Posted on 01/12/2015 5:26:57 PM PST by Coleus
In the 1980’s, 12-year-old Martin Pistorious became seriously ill with what doctor’s believed was Cryptococci Meningitis. His health started deteriorating and Martin lost his ability to move, make eye contact and even speak to others. His doctors told his parents, Rodney and Joan Pistorious, to bring him home and let him die. They told them he was as good as a vegetable.
However, he didn’t die. Joan said, “Martin just kept going, just kept going.” According to NPR news, his father would get up at 5 o’clock in the morning, get him dressed, load him in the car, take him to the special care center where he’d leave him. Rodney said, “Eight hours later, I’d pick him up, bathe him, feed him, put him in bed, set my alarm for two hours so that I’d wake up to turn him so that he didn’t get bedsores.”
For twelve years, Martin’s family cared for him without any sign that he was improving. Joan started to despair and even told her son, “I hope you die.” Today she acknowledges that was a horrible thing to say but says she just wanted some sort of relief. Remarkably, now Martin is 39-years-old and says he was totally aware of everything going on around him.
He said, “Yes, I was there, not from the very beginning, but about two years into my vegetative state, I began to wake up. I was aware of everything, just like any normal person. Everyone was so used to me not being there that they didn’t notice when I began to be present again. The stark reality hit me that I was going to spend the rest of my life like that — totally alone.”
Unfortunately, Martin was even aware of his mother’s harsh words and began believing that no one would ever love him. He said, “You don’t really think about anything. You simply exist. It’s a very dark place to find yourself because, in a sense, you are allowing yourself to vanish.”
Martin spent most of those days at a care center where his caregivers played Barney reruns over and over again. They did this because they believed he was a vegetable too. He said, “I cannot even express to you how much I hated Barney.”
But eventually, Martin became frustrated with being trapped in his own body and started to try and take control of his life. He learned to tell time by the rising and setting of the sun and would reframe even the ugliest of thoughts that haunted him like his mother’s wish for him to die. “As time passed, I gradually learned to understand my mother’s desperation. Every time she looked at me, she could see only a cruel parody of the once-healthy child she had loved so much,” said Martin.
Now Martin is married and has penned a memoire about his life. He has gained control of his body and in his book Ghost Boy, he writes, “My mind was trapped inside a useless body, my arms and legs weren’t mine to control and my voice was mute. I couldn’t make a sign or sounds to let anyone know I’d become aware again. I was invisible—the ghost boy.”
Martin’s survival is a testament to how little we actually know about the human brain and a good reminder that we should value all life— even when we hear the terrifying words “your loved one is a vegetable” or in a “vegetative state” from a medical professional.
Clearly, we need to somehow become better at figuring out who is still lucid inside an unresponsive body, and who is actually “gone” with a body that is then just a meat machine with nobody home.
The decisions about what to do about those things are not uncomplicated.
The body that begins to decay and progressively is a pretty good indicator.
Thank you.
NPR News is listed in the story as a source.
The story says the man entered the coma during the 1980s at age 12, was in a coma for 12 years, and was 39 years of age at the time of the story. Simple mathematics tells you that he has not “ been in a coma for the last 12 years”.
When my dad was dying, I never said anything unloving in his presence. I knew he could hear things.
Is it possible to write a book entitled:
“The Murder of Terri Schiavo”
without getting sued?
Well, sure. That's easy. Tougher cases are like Terri Schiavo were there was (mercifully, IMHO) actually no brain left. No possibility of having had awareness for all of those fifteen years. But there was no way to know that until after her body "died" and an autopsy could be performed. We're not good at that. The difference between a body that's just an unoccupied meat machine, and a person that's still aware and "there" is not something we're very good at defining yet.
Jeb Bush was governor of Florida when the state allowed her husband to kill Terry Schiavo by starving her to death because she was “in a vegetative state.” She was expressive and animated, nothing as severe as this man’s case. We have not forgotten her and those who killed her by withholding water from her at the end, assuring the willfully ignorant that it was a “comfortable way to die.”
What an inspiring story and what a good looking guy!
We’ve been told for years that doctors can determine the answer to that question.
But cases like this one show us they can’t.
I’ve been losing confidence in science (medicine, high technology, meteorology, etc.) for some time now because of its blunders. And my skepticism has grown as I’ve seen it co-opted in service of greed, political power, atheistic ideologies, and so on.
Yes...so comfortable they had to give her morphine for the extreme pain.
Even if he was, I can’t imagine anything worse than to be trapped in a nonfunctioning body for 12 years. But the muscle atrophy and contractures from not moving for so long would take years to reverse if at all..... I am suspicious as well, but miracles do occur. However, they are not common, that is why they are called miracles. Given the choice of spending 12 years like that or discontinuing care and going home, I would chose no aggressive care. I would rather be home with my Lord than have my family striving to keep me here in an intolerable state. An infection or aspiration is usually the way these things end.
I was reading a few new articles not long ago of Dr.s who are working at better ways to determine death in situations as this. It was interesting because there does remain still opposing ideas...and both sides are convincing.
In this mans case I want to hear more of the story as to just how vegetative was he...there are varying degrees of this as you likely know.
No doctor can foretell the future. Martin’s mind slowly began to heal itself, and nothing could have been done medically to speed up the process or recognize the faint glimmer of cognition when it didn’t yet exist.
I happen to be watching that interview now. What an amazing man with such a positive attitude. I love happy endings. :-)
He has a book out called Ghost Boy and he also has a website.
Look it up, I did.
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