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Kept alive with tubes for nearly 17 years

latimes.com

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Re: Kept alive with tubes for nearly 17 years

#21

Post by nonbel »

elliekelly wrote: post #18
bronz wrote: post #17

so 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.

This type of thing is standard in healthcare. Doctors only began saying babies felt pain in the late 1980s, and only then because a mom made a big fuss in the media about it when she discovered on accident that her baby received open heart surgery without anesthesia.

All of a sudden the decades of research that had been interpreted as showing babies didn't feel pain was overturned and new research showed they did.

Medical research really is mostly a series of fads.

Re: Kept alive with tubes for nearly 17 years

#22

Post by adrianN »

nonbel wrote: post #21
elliekelly wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This type of thing is standard in healthcare. Doctors only began saying babies felt pain in the late 1980s, and only then because a mom made a big fuss in the media about it when she discovered on accident that her baby received open heart surgery without anesthesia. All of a sudden the decades of research that had been interpreted as showing babies didn't feel pain was overturned and new research showed they did. Me…

I can imagine that there are legitimate reasons not to use anesthesia on babies who show no signs of remembering the pain when they've become able to communicate. Anesthesia is not without risk, probably doubly so for a developing brain.

Re: Kept alive with tubes for nearly 17 years

#23

Post by DoreenMichele »

est31 wrote: post #20
DoreenMichele wrote: post #11

He 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.

At home, the family spoke Mixtec, an indigenous language; at school, Ignacio learned to speak Spanish. He was the only one in his family who went to school past the primary grades.

And he's spent about half his life in the US with extremely limited ability to interact at all and probably mostly hearing English.

What language do you think he's supposed to be capable of responding to? One of the two he grew up with, but hasn't actually used in half a lifetime?

There are documented cases of people with head injuries losing the use of one language they knew but not another.

I have a serious medical condition and I grew up in a bilingual home. I've had incidents where I was exhausted and stressed out and could not speak English for an hour or more, only German, though I'm not especially fluent in it.

I don't care what language you use with Ignacio. He's probably not mentally fluent in any of them anymore, having nothing to do per se with how impaired his brain is and everything to do with the fact that he's probably mostly not heard either Mixtec or Spanish for half his life and has instead been immersed an English-speaking environment with which he mostly couldn't interact.

Re: Kept alive with tubes for nearly 17 years

#24

Post by nonbel »

adrianN wrote: post #22
nonbel wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This type of thing is standard in healthcare. Doctors only began saying babies felt pain in the late 1980s, and only then because a mom made a big fuss in the media about it when she discovered on accident that her baby received open heart surgery without anesthesia. All of a sudden the decades of research that had been interpreted as showing babies didn't feel pain was overturned and new research showed they did. Me…

I can imagine that there are legitimate reasons not to use anesthesia on babies who show no signs of remembering the pain when they've become able to communicate. Anesthesia is not without risk, probably doubly so for a developing brain.

So? Does that mean babies don't feel pain? Because that is what the medical profession concluded. Here is a good overview: http://nocirc.org/symposia/second/chamberlain.html

Re: Kept alive with tubes for nearly 17 years

#25

Post by [deleted] »

hestipod wrote: post #14
jimmaswell wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

Re: Kept alive with tubes for nearly 17 years

#26

Post by [deleted] »

hestipod wrote: post #14
jimmaswell wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

Re: Kept alive with tubes for nearly 17 years

#28

Post by sysbin »

Insane! Stories like this one make me question if it should be a requirement for every person to have on file his/her AMD for situations related to this outcome. People shouldn’t fear death or existence may be an extreme prison of torture. Why people continue to allow this is beyond me. Heck only till recently in all of humankind has this kind of torture become a thing. Geese..

Re: Kept alive with tubes for nearly 17 years

#29

Post by sysbin »

chillfox wrote: post #19
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well the same can be thought about death.

Re: Kept alive with tubes for nearly 17 years

#30

Post by redis_mlc »

flukus wrote: post #15
hestipod wrote: post #4

This 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 b…

Sounds like measles.
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