Richrowa said:
I agree. I would rather be dead than living in this condition. In any event its a personal decision. Just make sure you discuss and if possible document your wishes BEFORE you have a catastrophic injury. Everyone can decide for themselves. Don't leave it to your family so they will have a guilt trip to live with for the rest of their lives.
black_krix_si said:
...put it this way, i dont want to live like that, Medical Miracle or not. Yeah its amazing he came out of it after 20 years, but hes still pretty screwed up
As I mentioned briefly before, my father suffered the exact same type of traumatic brain injury as this guy did when he was driving on the highway and a car on a side road slid through a stop sign (wet road) and into the highway right in front of my dad's S-10. Luckily, he was only in a coma for around a week instead of 20 years. He still obviously cannot work and suffers from a lot of pain and (numerous) various medical problems, and injuries like that change people's personalities so much that he seemed almost like an entirely different person after the wreck.
He generally gets along OK, but sometimes his notions of what is socially acceptable are a little skewed and he'll do things he never did before, like randomly telling people he doesn't know (or has just been introduced to) all sorts of details of his last trip to the emergency room or last round of tests at the doctor...nothing terrible, but sometimes he needs reminded of what is and isn't appropriate.
Sometimes things are a little worse, and he'll get more out of line or do something really poorly thought-out around the house that could cause HUGE problems (like putting microwave popcorn in for too long and heading to the bathroom rather than watching it, filling the house with smoke) I was crashing at my parents less than a week ago when I realized I couldn't wake him up for breakfast, a long story that ended in me calling the ambulance and him being rushed to the ER.
I mention all this to lead up to the fact that he suffered a brain injury, and he has his problems (and maybe he's what you refer to as "pretty screwed up"), but he's hardly a vegetable, he's a functioning person with thoughts and feelings that goes about his daily life as best he can, just like this guy in the news probably does -- he's not Terry Schaivo. People are taken off of life support when they are brain dead, deteriorating, and have no chance of recovery -- after a brain injury only time will tell how fully a person will recover.
Now granted, this guy's coma was for many years, but the state he's in now (and during his coma) is NOT a brain dead or vegetative state, and he'll continue to recover up until a certain point, just like my dad has -- and the way those injuries work, my dad's one week coma could easily and without explanation have been a month or a year before he emerged from it and started recovering. To say you'd rather be dead and talk about "pulling the plug" might be appropriate when talking about persistant vegetative states like Schaivo, but when talking about guys walking, talking, and recovering from closed-head injuries like this guy and my father, you're a bit out of line.
