Someone who is brain dead is dead. Their brain cannot metabolize, produce hormones, regulate body temperature, etc. There is an an exhaustive list of medical tests and procedures, (the most accurate and certain are the EEG/EKG, and radioactive isotope tests that detect blood flow into the brain) that three (3) independent doctors have gone through with Jhai.
She is brain dead, there is no recovery. Even on life supporting equipment, she will die very soon as the body cannot exist without the brain for very long, even with our wonderful medical technology.
What is sad is that she could be an organ donor and save more lives, but with the time that has passed, her organs will probably be non-donatable.
Here is a non layman article on coma vs. brain death to help readers to become educated on the two very different medical definitions.
Prayers for the little girl. Her soul is in Heaven, her body dead here.
If her brain is dead, then what’s regulating her heart and digestive systems? Those things can’t continue without a living brain, or a part thereof. If those autonomic systems can function, then it means there is at least somesb
Give the kid a chance, give her family a chance to absorb it all. A couple of months isn’t going to hurt anything. If her brain CAN do any healing, it tends to happen slowly anyway. There’s obviously some circulation there or else her autonomic nervous system wouldn’t function at all, and it’s functioning.
Coma is not synonymous with a vegetative state. But you’re right, it’s also not synonymous with brain death.
The question I have is whether or not she really is brain dead. It seems likely to me that she is, but I’m not convinced. The media lied about Terri Schiavo, Haleigh Poutre, Lauren Richardson, Scott (can’t remember his last name), and how many others? Are they lying again?
Thanks for the link.
On a page other than the one you linked, it says, “Although the patient has a dead brain and dead brain stem, there may be spinal cord reflexes that can be elicited (a knee jerk, for example). In some brain dead patients, when the hand or foot is touched in a particular manner, the touch will elicit a short reflex movement.”
I wonder if that is what the mother observed when she says that her daughter responds to touch.
These people need a good chaplain to talk to them and encourage them to accept the reality. Prolonging the time the body is kept on a respiratory and keeping their false hopes up is just going to make the crash that much harder when the body inevitably fails completely.