:
"It is extremely unusual to see something like this happen," Scheel said.
Even the doctors agree that this, even in patients with cognitive function, is rare.
So if you want to use life cases, find ones that fit. Terri Shaivo was brain dead. Her brain was turning to mush. She wasn't coming back. She was not like either of these cases. These cases still maintained a level of hope. They both had conciousness, even if it was extremely minimal.
