Posted on 10/10/2006 4:04:27 PM PDT by wagglebee
GRESHAM, Oregon October 10, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A young boy, who had previously been diagnosed as being in a “permanent vegetative state,” has awakened from a 22 month-long coma and is breathing on his own.
Devon Rivers collapsed in a seizure during a phys-ed class in 2004 and his condition was never explained, though some doctors suggested it was caused by an unknown viral infection. Doctors agreed, however, that he had little hope of recovery.
His mother, Carla Rivers, visited him regularly and, in addition to physical therapy by his paediatric nursing home to keep his limbs supple, she talked to him in the belief that coma patients can retain their hearing and some understanding.
"For two years the doctors said there was no hope," said Carla Rivers. "Everything that happens in Devon's life is a gain. There's no losses."
Despite the doctors’ gloomy prognosis, eleven year-old Devon is now being prepared for occupational therapy to help him re-learn motor skills and is able to play with his siblings. Doctors cannot explain the reason either for his unexpected awakening or for his steady recovery.
In August of this year his mother, Carla Rivers, noticed that he began turning his head to follow movement; instead of a blank stare, he was reacting to his environment. Days later Devon was breathing without a respirator.
Carla Rivers said, “Devon may make a full recovery or what we see today may be what we get…God's plan is greater than ours. There's nothing we can do to force it any sooner or hold it back,” she said.
Coma patients and others with severe cognitive disabilities have been labelled “hopeless” only to recover frequently enough that some doctors and ethicists are questioning the accuracy of the diagnosis of “persistent vegetative state” (PVS).
The diagnosis is ambiguous in that symptoms of patients can vary greatly and still be called “vegetative.” A 1996 study published in the British Medical Journal showed that 43% of patients diagnosed with PVS do not qualify for the diagnosis.
In 2003, Kate Adamson, a former coma patient who had been diagnosed PVS, appeared on the television talk show the O'Reilly Factor. She said that, like Terri Schiavo, the hospital had removed her feeding tube that was only reinserted after eight days when her lawyer-husband threatened to sue the hospital.
Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Diagnosis of Persistent Vegetative State Questioned as Former Patient Speaks Out
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2003/nov/03111207.html
Schiavo had irreversible brain damage that left her brain scarred and shriveled. Now, I don't know if this was stated before the autopsy that confirmed it or afterwards, although the CT scans did show much of this.
Was this child in the same situation?
Wasn't the Shiavo case resolved after the autopsy that showed her brain to be in a severly damaged condition? This news article is a different case - the Schiavo case is over.
Shades of "Buddy" from SNL:
Buddy: Hi, Mom! Hi, Dad! I'm not in a coma any more!
Mrs. Dionosopolis: Thank God!
Mr. Dionosopolis: [ embarrassed ] Buddy..? Buddy..?
Buddy: [ raising finger ] Ohhhhh.. what are you doing? Were you pulling the plug on me!
Mr. Dionosopolis: [ trying to explain ] Buddy, the doctor told us you were a vegetable.
Doctor: I, for one, am baffled!
Buddy: But pulling the plug!
Mrs. Dionosopolis: Buddy, we were just doing what you told your father about "dying with dignity", you know? If you ever got hit in the head with a sledgehammer and had to be kept alive by machines? You remember!
Buddy: I never said anything like that, Mom.
Mr. Dionosopolis: Oh, yeahh.. you remember, don't you? It was that one day, remember? You weren't asking yourself, you were real strange.. I thought, "Gee, that's not like Buddy, wants to die like that.." But I figured, what the heck, okay! You said it, though! You said, it, you just forgot!
Buddy: [ laughing ] I probably forgot about it!
Mr. Dionosopolis: Well, buddy, do you fell good enough to go home?
Buddy: [ excited ] Yeah, that would be just great!
Mrs. Dionosopolis: Alright. I'll fix you a nice big lunch!
Mr. Dionosopolis: And we'll go hunting first thing next week, okay? [ turns to Doctor ] Thanks a lot, Doctor! Thanks for almost killing little Buddy!
[ family exits hospital room ]
Doctor: Well, excuuuuuuuuuuuuuse me!
Likely not, however the dx of PVS is a dx of convenience and economy nonetheless.
That is agood point - but the comparisons to Schiavo here are not correct. To say that because this boy 'snapped' out of it, doesn't mean Schiavo would. She was irreversibly brain damaged as shown by the autopsy. Clearly this boy didn't have the same physical evidence for his diagnosis that Terri did.
Exactly and I have, and therein lies our argument. He still believes she it was just a musculatory response or something stupid like that, and not really HER reacting.
Totally peeved at misperceptions and how it leads to what happened to Terry and others in same circumstance.
Damn Michael Schiavo...
Wouldn't a brain get pretty messed up after being starved and dehydrated to death? It isn't as though they had the ability to examine her brain before she died.
I saw a young man who had MOST of his brains blown out, and his severely slanted skull was proof, but he lived and went to college. Doctors couldn't explain it, as the parts of the brain they KNEW were used for even the simplest tasks were missing, and the boy was completely normal. He is still alive today, if I am not mistaken. Stranger things have happened.
Even so, to murder her, to starve her to death???? So what if she supposedly had "muscle" responses? She's still ALIVE!!!! If you could give me your e-mail, I can send you that video - you'd be absolutely appalled. Cuz you'd see that her response was NOT a "musculatory response"!
Yeah, wouldn't yours be too if you were starved to death??? They could NOT determine if she was PVS - that was more behavorial than physical. YOU really need to see the video I have - you'd see how responsive she was!
If it was the video I saw, it was clearly a non-voluntary response.
I made sure that I had written documents stating that if I am in a persistent vegatative state, similar to Terri were a significant portion of my brain is injurred and no hope for recovery, that all live sustaining procedures are halted (only pain medication is provided). I am certain many people would do the same.
Of course she was alive. She was breathing.
You can call it "speaking for God" if you like but I'd call it Christianity 101.
They had evidence in the CT scan that her brain was significantly damaged. COupled with the behavioral portions of the PVS diagnosis (and the subsequent autopsy that proved it) - I think they got this one right.
"It isn't as though they had the ability to examine her brain before she died. "
umm, they did a CT scan. It showed damage. And I would believe that any competent medical examiner would take into consideration the impact of death when making a diagnosis.
What would you consider to be physical evidence for a dx of PVS?
CT scan coupled with the physical responses typically shown
What autopsy? I thought Mikey had Terri cremated immediately so that there would be no autopsy.
They are not. However, in the mid-1970's or so we were doing surgery on newborns with no anesthesia, because we thought we knew that they couldn't feel anything.
You heard wrong. Google it and pick your source.
No Judge ordered the boy to be withheld food and water until dead. The boy lives.
Mrs. Schiavo? She's dead. Killed by Judicial Order per Mr. Schiavo's direction. An American Suttee. She was declared a "widow" for the pyre!
Her husband was reborn! Long live the new Mrs. Schiavo!
Let us, graf008, forget auld lang syne. Let us "Move on."
Let bygones be bygones! This is what you want, eh?
Terri is dead. Micheal, the black archangel of her one-time marriage bed, has had his way with her. He kept his promise.
Oh for the world you live in, graf008! That none of us here, like you, would do to be pollyannahs of optimism, looking forward, enjoyers of the day! Carpe Diem! Never to remember those digested in the bloody frothy maw of the beast. In your blessed world there are no beasts, are there?
Tsk. Here's a tear. We live in the real world, graf008. And so do you. There's beasts among men, and may G-d protect you.
>And I would believe that any competent medical examiner ...
See post 27, and tell me what a "competent medical examiner" is. There is none, that's why it's called *practicing* medicine, and not Supreme Arrogance.
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