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.
He didn't care then, and he certainly doesn't care now if “we” are or were upset.
He is driven by media polls, not personal principles.
If he thinks it will help get him elected, he will claim to have converted to Islam.
RIP Terri Schiavo.
Godspeed, sister.
The family struggled for two weeks on whether or not to pull the plug on life support for her. The hospital was at the point of getting ready to get a court order to do so, claiming their limited life support resources were being wasted.
The evening before the hospital was scheduled to remove her life support, some thirty days after the accident, a nurse was in her room checking on her, standing at her bedside and holding her hand. The young girl opened her eyes and clenched the nurses hand.
The nurse asked her to clench her hand again. She did. The nurse asked again, she clenched the nurses hand again. The nurse did this three more times for a total of five getting a clenched hand response.
The nurse immediately called for the resident and Chief Neurologist and other hospital staff to the room.
The young girl's mother was down the hall in the "Family Area" getting some rest when all this was going on. She was awakened to the activity in the hall and saw her daughter beginning to wake up as she entered the room, with all the activity going on.
By the time the rest of the family made it back to the hospital nearly an hour later, the young girl was sitting up in bed with the ventilator tube still in, writing notes to her mother.
Our entire church of nearly 5,000 people (at that time) spent weeks praying for her recovery.
Do I think miracles happen? Absolutely.
That same young lady today still has residual damage from her brain injuries. She cannot open her left eye for example. She's spent years in physical therapy trying to regain full function of her hands. She has a slight limp and some less noticeable issues. Some of these she may never be able to overcome.
But she's alive. She defied the odds, the "experts" and no one can explain to this day how her brain managed to continue functioning and literally "heal itself."
As God is my witness, every word above is true.
Why some people manage to recover and others not is still beyond our ability to figure out why.
No, this guy was vegetative but aware. Libs are aware but vegetative.
My wife was a nurse but quit in her mid thirties to concentrate on raising our daughter. It was like a ton of bricks was lifted from her back. She was always careful to explain what and why she was doing things to comatose and stroke affected patients as well as to the senile. Nursing is a wearing profession if done well.
Your wife is one special woman. Such compassion. A true credit to her profession. I hope some day at a time of her choosing she gets back into it and shows these newer nurses how it should be done.
Same with my MIL, we talk to her like we used to, we tell her stories, she’s 92 and has dementia.
Her cheating husband had two kids with his mistress, while spending ALL the insurance money awarded her for her palliative care, on lawyers in attempting to get the State to kill her, and to help usher in a “means test” for right to life.
He and his ghoulish pro-eugenics political death squad, won.
Jeb Bush allowed it.
I absolutely do recall correctly.
Because I was there, protesting outside her hospice,(which wasn't a legal place for her to be housed), each time the State of Florida allowed a court to order her forcible starvation and dehydration,up until the last time.
I had moved to another state.
"Somewhat unique" is one way to describe her “case”.
"Court ordered execution" is the only true and correct phrase.
The scan on the left was the man’s brain, the right one is a normal brain for comparison.
I’ve heard some interesting stories with alzhimers. Friends of ours brings their mom to church every Sunday, and she’ll sing almost every hymn. Of course she doesn’t remember her daughter - but she enjoys the singing.
You thought wrong
When did they do the brain scan on Terri? Before her death or after? I’m curious, because if it was after her death after almost 2 weeks of no hydration, wouldn’t it have appeared to be nonexistent or shrunken?
“Jeb Bush was governor of Florida when the state allowed her husband to kill Terry Schiavo by starving her to death...”
Thank you for reminding me of that. NO JEB BUSH for president.
What a blessing for mankind that this man has survived and conquered this disability to make us aware that life exists everywhere. The individual is the one who is a comotose state. A true understanding of why it is the Creator and only the Creator who should terminate life. Are you listening planned parenthood, NOW, pelgastly?????
Sounds as thorough as a mainstream media “Reporter.” :)
Ditto, we should never forget Terry Schaivo and those complicit in her MURDER.
God Creates Life and Lives..and its his perogative to end them
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.