Family wants to keep life support for girl brain dead after tonsil surgery #5

[Herat]

I pray that today is the day that NW realizes that Jahi is gone and that it's time for a proper funeral.

I pray today is the day her mother finds acceptance and sees the futility in artificially maintaing her physical shell.

 

[Donjeta]

Are there any medical types reading here who have any knowledge of, or an opinion of, the reasons why Jahi had to undergo such a complex surgery All at Once?
Many have opined that she was a high-risk patient because of her weight and other issues, and it seems likely that she did need all of the procedures. But wouldn't it have been safer for her to undergo the surgeries separately?
My toddler nephew has just had his adenoids removed after a tonsillectomy about a year ago, so I know that these things don't always have to be done at one time. Surely her chances would have been better if it hadn't been such a complex set of operations.

I suppose the risk of bleeding might have been smaller if it was several smaller operations one at a time but it would have been somewhat counteracted by the risks of having to be anesthetized more times.

 

[Elley Mae]

Are there any medical types reading here who have any knowledge of, or an opinion of, the reasons why Jahi had to undergo such a complex surgery All at Once?
Many have opined that she was a high-risk patient because of her weight and other issues, and it seems likely that she did need all of the procedures. But wouldn't it have been safer for her to undergo the surgeries separately?
My toddler nephew has just had his adenoids removed after a tonsillectomy about a year ago, so I know that these things don't always have to be done at one time. Surely her chances would have been better if it hadn't been such a complex set of operations.

Thank you I have looked and can not find the 3 surgeries that she had. I wonder if this surgery that she had is normal for a child. Or is this surgery (3) procedures done on adults normally. What was the extent of her problems?, that constituted these 3 procedures to have to be done at once? IIRC I read something early on about the fact that she had a small neck, and wondered if a combination of factors contributed to this outcome. idk jmo

 

[BetteDavisEyes]

I have a feeling that the family (and their attorney) wants to avoid an autopsy. Is the (alleged) long-term care facility that is caring for Jahi obligated to report her natural death (no heartbeat) to authorities? Now that the mother has taken custody of Jahi, would it be her decision about where Jahi's remains are taken? Could Jahi be taken to a funeral home directly from the long-term care facility without an autopsy?

 

[momrids6]

Just how "routine" one of her procedures really is;

http://sleepapnealife.com/uvula-trimming-surgery-348.html

 

[missy_g]

Jahi McMath: Family says brain-dead teen's body may be too deteriorated to save

By Lisa M. Krieger and David DeBolt [email protected]

A day after winning the three-week battle to take their brain-dead daughter from Children's Hospital Oakland, the family of Jahi McMath conceded Monday they are losing the ghastly war against nature.

Her body, checked in at an undisclosed care facility Monday morning, has deteriorated so badly, that "Right now, we don't know if she's going to make it," said attorney Christopher Dolan.

"She's in very bad shape," he said. "What I can tell you is that those examinations show that her medical condition, separate from the brain issue, is not good."

http://www.insidebayarea.com/news/ci_24857784/jahi-mcmath-brain-dead-teens-body-may-be

Um yea...when someone is dead, nature takes it's course. I don't know why the family doesn't get this? IMO they have a major agenda that I don't get. I feel bad for Jahi.

 

[seattlechiquita]

I have a feeling that the family (and their attorney) wants to avoid an autopsy. Is the (alleged) long-term care facility that is caring for Jahi obligated to report her natural death (no heartbeat) to authorities? Now that the mother has taken custody of Jahi, would it be her decision about where Jahi's remains are taken? Could Jahi be taken to a funeral home directly from the long-term care facility without an autopsy?

I believe one of our medical types said that Jahi's case makes it compulsory for autopsy --- anyone?

 

[Donjeta]

CNN/HLN Transcripts January 6, 2014

Jane Velez-Mitchell: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1401/06/ijvm.01.html

Nancy Grace: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1401/06/ng.01.html

Anderson Cooper: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1401/06/acd.01.html

Dr. Drew and Piers Morgan transcripts not yet available.

AC did a pretty decent job of reporting on this.

DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): She is out of the hospital now, still attached to a ventilator, rolling down a dark highway in a private ambulance. Her destination is still a secret. But Jahi McMath's future is just as certain as it was several weeks ago. She is medically dead, according to doctors, only a machine can keep her heart from stopping. Yet her family has refused to accept it, and even now speaks in optimistic tones.

OMARI SEALEY, JAHI MCMATH'S UNCLE: I hope to have her come back home with 100 percent full recovery.

SIMON: Jahi's mother has said she'll never let her go.

NAILAH WINKFIELD, JAHI'S MOTHER: She's not a corpse up there. She is a pretty 13-year-old girl up there that I gave life to.

SIMON: So together she and her family's attorney secured what they believe is a victory to get the teenager to a long-term facility that will look over Jahi indefinitely. Where exactly she's been taken they will not say because this case has produced such volatile rhetoric.

CHRISTOPHER DOLAN, FAMILY ATTORNEY: We've had people make threats from around the country. It's sad that people act that way. So for Jahi's safety and those around her we will not be saying where she went or where she is.

SIMON: We do know, however, that a rehab center for brain injuries in New York has publicly welcomed her.

ALLYSON SCERRI, FOUNDER, NEW BEGINNINGS COMMUNITY CENTER: This little angel is a true survivor. She's a strong little girl. Eighth grade, 13 years old, she's in there, and she's fighting all the way. Her heart's beating strong. The power of prayer, she can come through this.

SIMON: And these kinds of statements medical ethicist say are the problem and does the family no favors.

For some reason Allyson Scerri really annoys me. She's never seen Jahi, how does she know what Jahi is like? And I think that people might mistakenly take her statements for the opinions of a medical professiona because she gets introduced as the head of a rehab facility. For her information, Jahi's heart is not beating strong, the doctor at the ICU who actually knows about this stuff said that she can't keep up her blood pressure.

The fact that she's saying that a person with a death certificate is a true survivor makes me think that some of these people think brain death is no big deal because they don't actually use their brain before they open their mouths.

DR. JOSEPH FINS, CENTRAL MEDICAL COLLEGE: This is a tragedy of huge proportions. Anyone who has lost a child, you know, our sympathies have to go out to them. But I think to be most sympathetic is not to perpetuate this intermediate state.

SIMON: But attorney Chris Dolan who has been the family's fiercest advocate insists this is about parental choice, about who has the final say on pulling the plug.

DOLAN: What the family wanted was a chance. And I think that's what real important to understand is what this legal action was really about. It was about this girl named Jahi, but it was also about every parent in the United States who should have the right to make that choice, not a hospital who comes in and says today is the day your daughter dies.

SIMON: And therein lies the problem, say doctors and ethicists, because Jahi did die really a month ago.

Nice play with emotions there, from the atty. If you're against us it could be the doctors killing off your child one day.

As a practicing neurosurgeon, chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta has been there. His family has grappled with moments just like this one.

Sanjay, so she's left the hospital. It sounds like she's going to end up in this long-term care facility. What's her prognosis at this point?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, her prognosis is she has been declared brain dead and, you know, that's an irreversible condition. So there's really nothing to be said about prognosis or any of the other interventions that may take place in terms of affecting her prognosis.

That's a -- it's a tough thing to hear, it's a tough thing to say, frankly. But that's the truth when it comes to brain death, we are talking about death. This is just another term for it.

COOPER: Is -- I mean, is brain death different than a persistent vegetative state or being in a coma?

GUPTA: It is. And I know you've done some reporting on this as well, Anderson. People who have come -- who've seemingly recovered from deep comas.

COOPER: Right.

GUPTA: This is different. And terms matter here. People can be in a coma and still have brain activity. They can be in a persistent vegetative state and still have brain activity. With brain death, there is no brain activity. The higher brain functions as well as the lower brain functions which control your reflexes in terms of breathing, controlling your heart rate, all these sort of basic functions of the body.

That part is not working anymore. The only way that you have any of those functions at all is artificially through these machines.

COOPER: Her family, though, is saying that she responds to touch. Is that -- is that possible with somebody who's been pronounced brain dead?

GUPTA: Well, people can have movements that are more reflexive and more as a result of activity in the spinal cord as opposed to the brain. They're sometimes called myoclonic activity which can sort of the jerking type movements. And again none of this is easy to talk about and, you know, I've had these conversations with families. The person who is brain dead, obviously, is experiencing nothing.

So it's not in response to touch. Could it be coincidental in some way? Perhaps. But, you know, oftentimes as you might expect, families see what they want to see, and that may be what's happening here as well.

Dr. Fiori wrote she has an increase in muscle contractions as a result of lacking nervous regulation.

 

[Elley Mae]

Alameda County Sheriff's spokesman Sgt. J.D. Nelson said that while he does not know where Jahi was relocated, it was his understanding that she was taken out of the state. He said that as part of the standing court order and an agreement with the Coroner's Office, Jahi's body would have to be returned to the Alameda County coroner's office in the event her heart stops beating.

http://www.contracostatimes.com/ci_24853880/jahi-mcmath-brain-dead-girl-moved-undisclosed-care


Thanks Peliman for this link.

 

[momrids6]

Thank you I have looked and can not find the 3 surgeries that she had. I wonder if this surgery that she had is normal for a child. Or is this surgery (3) procedures done on adults normally. What was the extent of her problems?, that constituted these 3 procedures to have to be done at once? IIRC I read something early on about the fact that she had a small neck, and wondered if a combination of factors contributed to this outcome. idk jmo

An adenotonsillectomy; a uvulopalatopharyngloplasty; tissue removal in the throat;
and submucous resection of bilateral inferior turbinates, which is nasal obstruction


http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local...237179681.html

 

[Donjeta]

I believe one of our medical types said that Jahi's case makes it compulsory for autopsy --- anyone?

According to this there might not be

What about an autopsy?

Jahi McMath’s death is the type of case that falls under the jurisdiction of the coroner’s bureau. However, by statute the coroner has discretion to determine the level of inquiry to be conducted. Since the body has been released to the family it is possible that there will be no autopsy.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/...se-questions-answers-20140106,0,6567373.story


But the coroner's offiice comments imply that they're expecting to conduct one

The Alameda County coroner's office issued a death certificate for the girl Friday but said the document is incomplete because no cause of death has been determined pending an autopsy

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/201...hi-mcmath-released-to-coroner-mother-hospital

Alameda County Sheriff's spokesman Sgt. J.D. Nelson said that while he does not know where Jahi was relocated, it was his understanding that she was taken out of the state. He said that as part of the standing court order and an agreement with the Coroner's Office, Jahi's body would have to be returned to the Alameda County coroner's office in the event her heart stops beating.

Nelson noted that the autopsy will be required to complete the existing death certificate, and added that Jahi's cause of death will be more difficult to determine the longer her body is kept on a ventilator.

http://www.mercurynews.com/nation-w...mcmath-brain-dead-girl-moved-undisclosed-care

 

[seattlechiquita]

And so, the plot thickens. Yikes.

 

[mck16]

Are there any medical types reading here who have any knowledge of, or an opinion of, the reasons why Jahi had to undergo such a complex surgery All at Once? Many have opined that she was a high-risk patient because of her weight and other issues, and it seems likely that she did need all of the procedures. But wouldn't it have been safer for her to undergo the surgeries separately?
My toddler nephew has just had his adenoids removed after a tonsillectomy about a year ago, so I know that these things don't always have to be done at one time. Surely her chances would have been better if it hadn't been such a complex set of operations.

Maybe insurance. But, then I have heard she didn't have any insurance. Just a thought.

 

[otto]

Jahi McMath: Family says brain-dead teen's body may be too deteriorated to save

By Lisa M. Krieger and David DeBolt [email protected]

A day after winning the three-week battle to take their brain-dead daughter from Children's Hospital Oakland, the family of Jahi McMath conceded Monday they are losing the ghastly war against nature.

Her body, checked in at an undisclosed care facility Monday morning, has deteriorated so badly, that "Right now, we don't know if she's going to make it," said attorney Christopher Dolan.

"She's in very bad shape," he said. "What I can tell you is that those examinations show that her medical condition, separate from the brain issue, is not good."

http://www.insidebayarea.com/news/ci_24857784/jahi-mcmath-brain-dead-teens-body-may-be

Her medical condition, aside from being dead, is not good? This just keeps getting stranger and stranger ... right out of Monty Python.

 

[BetteDavisEyes]

I believe one of our medical types said that Jahi's case makes it compulsory for autopsy --- anyone?

Would this still hold true if Jahi has been moved to another state or even another county in CA?

 

[threecrazykids]

Isn't it possible that this delay of autopsy actually HELP the hospital? If it's true that the longer she is on a ventilator the harder it will be to determine COD, that could favor the hospital and not the family.

How can the family determine that the hospital was the "cause" of her death if an autopsy results show something that happened AFTER she left the facility?

They likely will say that the coroner and the hospital are all part of some conspiracy if that autopsy doesn't show the COD as being something directly related to that surgery.

:facepalm:

With that said...when would the autopsy "death" time equal? And would the COD be based on her Dec 12th death? Or her date of "death" after her parents "approve"?

What a damn nightmre. The more the family can muddy the waters with the legaleze of it all, the better off they believe they will be.

 

[Donjeta]

Earlier on Sunday, Sealey - who has been holding press conferences daily since Jahi was declared brain dead on Dec. 12 after three simultaneous tonsillectomy-related surgeries to cure her sleep apnea - also took some credit for her move: "I told you we'd do it!!! I love you Jahi and I will come visit you soon baby girl," he tweeted. "Your Uncle is a BEAST!!!"

Still, despite the thanks and the donations flowing in, there were plenty of critics out there, too.

On the Facebook site of New Beginnings Community Center in Medford, NY, several people lashed out at Jahi's family for refusing to accept that their daughter is dead. New Beginnings did not respond to questions Monday morning seeking to clarify whether Jahi had been flown to Long Island. But on Facebook site of center co-founder, Allyson Scerri, the words "PRAYERS HAVE BEEN ANSWERED" were posted just after midnight, with a link to an article about Jahi.

Some took to Facebook to take aim at Scerri - a former hair stylist - for offering to care for Jahi despite the fact that the center is set up to take care of people with traumatic brain injury, not people who have been declared brain dead. "No credibility whatsoever," one Facebook poster wrote. "This place is trying to cash in on a public news story."

It's precisely because of this criticism - and even threats - that the family's attorney, Chris Dolan, would not say what facility Jahi was moved to, even in court documents, New Beginnings was the only center that formally stated its intent and willingness to care for her.

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/loca...ul-For-Transfer-Critics-Abound-238866771.html

 

[Isabelle]

Just how "routine" one of her procedures really is;

http://sleepapnealife.com/uvula-trimming-surgery-348.html

Thanks. I suspect my dh has sleep apnea. That surgery would be out of the question. 6 month recovery! Wonder if that includes swelling of soft tissues that could make apnea worse. CPAP makes way more sense!

 

[Isabelle]

AC did a pretty decent job of reporting on this.




For some reason Allyson Scerri really annoys me. She's never seen Jahi, how does she know what Jahi is like? And I think that people might mistakenly take her statements for the opinions of a medical professiona because she gets introduced as the head of a rehab facility. For her information, Jahi's heart is not beating strong, the doctor at the ICU who actually knows about this stuff said that she can't keep up her blood pressure.

The fact that she's saying that a person with a death certificate is a true survivor makes me think that some of these people think brain death is no big deal because they don't actually use their brain before they open their mouths.




Nice play with emotions there, from the atty. If you're against us it could be the doctors killing off your child one day.






Dr. Fiori wrote she has an increase in muscle contractions as a result of lacking nervous regulation.

A muscle's tendency is to contract if not used and this results in contractures and wasting. Ex: when a bone is broken and displaced this allows the muscles to contract to a maximum resulting in excruciating pain. Bone has no nerve sensory nerve endings (cannot feel pain) where muscles do.

 

[PoirotryInMotion]

Popsicle, Thank you for posting Dr. Fisher's and Dr. Fiori's reports. I personally have never seen described the active decomposition of a human being after being declared brain dead. Those reports brought it all home for some reason. Especially dr. Fiori's. It is one thing to know something in theory, but to see it so detailed and documented made it just well, so very very real.

God bless this young girl. I hope that her case has not been in vain.... JMV

Fiori's report, while difficult to read, seemed to turn the tide of opinion yesterday (on Twitter, at least). I'll second the thanks.

Some tweet Dr. Drew and say go you! Stand up for the Medical Profession!
ETA: I would if I could.

Sent from my SGH-T679 using Tapatalk 2

I'll see if I can find him and post a shoutout, gngr~snap.

Jahi McMath: Family says brain-dead teen's body may be too deteriorated to save

By Lisa M. Krieger and David DeBolt [email protected]

A day after winning the three-week battle to take their brain-dead daughter from Children's Hospital Oakland, the family of Jahi McMath conceded Monday they are losing the ghastly war against nature.

Her body, checked in at an undisclosed care facility Monday morning, has deteriorated so badly, that "Right now, we don't know if she's going to make it," said attorney Christopher Dolan.

"She's in very bad shape," he said. "What I can tell you is that those examinations show that her medical condition, separate from the brain issue, is not good."

http://www.insidebayarea.com/news/ci_24857784/jahi-mcmath-brain-dead-teens-body-may-be

As someone astutely noted yesterday in the news comments..."her medical condition, separate from the brain issue, is not good" b/c there IS no medical condition without the brain.