Reborn [Pill reverses "vegetative state"]

The Guardian (UK) ^ | September 12, 2006 | by Steve Boggan

[aculeus]

We have always been told there is no recovery from persistent vegetative state - doctors can only make a sufferer's last days as painless as possible. But is that really the truth? Across three continents, severely brain-damaged patients are awake and talking after taking ... a sleeping pill. And no one is more baffled than the GP who made the breakthrough. Steve Boggan witnesses these 'strange and wonderful' rebirths

For three years, Riaan Bolton has lain motionless, his eyes open but unseeing. After a devastating car crash doctors said he would never again see or speak or hear. Now his mother, Johanna, dissolves a pill in a little water on a teaspoon and forces it gently into his mouth. Within half an hour, as if a switch has been flicked in his brain, Riaan looks around his home in the South African town of Kimberley and says, "Hello." Shortly after his accident, Johanna had turned down the option of letting him die.

Three hundred miles away, Louis Viljoen, a young man who had once been cruelly described by a doctor as "a cabbage", greets me with a mischievous smile and a streetwise four-move handshake. Until he took the pill, he too was supposed to be in what doctors call a persistent vegetative state.

Across the Atlantic in the United States, George Melendez, who is also brain-damaged, has lain twitching and moaning as if in agony for years, causing his parents unbearable grief. He, too, is given this little tablet and again, it's as if a light comes on. His father asks him if he is, indeed, in pain. "No," George smiles, and his family burst into tears.

[Mr. Silverback]

Mr. Silverback, you always keep the conversation at a respectful level.

Oh, if only I could live up to that! You are quite literally too kind, since I am so often curmudgeonly. Actually, I don't think you said anything nasty in this conversation, but even so I appreciate the sentiment. Have a great day.

[freedumb2003]

since I am so often curmudgeonly.

I shoot (sometimes) for curmudgeonly, which is actually an art form. But when I throw a sinker, it hits the low bar because, well, doggone it, I think at the moment I have to, to make my point.

Thanks to YOU and g'night and great day.

[freedumb2003]

Nope, I overestimate my intellect all the time.

Every time I do that I get:

1) An FR Timeout (when I REALLY think I am Up There) [only twice truth be told]; or

2) Someone who is truly smarter than me (many here at FR) who point out just how FACTUALLY wrong and/or LOGICALLY wrong I am. Man, that stings worse than the timeout!

Free Republic: The Cure For Self-Importance. ;)

(Ya know, since I am here, didja ever notice that DU and KOS actually PROMOTE Self-Importance? Interesting, yes?)

[jwalsh07]

Nope, I overestimate my intellect all the time.

OK, we're all agreed. We all suffer from the same malady on occasion.

Have a good day!