Interesting question. Very hard to answer as it is impossible to tell what you are feeling/thinking, if you can at all, during a "vegetative state". If I had to chose, I'd want the plug pulled right away. In fact, I'd probably kill myself if I was mentally stable, but had to be restricted to bed with a feeding tube and breathing tube..and all those tubes...
Has there ever been a case where the person returned to a normal state from a vegetative state?
I think the term 'vegetable' is awesome. You just know it was coined by some doctor in the 1800s, who was trying to explain something to a grief stricken mother... "Mrs. Jones, Timmy is alive, and he's breathing and growing, but there is no brain activity... Like a vegetable..."
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sometimes pulling the plug just isnt enough - we truly need some legal avenue of assisted 'suicide' for a better word. When a family member had a brain anyurism (sp), there was absolutely no response to stimuli for 6+ months - but she kept on breathing on her own.
In a meeting with the doctors at the hospital - they recommended to us that we remove her feeding tube - you could have heard a pin drop when everyone realized what the doctors were proposing.
But, not to derail the topic - I dont want to live a life that I cant enjoy simple pleasures, like having sex, or taking a shiesta on my own, or being mobile when I want to be, or to taste food.....pull the damn plug and make sure there is no battery back up!
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sometimes pulling the plug just isnt enough - we truly need some legal avenue of assisted 'suicide' for a better word. When a family member had a brain anyurism (sp), there was absolutely no response to stimuli for 6+ months - but she kept on breathing on her own.
In a meeting with the doctors at the hospital - they recommended to us that we remove her feeding tube - you could have heard a pin drop when everyone realized what the doctors were proposing.
But, not to derail the topic - I dont want to live a life that I cant enjoy simple pleasures, like having sex, or taking a shiesta on my own, or being mobile when I want to be, or to taste food.....pull the damn plug and make sure there is no battery back up!
Good post. I had a family friend whose skin was pretty much peeling off and looked to be in extreme pain for weeks. He couldn't eat or drink and eventually he pretty much starved to death after his kids made the hard decision to just stop feeding him with tubes.
The doctors were helpless because they could do nothing to help him.
It's a big can of worms and not an easy subject to find the right answer.
London - A patient believed to have been in a vegetative state for more than a decade has been able to communicate using the power of thought.
Scott Routley, from Ontario, Canada, was left severely brain damaged after a car crash. He has managed to tell his doctors he is not in any pain.
He is one of several such patients being treated using a pioneering technique developed by researchers at Cambridge University.
Scott’s case marks the first time a patient said to be in a permanent vegetative state has been able to answer questions relating to his care – suggesting he is aware of his condition.
It also means he can communicate in a way that could help doctors improve his quality of life.
Is there a way to get a job being the guy who pulls the plugs on people? Cause I want to do that.
SAIT and NAIT offer the Respiratory Therapy program...we're the ones that actually do the deed once the Dr's have determined brain death. And it's an interesting career, too, not just the pulling the plug part....
Would you want them to pull the plug on you?
Unlocked: man in coma can 'speak'
youtube.com
