Fascinating article, CrazyRedHead. Worrisome, since any of us could experience a traumatic brain injury and be put in this horrifying situation, yet very instructive. While we are able to do so we need to think about what we want to happen to us if we are incapacitated in this way and act to make sure that our wishes are known and will be carried out.

The following passage taken from this article reminds me of a very sad situation that I encountered several years ago that is similar to this one yet more hopeless for the young man involved:

here’s at least one mordantly amusing and true story told to me by a psychologist at Putney’s Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability. “Young man wi...

Fascinating article, CrazyRedHead. Worrisome, since any of us could experience a traumatic brain injury and be put in this horrifying situation, yet very instructive. While we are able to do so we need to think about what we want to happen to us if we are incapacitated in this way and act to make sure that our wishes are known and will be carried out.

The following passage taken from this article reminds me of a very sad situation that I encountered several years ago that is similar to this one yet more hopeless for the young man involved:

here’s at least one mordantly amusing and true story told to me by a psychologist at Putney’s Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability. “Young man with motorbike head injury in a coma. His mum, a keen evangelical, comes every day with friends to sing Onward, Christian Soldiers by his bedside. She’s hoping to stimulate his brain into action. It works: he comes round, but he can’t speak. So they fit him up with one of those Stephen Hawking-type laptops, and the first words he speaks are: “For God’s sake, Mum, shut it!” That’s about as funny as it gets on a brain-injury ward, but there’s a serious take-home message. Even minimally aware patients can retain emotions, personality, a capacity to suffer – and, as the young biker showed, attitude.

I used to provide respite care for families of people with disabilities, usually developmental but sometimes due to injury. I was paid (very minimally) to stay with the disabled person while the family members who were the primary caregivers took some time for themselves--perhaps to attend a social event or go shopping or out to eat.

Once I was assigned to take care of a young man in his mid-twenties--I'll call him "Rick"--who had suffered a traumatic brain injury in a motorcycle wreck (no helmet!) and who now lived with his Pentacostal parents in their rural home, confined to a wheelchair or special reclining chair. His limbs were contorted and he was unable to speak or move.

Rick's mother had deplored his rebellious lifestyle leading up to his accident. Now she took care of his basic needs, his bathing, feeding, & diaper-changing, and his *spiritual* needs; she kept him in their dimly-lit living room, shades pulled, with a local religious radio station on constantly. The evangelist preached fire and brimstone sermons...

Once I was assigned to take care of a young man in his mid-twenties--I'll call him "Rick"--who had suffered a traumatic brain injury in a motorcycle wreck (no helmet!) and who now lived with his Pentacostal parents in their rural home, confined to a wheelchair or special reclining chair. His limbs were contorted and he was unable to speak or move.

Rick's mother had deplored his rebellious lifestyle leading up to his accident. Now she took care of his basic needs, his bathing, feeding, & diaper-changing, and his *spiritual* needs; she kept him in their dimly-lit living room, shades pulled, with a local religious radio station on constantly. The evangelist preached fire and brimstone sermons about the sin and damnation. The preaching was interspersed with an occasional hymn. This was Rick's life, his only contact with the outside world except for visits to his doctor, trips to the Pentacostal church every Sunday, and an occasional evening of respite care.

After nearly an hour of the radio program I couldn't stand it any longer. I changed the station to one playing pop music. Rick had been watching me the whole time I had been there, giving no indication that he understood the one-sided conversation I had been providing. But with the change to pop music his eyes showed life and he smiled a bit and grunted. For the next hour and a half we listened to the music. Shortly before his parents were due back I changed the station back to the religious program.

That evening still haunts me. There is a hell -- Rick lives in it. Unlike the young man in the article Rick isn't fitted with a Stephen Hawking-type laptop. He is unable to express himself, to tell his mother to "shut it", although even if he did it is extremely unlikely that she would let up, given the degree and type of her religious convictions. As long as his parents keep him in their home or have control over his care he is likely to "live" this way.

who wants to lie in pain and suffering for months on end..
-- NOBODY-
neither do they want to wander in a fugue accompanied by the river of fire running through their head, daggers of metal shifting in and out of their jaw, unless being pierced by a vise grip tool, with no let up...until and unless the person is mostly absent due to pain killers.
NOTE: do pay attention to "killers"-- there are more ways of living death that are far worse than the begged for release; they are the forever UNFORGIVEN, condemned by family & once friends, they never recover from this enforced starvation and thirst that every human inhabitant needs to sustain life. they wonder why their heart keeps beating, t...

who wants to lie in pain and suffering for months on end..
-- NOBODY-
neither do they want to wander in a fugue accompanied by the river of fire running through their head, daggers of metal shifting in and out of their jaw, unless being pierced by a vise grip tool, with no let up...until and unless the person is mostly absent due to pain killers.
NOTE: do pay attention to "killers"-- there are more ways of living death that are far worse than the begged for release; they are the forever UNFORGIVEN, condemned by family & once friends, they never recover from this enforced starvation and thirst that every human inhabitant needs to sustain life. they wonder why their heart keeps beating, their lungs keep breathing, the stolen soul, no longer whole, just fragments to line the dog's bowl...