He could hear, but he couldn’t understand language.
English wasn't his first language. Or even second.
That has to be complicating things.
Kept alive with tubes for nearly 17 years
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Re: Kept alive with tubes for nearly 17 years
#12What a sad story. I'm glad the reporter bothered to find out this man's name.
Re: Kept alive with tubes for nearly 17 years
#13I look at my family and I can't imagine the date of that family.
12 kids, mom and dad and 9 kids dead...the others scattered :(
Re: Kept alive with tubes for nearly 17 years
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
I suspect after enough months of no stimulus you just go unconscious. Your brain learns to be conscious why wouldn’t your brain learn not to be. It’s normal mode is to stop caring about noise.
Learn morse code so you can communicate with any action you can do, like in Johnny Got His Gun (the basis for One by Metallica)
The guy in my story had no voluntary movements so Morse wouldn't have helped. But memorizing:
.-.. . -
-- .
-.. .. .
Could be useful.
*Cannot format it properly sorry.
Re: Kept alive with tubes for nearly 17 years
#15This has to be a "worst nightmare" for most people. I came across a guy a very long time ago who had been in a long term care unit after an auto accident for something like 15 years at that point. The story I was told, and I don't know it's veracity, is that he was resuscitated against his stated wishes and the hospital was paying for his care forever. His eyes would open but he didn't respond in any way to any stimu…
There are also cases where an advanced directive isn't possible like with children. An ambulance driver friend of mine had a patient a few weeks ago, a newborn that had been abandoned, was deaf, blind, thought to be mentally retarded (not sure why) and suffering from heart failure. Apparently there was quite a bit of ethical debate at the hospital that night.
A DNR might be good for people in specific circumstances but an advanced directive should not be required to be allowed to die.
Re: Kept alive with tubes for nearly 17 years
#16As a 58 year old, I think semi-constantly about my need for an advanced health directive. I also now suspect (reading this) that whilst no 15 or 16 year old is actually capable of processing the issues (amygdala) even young people need an AHD. I'm all in favour of the tubes. My partner is not. If you don't know, then your fate in the system is left to others. The AHD won't give you your wishes but it at least tries t…
Hard for me to imagine wanting this life. Imprisoned in a state worse than solitary confinement for more than a decade. Life is very good, most of the time, but there are states where less is more.
Re: Kept alive with tubes for nearly 17 years
#17so he was mostly unresponsive but could still feel pain. they were doing stuff with his tubes with no pain meds for almost two decades. that has to be one of the most horrifying things ive ever imagined.
Re: Kept alive with tubes for nearly 17 years
#18so he was mostly unresponsive but could still feel pain. they were doing stuff with his tubes with no pain meds for almost two decades. that has to be one of the most horrifying things ive ever imagined.
That was really surprising to me. I’m not a doctor but it seems easy enough to assume that patients in a vegetative stage can feel pain and medicate them accordingly. The risk of over medicating in that situation seems to be outweighed by the risk of someone having to suffer in silence.
The assumption that someone who can’t communicate pain is unable to feel pain seems misguided at best.
Re: Kept alive with tubes for nearly 17 years
#19As a 58 year old, I think semi-constantly about my need for an advanced health directive. I also now suspect (reading this) that whilst no 15 or 16 year old is actually capable of processing the issues (amygdala) even young people need an AHD. I'm all in favour of the tubes. My partner is not. If you don't know, then your fate in the system is left to others. The AHD won't give you your wishes but it at least tries t…
Hard for me to imagine wanting this life. Imprisoned in a state worse than solitary confinement for more than a decade. Life is very good, most of the time, but there are states where less is more.
That really depends upon how bright you think the future is.
If you think the future will bring amazing medical breakthroughs and immortality, then tubes is only temporary and all you gotta do is hang on long enough.
Re: Kept alive with tubes for nearly 17 years
#20He could hear, but he couldn’t understand language. English wasn't his first language. Or even second. That has to be complicating things.
Read a bit above the quote:
> With the help of a video interpreter, Schnakers gave Ignacio a series of commands.