How Do You Feel About This...It Angers Me a Bit

I think that this is very sad. I think its sad that the guy was told what he would never be able to do. Where there is life, there is hope........ As you say d2mfoundation one person's injury level varies to another of the same level.

Who knows what function could have returned....he will never have the option to enjoy his family because he believed he would not be able to enjoy them. I think that a decision as big as this cant be made whilst someone is presented with the worst case scenario. I doubt he felt hopeful in any way at all.

I think theres hope that cant be seen at first. It is definitely the role of staff to show some hope and he was in early recovery stages, right? 

Welcome d2mfoundation, To answer your question, I think in this instance it was wrong, although I wasn't there to know what transpired exactly. I believe in assisted sucicide, but not in a critical moment like that.

I went through a very similar thing. Doctors told my family I had no hope, my brain and spinal cord separated at the brain stem, I had a severe brain injury, I was in a coma/ on life support and may never wake up. They gave my dad the option to take me off of life support.

The problem is the hospital will always give the worst case scenario when discribing your current situation after severe trauma which doesn't help the person deciding to pull the plug or not. They don't want to give false hope and you never get better. I can see where they are coming from because they definetly see cases where the person never gets better. It also costs the hospital a fortune everyday that person is kept alive and they unfortunately want to keep costs down so they give you no hope.

Do I agree with these practices? No. When the hospital describes the persons current situation, they can explain it's too early to tell what's going to happen. Only in time will they be able to tell how much potential the person will have to recover. I definetly don't agree with penny pinching either. If it was Oboma's family in that situation they would keep them alive for months or years...

Nov 12, 2013 16:50:26 GMT -8 deanertheweiner said:

I went through a very similar thing. Doctors told my family I had no hope, my brain and spinal cord separated at the brain stem, I had a severe brain injury, I was in a coma/ on life support and may never wake up. They gave my dad the option to take me off of life support.

The problem is the hospital will always give the worst case scenario when discribing your current situation after severe trauma which doesn't help the person deciding to pull the plug or not. They don't want to give false hope and you never get better. I can see where they are coming from because they definetly see cases where the person never gets better. It also costs the hospital a fortune everyday that person is kept alive and they unfortunately want to keep costs down so they give you no hope.

Do I agree with these practices? No. When the hospital describes the persons current situation, they can explain it's too early to tell what's going to happen. Only in time will they be able to tell how much potential the person will have to recover. I definetly don't agree with penny pinching either. If it was Oboma's family in that situation they would keep them alive for months or years...

sadly its a business

Excellent post d2mfoundation, I saw the article a few days ago but haven't read up on it until now. I agree with what you're saying mainly because I've experienced similar situations myself and have heard from other people like deanertheweiner. Doctors always tell you the worse case scenario and never slip in hope. This man was extremely early in his injury and like you've said, he's definitely been misinformed. His body was most likely still in spinal shock which prevents you from recovering. When I was 1 month into my injury in the intensive care unit I could only move my right arm, just barely! Now I can move both arms quite well for someone with my level of injury. I was also initially classed ASIA A which changed to ASIA B three months down the road!

I think he would have had enough recovery say in a years time to even think about ending his life. He was told things that were uncertain which really affected his decision making. It's a very unfortunate situation for himself and his family. If he was able to talk to others with spinal cord injuries and hear about how much they've recovered despite what the doctors said, I think the final decision would have surely been different.