Family wants to keep life support for girl brain dead after tonsil surgery #1

[Isabelle]

I have been following this case, or incident as we would call it in the medical field. I see all of the attention being given to whether or not the child is brain dead and whether or not she should be removed from life support as a smoke screen attempting to deflect attention away from what caused the problem in the first place. I will tell you my story:

Working night shift on a Pediatric unit, I came on one shift and was assigned a 5 year old boy who had his tonsils out that day. The report that I was given indicated he had been vomiting blood frequently during the day shift and that the ENT surgeon had been notified and ordered that he be closely watched. About 15 minutes into my shift, we heard a woman scream (it sounded like it came from the depths of hell) and that scream was coming from the 5 year old boy's room. I rushed in and saw that the boy had vomited about 1 inch of blood into the plastic basin used for bed baths; that much blood coming out of a 5 year old is way too much. The boy was very pale. His vitals were off, he was awake. The ENT was called immediately and she ordered that we watch him closely. A call was immediately made to the Ped Intensive Care Unit and they were told of the situation and that we were bringing the boy there immediately (fortunately there is an MD on that unit 24/7). Just before moving the boy to the PICU, he looked me in the eyes and said, "I am dying"! 5 year olds don't say this and I was freaked! Shortly after settling him in PICU the ENT surgeon arrived and she was ticked off (p'd off to say the least). The boy was rushed into surgery and the problem fixed.

I would be willing to bet this little girl died because a doctor wouldn't listen and a nurse was afraid to raise hell! Very sad.

 

[SwampMama]

Meanwhile in Tx, this case is going on where a family is trying to life support REMOVED from their brain dead family member but are being blocked and are going to court to get it removed.

"In late November, Texas father Erick Munoz woke at 2 a.m. to his one-year-old son crying and his 14-week-pregnant wife, Marlise, unconscious on their kitchen floor. Munoz, a paramedic himself, performed CPR, called 911 and resuscitated Marlise, who was without a pulse and blue in the face. Now, one month later, Erick is fighting a battle to have her removed from life support."

Also, her family support the husband, "Marlise's mother and father say they support their son-in-law's request to remove her from life support, stating that although Marlise did not have an official health care proxy or DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) order, they were all very clear of her wishes.
Marlise's brother was killed in an accident four years ago, and since then, the family says she had told them multiple times that she would not want to have her life artificially prolonged."
http://www.examiner.com/article/tex...ng-pregnant-wife-from-life-support-speaks-out

It is interesting to me because 2 families are dealing with a brain dead relative, want different outcomes and are both having to go to court for them. So if it isn't objectionable to anyone, would it be ok to mention this case?

The thing is that I do feel these talks need to be happening, this link (http://www.ccm-l.org/discussion1/Ethics/uncoop.html) with the different medical professionals discussing protocol for removing life support from a brain dead patient when a family is reluctant was created by the hoping to spark conversation about this matter. One said " I s'pose one good thing to come out of this is that folks can read these accounts and be stimulated to some action - any action - at the grass roots level."

My only hesitation in presenting the Tx case is the fact that there is an unborn child involved and I do NOT want this to devolve into a discussion where it is compared to abortion and then everyone gets lost on that, gets heated over an issue that isn't even the issue and we lose this thread. The topic at hand is brain dead patients and the rights of the families, the laws and what do people need to know, what needs to be changed, updated, etc.

Or if anyone objects to this case being discussed her, or a mod feels it will derail the discussion here, then feel free to delete or ask me to do so. It's just that we have a very interesting, intelligent and vital conversation going here and I want to pursue it. I want people to know about this issue and give it thought and know what to expect if it happens to someone they love or themselves.

 

[momrids6]

I want people to know about this issue and give it thought and know what to expect if it happens to someone they love or themselves.

RSBM: We all have DNR's, and living wills; we have had to take a family member off of life support. It is an important issue. Even more important in this case and in other elective surgeries- is for the responsible party to make sure they fully understand the risks involved with any surgery. In the Texas case, it is not one family member's wishes over the hospital, it is another law altogether preventing her wishes from being carried out.

 

[Isabelle]

For those interested, these are a nice overview of the UPPP procedure.

Uvulopalatopharyngoplasty - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1004104-treatment#aw2aab6b6b9

I wanted to address the comments made by the family related to oral suctioning, as a poster upthread asked some questions.



http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Oakland-8th-Grader-Brain-Dead-After-236015681.html

With this combination of procedures (UPPP, T & A, nasal turbinate reduction), a patient will have a REALLY, REALLY sore throat. Swallowing is very difficult and painful, and most patients will want to spit out saliva and secretions, and blood, in the first hours and days. Most patients are provided with a yankauer suction tip to hold and use, which is a rigid suction wand similar to what dentists use. It is hooked up to a collection canister, and the suction is turned on at an appropriate level for periodic oral suctioning. They are instructed to only put the tip to their lips, so as not to disturb the surgical sites. The nurses will tape a wrapper or other container close to the patient, such as on the bed rails to park the suction wand and keep the end clean between uses, so the suction tip is handy for the patient to use.

Yankauer suction tip - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I don't find it at all unusual that she and her parents were handling and helping her with the suction tip at the point where she was alert, and breathing on her own. The bigger issue was the amount and quality of the bleeding, and the awareness of the staff about that, what interventions were going on, etc. We will never see the medical records, so it's hard to tell exactly what was going on, and the timetable. There are lots of contradictions in the various articles on the web.

Understandably, in their grief and anger the family is suspicious and critical of everything involved with the care of Jahi, past and present. It is hard for me to hear these criticisms about the "entire" ICU staff not being attentive enough, because in a major metro pedes ICU the staff is typically top notch. We only have the point of view of the grieving and angry family, and I think it's important to remember that this is a major urban pediatric hospital, staffed with highly competent docs and nurses.

When reading about the child and parents doing the suctioning, I was concerned. If the mouth is closed around the yankauer, that would produce an excessive amount of vacuum pressure and cause disruption of the surgical sites. I would wonder what teaching was done prior to allowing the child or parents to handle suctioning.

 

[SophieRose]

KPIX news reported that the family is also thinking of placing Jahi with an out of state research facility.

 

[Isabelle]

bbm/rsbm:

The hospital's court filing described Jahi's operation as a "complicated surgical procedure" that included an adenotonsillectomy, a separate procedure to remove throat tissue and a third procedure to remove excess nose tissue.

The child nor her parent's should have been allowed to perform oral suctioning for at least 24, better 48 hours. This could have very well been the cause of hemorrhaging to death!

Adding: I am so glad that I am a retired RN. I couldn't stand working in hospitals where most people don't even do half the job they are supposed. And, I hate the "team player" attitudes. As an RN, I was first and foremost a patient advocate and that meant I was on the patient's team if any team at all.

 

[SwampMama]

RSBM: We all have DNR's, and living wills; we have had to take a family member off of life support.

It is good to know that you have your wishes in place already. I beg everyone I know to do that because your loved ones want to honor your wishes which they can't do if they don't know. Plus you will be saving them the anguish of having to make such a heavy decision.

I remember having this conversation with my first hubby (I'm on hubby #2 currently, lol). My first hubby begged me to never allow him to be on life support and bedridden. He begged me to pull the plug and even smother him if I had to. I was so shocked, I was so young to hear him say something so passionately. He made me promise him that and I thank God we never were faced with that.

My family knows my wishes. Let me go! Don't hold me here! If my organs can help another, then that is awesome. Life has been one helluva ride but I am well satisfied with my life and content to check out when the time comes. Give my son my journals and I will live on in those and of the many stories of the funny stuff I did. ( Oh and cremate me, mix me with some concrete mix, put some purple in it, sprinkle some glitter on it and make me into a rock).

 

[SmoothOperator]

I have been following this case, or incident as we would call it in the medical field. I see all of the attention being given to whether or not the child is brain dead and whether or not she should be removed from life support as a smoke screen attempting to deflect attention away from what caused the problem in the first place. I will tell you my story:

Working night shift on a Pediatric unit, I came on one shift and was assigned a 5 year old boy who had his tonsils out that day. The report that I was given indicated he had been vomiting blood frequently during the day shift and that the ENT surgeon had been notified and ordered that he be closely watched. About 15 minutes into my shift, we heard a woman scream (it sounded like it came from the depths of hell) and that scream was coming from the 5 year old boy's room. I rushed in and saw that the boy had vomited about 1 inch of blood into the plastic basin used for bed baths; that much blood coming out of a 5 year old is way too much. The boy was very pale. His vitals were off, he was awake. The ENT was called immediately and she ordered that we watch him closely. A call was immediately made to the Ped Intensive Care Unit and they were told of the situation and that we were bringing the boy there immediately (fortunately there is an MD on that unit 24/7). Just before moving the boy to the PICU, he looked me in the eyes and said, "I am dying"! 5 year olds don't say this and I was freaked! Shortly after settling him in PICU the ENT surgeon arrived and she was ticked off (p'd off to say the least). The boy was rushed into surgery and the problem fixed.

I would be willing to bet this little girl died because a doctor wouldn't listen and a nurse was afraid to raise hell! Very sad.

This post has me in tears.. Free flowing tears of fear, sadness for most of all what this five year old boy was living thru, but also for you, Isabelle and what you were very much thrown into forced to deal with..

But with this case I am not yet willing to conclude this is was the same circumstance..it may very well be..but at this time we do not have the info to indicate this is the fault of the doctor who failed the patient, her family, and hisher staff of nurses


**Please forgive the limitations that come w/my posting via mobile ATM**

 

[SwampMama]

I did post it several days ago and then deleted it because I thought posters might think the doctors were insensitive calling the brain dead on vents as corpses. I didn't. Anyway someone else posted the link again later.

Hmm, maybe I did get it from you then !! I open links and suddenly have like 20 links open, start reading one, open links from there too and then the whole things gets to be a mess.

Ok, credit it back to SophieRose as the one who linked it originally, lol. It was incredibly relevant and so fascinating to me because it had so many experienced view points on it. I actually bookmarked it and saved it to my personal files.

 

[SophieRose]

It is good to know that you have your wishes in place already. I beg everyone I know to do that because your loved ones want to honor your wishes which they can't do if they don't know. Plus you will be saving them the anguish of having to make such a heavy decision.

I remember having this conversation with my first hubby (I'm on hubby #2 currently, lol). My first hubby begged me to never allow him to be on life support and bedridden. He begged me to pull the plug and even smother him if I had to. I was so shocked, I was so young to hear him say something so passionately. He made me promise him that and I thank God we never were faced with that.

My family knows my wishes. Let me go! Don't hold me here! If my organs can help another, then that is awesome. Life has been one helluva ride but I am well satisfied with my life and content to check out when the time comes. Give my son my journals and I will live on in those and of the many stories of the funny stuff I did. ( Oh and cremate me, mix me with some concrete mix, put some purple in it, sprinkle some glitter on it and make me into a rock).

If this pregnant woman had a DNR and a living will, would that have taken precedent over saving the life of the fetus?

 

[Donjeta]

If this pregnant woman had a DNR and a living will, would that have taken precedent over saving the life of the fetus?

I don't think so. From the other thread we have on that case:

"Section 166.049 Pregnant Patients. A person may not withdraw or withhold life-sustaining treatment under this subchapter from a pregnant patient," the code reads.

Even more, in a health directive form found under the Health and Safety Code, it reads, "I understand under Texas law this directive has no effect if I have been diagnosed as pregnant."

With pregnant wife unresponsive on life support, husband hopes to fulfill her wishes - Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community


JMO but a woman's living will that was written while she was not pregnant may or may not accurately reflect what she'd want while pregnant. Motherhood may change some things as it's not just her own good to consider any more. I know I wouldn't want to be on life support for long if there was clearly no chance of recovery but if the life support systems were keeping my baby alive I'd tell them to do anything and everything to help my child. I never got around to updating my living will during any of my pregnancies though.



I thought his middle initial was G for Graham from one of the earlier articles but searching Pubmed for Paul G Byrne gave me no results. Searching for Paul Byrne or P Byrne you get more but not all are the same person. The ones that seem most likely to be related to his interests are mostly by PA Byrne (but there are at least a biochemist in Ireland and a cognitive scientist in Canada who are also using those initials).

Anyway, I can only see the titles and not the full text of most of the articles but many of the titles sound like bioethics/medicolegal/spiritual discussion more than clinical research into the outcomes of brain damaged people.

For example,
Bioethics and the scientific challenge of the third millennium: to defend life, obey God and His natural laws.
Byrne PA.
Linacre Q. 1999 Nov;66(4):37-41. No abstract available.

Linacre Quarterly is a Catholic Medical Association journal that discusses the relationship between medicine and spirituality.

Infant heart transplantation after cardiac death: ethical and legal problems.
Potts M, Byrne PA, Evans DW.
J Clin Ethics. 2010 Fall;21(3):224-8.


"Brain death" is not death.
Byrne PA, Weaver WF.
Adv Exp Med Biol. 2004;550:43-9. Review. No abstract available.

"Brain death" is false.
Byrne PA, Rinkowski GM.
Linacre Q. 1999 Feb;66(1):42-8. No abstract available.


Life, life support, and death principles, guidelines, policies and procedures for making decisions that respect life.
Byrne PA, Colliton WF, Evers JC, Fangman TR, L'Ecuyer J, Simon FG, Nilges RG, Shen JT, Kramper RJ, Sadick MH.
Linacre Q. 1997 Nov;64(4):3-31. No abstract available.


Quinlan re-examined.
Byrne PA, Kurt EJ, Campbell DD, Nilges RG, de Carvalho CA, Perone AM, Evers JC, Traynor RJ.
Linacre Q. 1997 May;64(2):58-65. No abstract available.



Brain death.
White RJ, Byrne PA, Quay PM, Paris JJ, Cranford RE.
America (NY). 1983 Mar 26;148(12):234-6. No abstract available.




http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=(Byrne Paul[Author]) AND Brain death
A pubmed search for Byrne Paul as an author and brain death gave me 6 results, searching for Byrne P and brain death I got 15.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/portal/utils/pageresolver.fcgi?recordid=1387872311905510

 

[K_Z]

Posted Dec 24 by Paul Byrne, MD-- the doc in Toledo that Jahi's family is requesting to examine Jahi.

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/byrne/131224

December 24, 2013

Jahi is not truly dead, Wesley Smith

By Paul A. Byrne, M.D.

Wesley is correct, change is needed, but it must be changed to protect and preserve life until true death. Inform the public that when you answer "yes" at the BMV to be an organ donor, you have agreed to have your heart and other vital organs cut out of you before you are truly dead, but only after you have been paralyzed so you cannot move or respond in any way. Now, the transplanters want your face, or half your face. Imagine saying yes to agreeing to having half the face of your beautiful wife cut off while she has a beating heart, circulation and repiration. Who could agree to such a thing? And for Jahi, they just want to kill her, yes change the living Jahi into a cadaver.

Maybe it is only a few "pro-lfers" who are willing to protect the life of Jahi. Even a few count, but I know there are many more, if they knew the truth. A slave is someone who is kept from the truth.

BBM. I can guess what Dr. Byrne's evaluation of Jahi's situation would be.

 

[K_Z]

ITA. Giving false hope to people is against "do no harm" I would think.

Actually, as I read a bunch of his articles, I am thinking less that he is giving false hope to people. He is an outlier, for sure-- his positions on organ donation are at odds with pretty much all of medicine. ( I am personally thankful that he is not a neurologist or neurosurgeon.)

His positions about brain death and organ donation, etc. come from his intense religious beliefs. He is past president of the Catholic Medical Association and Fellowship of Catholic Scholars.

JMO, but I don't think he necessarily would expect her to wake up or recover. His position, if I understand him correctly, is simply that she is not dead because her body continues to function with the help of the ventilator. He is opposed to the entire idea of brain death, and sees brain death only as a method to expedite organ procurement.

A couple of his articles (these are not exactly hard science of any sort-- more opinion and religious musings):

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/byrne/130211

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/byrne/130207

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/byrne/081210

Also of note-- he is over 80 years old. I wonder if he is in good enough health to even travel?

 

[SwampMama]

Actually, as I read a bunch of his articles, I am thinking less that he is giving false hope to people. He is an outlier, for sure-- his positions on organ donation are at odds with pretty much all of medicine. ( I am personally thankful that he is not a neurologist or neurosurgeon.)

His positions about brain death and organ donation, etc. come from his intense religious beliefs. He is past president of the Catholic Medical Association and Fellowship of Catholic Scholars.

JMO, but I don't think he necessarily would expect her to wake up or recover. His position, if I understand him correctly, is simply that she is not dead because her body continues to function with the help of the ventilator. He is opposed to the entire idea of brain death, and sees brain death only as a method to expedite organ procurement.

A couple of his articles (these are not exactly hard science of any sort-- more opinion and religious musings):

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/byrne/130211

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/byrne/130207

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/byrne/081210

Also of note-- he is over 80 years old. I wonder if he is in good enough health to even travel?

He definitely strikes me as one who has his own cause I found a website that he apparently runs or is very close affiliated with. I had been seeing a lot of his scare tactics warning about organ donors being people who were living but simply declared to be dead so the evil med people could take their organs. It's carp like this ( http://www.truthaboutorgandonation.com/ )

"Patients ..... in the USA and other countries are deliberately being hastily declared "Brain Dead" so their organs can be taken. More recently, when there is a desire to get organs while the donor still has obvious brain activity, a Do-Not-Resuscitate (DNR) is obtained to stop the life support. When the donor is pulseless for as short as 75 seconds (but the heart is still beating) the organs are taken . These persons are given a paralyzing agent but no anesthetic.

The donation and transplant industry is a multibillion dollar enterprise.

IN ACTUALITY, IT IS THE EXCRUCIATING VITAL ORGAN REMOVAL PROCEDURE WHICH CAUSES TRUE DEATH OF THE DONOR.


“BRAIN DEATH” - The new “Pretend Death” is not True Death....

When surgeons realized they had the capability of taking organs from one seemingly “close to death” person and implanting them into another person to keep the recipient alive longer, a "Pandora’s Box" was opened.

In the beginning, through trial and error, they discovered it was not possible to perform this "miraculous" surgery with organs taken from someone truly dead.....

To justify their experimental procedures it was necessary for them to come up with a solution which is how the term "Brain Death" was contrived....

Much is being done to get your organs. For an organ to be suitable for transplantation, it must be healthy and it must come from a living person. Please wake up! .......I]

Umm yeah, I think this kinda sums up his credibility and what his cause is. He is blatantly against organ donation and will use anyone to further his cause and bring attention to it. How dang sad that he his doing this to people who may have wanted to donate organs but are now scared by his tactics.

 

[SwampMama]

But I DO think that the protocol and procedures for brain death and organ donation need to be updated to mandate the newer technologies that can give even more conclusive proof of the brain death so that this guy and his scare tactics will be shut down. There needs to be protocol that absolutely shows that his claims that people who have a chance of living are being falsely diagnosed and cruelly killed to further the big profits of the organ donation industry (That's his assessment of it, NOT mine).

I would hope that during this time that Jahi's vital signs are being carefully tracked and documented. I wish that the hospital would have the ability to video monitor her 24 hours a day so that any claims of her moving, responding or any other signs of brain activity are noted. I just can't take the word of a grieving and wishful thinking parent in this case. No offense to her mother, I am a mother as well so I sympathize with her plight. I would be hyper-vigilant and wishful thinking as well.

 

[SwampMama]

Found this article which details some of the career of Dr Byrne

http://stlouisreview.com/article/2013-10-02/physician-urges

"A physician who began the neonatal intensive care unit at SSM Cardinal Glennon Children's Medical Center advises caution on organ donation and protection of the rights of those who do not wish to donate their organs.

Dr. Paul A. Byrne today is clinical professor of pediatrics at the University of Toledo after having worked in St. Louis for many years. He is past president of the Catholic Medical Association."

Basically Dr Byrne is flat out against organ donation and he hides his cause behind the guise of warning about the falsity of brain death as a genuine condition. His articles are not in real medical journals, are not proper case studies,have no documentable data, no actual definitive proof and are simply a blend of anecdotes that are greatly slanted in favor of how he wants things to be viewed.

In essense, if he had his way. Countless thousands of people would die each year because they were not able to get an organ transplant. And yet he wants to be viewed as such a protector of "life" in the brain dead.

Just watched a news clip about Jahi and her mother reports that she is trying to take breaths on the respirator and alluded to the fact that the monitor/documentation would back this up and that "they" (hospital personnel?) told her Jahi was doing this, making efforts to breathe.

Ok, then the doctors should have that as proof to back up any claims that she is not brain dead. If Jahi's mother is telling the truth, then there must be proof. if not then it is time to put an end to this and allow Jahi go with dignity and not be kept on life support as a research project in some out of state hospital.

 

[meanmaryjean]

Found this article which details some of the career of Dr Byrne

http://stlouisreview.com/article/2013-10-02/physician-urges

"A physician who began the neonatal intensive care unit at SSM Cardinal Glennon Children's Medical Center advises caution on organ donation and protection of the rights of those who do not wish to donate their organs.

Dr. Paul A. Byrne today is clinical professor of pediatrics at the University of Toledo after having worked in St. Louis for many years. He is past president of the Catholic Medical Association."

Basically Dr Byrne is flat out against organ donation and he hides his cause behind the guise of warning about the falsity of brain death as a genuine condition. His articles are not in real medical journals, are not proper case studies,have no documentable data, no actual definitive proof and are simply a blend of anecdotes that are greatly slanted in favor of how he wants things to be viewed.

In essense, if he had his way. Countless thousands of people would die each year because they were not able to get an organ transplant. And yet he wants to be viewed as such a protector of "life" in the brain dead.

Just watched a news clip about Jahi and her mother reports that she is trying to take breaths on the respirator and alluded to the fact that the monitor/documentation would back this up and that "they" (hospital personnel?) told her Jahi was doing this, making efforts to breathe.

Ok, then the doctors should have that as proof to back up any claims that she is not brain dead. If Jahi's mother is telling the truth, then there must be proof. if not then it is time to put an end to this and allow Jahi go with dignity and not be kept on life support as a research project in some out of state hospital.

BBM: 999 times out of a thousand, what the family views as their loved one 'taking breaths' is ACTUALLY excessive condensation in the ventilator tubing which pools in dependent areas and triggers the sensors as if a breath was being initiated. Draining this water stops the 'breathing activity'. But then, grieving people who are sleep deprived and in shock about their loved ones often grasp at straws (as we've seen).

 

[Gardenlady]

Actually, as I read a bunch of his articles, I am thinking less that he is giving false hope to people. He is an outlier, for sure-- his positions on organ donation are at odds with pretty much all of medicine. ( I am personally thankful that he is not a neurologist or neurosurgeon.)

His positions about brain death and organ donation, etc. come from his intense religious beliefs. He is past president of the Catholic Medical Association and Fellowship of Catholic Scholars.

JMO, but I don't think he necessarily would expect her to wake up or recover. His position, if I understand him correctly, is simply that she is not dead because her body continues to function with the help of the ventilator. He is opposed to the entire idea of brain death, and sees brain death only as a method to expedite organ procurement.

A couple of his articles (these are not exactly hard science of any sort-- more opinion and religious musings):

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/byrne/130211

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/byrne/130207

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/byrne/081210

Also of note-- he is over 80 years old. I wonder if he is in good enough health to even travel?

He doesn't even have a religious basis for these beliefs. I don't have a copy of the catholic catechism in hand to quote, but extraordinary measures such as ventilators etc, are not required and are to be discouraged when they are merely prolonging the inevitable death of the body. Further, organ donation is encouraged both in the catechism and in papal writings (I believe in JPII's Evangelium Vitae) following the usual ethical guidelines of consent of the deceased and/or their representatives, etc.

Sounds more like he has a personal agenda and tries to cloak himself him religious beliefs to support it, but really, the support isn't there religiously either.

 

[Donjeta]

If she is trying to breathe, why not unplug the ventilator then, giving her a chance to demonstrate signs of life and be the miracle everyone is praying for?

I think Byrne makes a good point when he's saying that brain death is a different category of death from the traditional concept of death. A person whose brain is dead but who still has got a heartbeat, body temperature, metabolism etc is not imo quite as dead as someone who has no pulse and is starting to decompose. And even though the doctors may declare a brain dead person legally dead I don't think they take him to the morgue until the heartbeat stops and all the other systems start to go as well.


But that said, he goes on to say it's murder to cut off organs from a brain dead donor and I've gotta say that if it's ever me lying helplessly there on a hospital bed, brain dead, breathing by a machine and all the life signs that I've got to show for myself are body temperature and functional cellular metabolism and everything that I can expect from the future is more of the same, only weakening, feel free to murder me, if that's what it is. I've got no use for that kind of life and no desire to be a burden to my loved ones or the staff of some unfortunate hospital, so if you can save some other lives by using my organs and turn my tragedy into a gift of life please do so.

 

[Jacie Estes]

How is it about them? If they are dead and their body is just a shell, then they're gone and all it's about us, the ones grieving and left behind.

I see so many posts with "I feel sorry for them, but..." and then talking about cost or how they have to accept facts, or are being selfish, or even cruel (to a body that lacks brain stem activity) etc. Until we walk a mile, however, in their shoes, I don;t know how fair it is to criticize.



If a brain dead body felt pain then clearly, the person would not be dead. Pain = existence. I think it is horrible that in the U.S., we are still making medical decisions based on cost.

I think extensive measures would not be taken for every patient and should not be taken. Most people are able to accept after a while and with evidence. I hear an "entitlement" vibe going on. I don;t like that. These are people facing the sudden death of their little girl. If I felt someone was trying to take my baby, I'd go to the news, get a lawyer, whatever to fight for my child.



Wow, the different tests they do, that's an education. I hope they did all of it in this case and made sure there was no blood flow. Also, from the article:
I think if the hospital had not moved so quickly and had allowed the family to come to a slow understanding, things may have turned out differently. This was a shock.



I don't blame you! She'll be great, though and we're all thinking of you and your daughter!



Isnt the aunt an ER nurse? I doubt they caused this issue. But I had no idea this was a not so rare complication. Scary, ButForFortune.



And there's more. In this article, we learn that "brain death" was a legal definition that was not created until a 1981 presidential panel determined such a state equals death:
Jahi's family and doctors disagree over whether she's dead, but on one topic everyone is united: She is a very special case. Almost all deaths are because of heart and lung failure. Less than 1 percent fall into the category of brain death, a condition officially incorporated into the definition of death by a 1981 presidential panel of doctors, lawyers, researchers, psychologists and ethicists charged with defining death at a time when rapidly advancing technology was blurring the lines between life and nonlife.
Medical, legal guidelines

According to the panel's report, death occurs when "an individual has sustained either (1) irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions, or (2) irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem."
The report was the basis of the Uniform Determination of Death Act, a draft law later adopted by many states, including California, that provides medical and legal guidelines for determining death in cases when the brain has stopped functioning.
The guidelines were intended to help doctors and families navigate the nuanced and difficult decisions about ventilators, feeding tubes and other life-sustaining measures. But they remain silent on time of death, stating that the actual declaration of death is to be determined on a case-by-case basis. http://www.sfgate.com/health/article/Alive-or-dead-Brain-death-a-complicated-issue-5083320.php

So the law has determined that Jahi's medical state is the same as death.

Then, there's this:

Do I think Jahi is going to recover? No. Do I think her family may be deluded? Yes. But here's the thing: While I don't want my laws governed by others' religious beliefs I also don't want the law to restrict my or others' religious beliefs - or non-beliefs (except in certain, specific circumstances, like Hindu bride burning, Muslim genital mutilation, etc.) and I don't want the government making life or death decisions for me or my family.

The only detriment to keeping Jahi alive is cost. This family believes she may recover. There have been some cases where the doctors were wrong. If it was your kid and your belief, how would you feel?

:goodpost:

BBM and copied to here. "...and I don't want the government making life or death decisions for me or my family..." I find it ironic that opponents of ACA [Obamacare] are water carriers for the evil of 'Death Panels' yet choose to use that concept when it suits the argument.

For me, the saddest part of this is that Jahi told her mother of her fear of not waking up before she went into surgery and now she is not 'waking up'.

I hope in the outcome of this sad case, the family will find some peace. They are not there yet.