"Pillow Angel " parents on CNN Tonight ! !!

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I would like you to provide the link where the family has not tried therapy to improve their daughter.

Yeah, that is to be expected



PLEASE tell me I am FAR from the only male that has higher standards than that. I can't IMAGINE anyone wanting to do anything with her like that.



Just have them do EVERYONE a favor including themselves and her, and simply NOT push her about!



INTERESTING! Adhesions is supposed to be one of the things it is supposed to PREVENT. Luckily, I have neither problem. I just hate the whole idea! Besides, if women can be so angry about something on the other side of the planet, I can certainly be angry about something far closer to home.

In case I didn't make it clear, I AM also curious about what they are hiding on the HPV vaccine, and the answer MAY be(and probably IS) important to WOMEN also! In fact, THEY should be screaming about it because right now they are the ONLY ones subject to any unspecified adverse effects! I am just curious because if it is good, EVERYONE should take it! If it is bad, maybe nobody should.



I strayed from the topic ONLY because it was asked about in another post. No matter how you slice it, what they are doing is WRONG! Maybe they just want to get paid for her upkeep, and SKIM! Feed her JUST enough to have her look "healthy", and parade her about and advertise to get funds, and use the excess to do who knows what. I have known enough people that have done that to know it is NOT uncommon.

Steve

YEAH, I know! You had the smile. Just so you know, I had a heart operation a couple years ago. I actually got the doctors writeup, and researched the whole thing. With a little practice, I could probably do the whole thing. I could certainly tell the surgeon in general terms how to do it. I know why every little incision was made, etc... BESIDES, I was curious as to how they got everything to fuse together, etc... and how the valve rated(It is like the 2nd or third best, but one of the quietest), etc.... Sometimes I just research things a lot. I used to be TENACIOUS! And THAT was when you COULDN'T just google it! We didn't even have archie, veronica, or gofer! OK, OK! We had archie and veronica, but they were in the COMIC BOOKS! And the only gofer(gopher) we had was a rodent.

So no, I was just curious. BESIDES, I had like every type of hernia a male could have. I credit the doctors delivering me as they did with that. ALL were fixed except for an umbilical hernia. During the heart operation, they gave me an abdominal wall hernia! Don't you just LOVE doctors(sarc)? AND they wouldn't tell me about the muscle they removed either! Things like that make me all the more curious.

Steve

That's sick.

I apologize for twisting what you said. Sometimes The Old Prof gets a bit overheated in a discussion. I was afraid you had said this rashly, without thinking through the consequences. Obviously, you have given it serious thought, and understand what this decision would mean.
The details of the Terry Schivo case were difficult to sort out, I think it's a shame the way the courts let her die.

This case is little more than a human form of taxidermy. Her 'parents' are beneath contempt.

"human taxidermy" may be the creepiest term I've heard yet. I still haven't looked at their blog. On the CNN show another parent of a brain damaged child said he thought they were right to do what they did. Yuck. People just can't think for themselves anymore...

I hope this is not the pot calling the kettle black.

To clarify - I disagree with Prof Pretorius about the Terry Schiavo situation.

Putting aside religion, these cases are highly complex in terms of bioethics. In Terry Schiavo's case, there were EEG's done that basically proved that she had no cognitive function whatsoever and that she was not self-aware. The parents were the ones claiming that she made eye-contact (not exactly an objective source of info), though care personnel thought that it was just coincidental that she happenned to turn in their direction every once in awhile. The post-mortem supported the husband and everyone else who wanted to pull the plug because she was said to be in a persistant vegetative state. Last of all, the feeding tube itself can be considered a "heroic measure" in cases where people don't want to be kept alive using heroic measures (it is best to spell that stuff out in a living will, in any event). The bottom line is that but for the medical intervention of the feeding tube, Terry Schiavo could not be kept alive.

The case of this girl is a little different. I don't need anyone to tell me that she is or is not self-aware because I can see for myself from the pictures that she is self-aware. The medical intervention that is causing the controversy here (the surgery) is NOT life-sustaining. It is a matter of convenience. The post that I made earlier about the risk/benefit of surgery is another consideration. Yes I am aware that every surgery has risks - the point is whether or not the risk is worth the benefit.

Example - appendicitis - the risk of dying due to the appendicitis is much greater than any risk associated with general anesthesia. Grey area - breast reduction - a woman with extremely large breasts may elect to have a breast reduction for the purposes of improved spinal health, comfort, and appearance. She would go into it knowing the benefits and risks, so I'd respect her decision woth regards to the risk/benefit ratio. In this case, there is a risk - probably an increased one - of the general anesthesia and everything else I mentioned in my last post PLUS it doesn't benefit the child. It provides a convenience to the parents.

The ramifications that this proceedure has from a bioethical standpoint are perhaps the greatest concern of all. Would it be right for parents to have a promiscuous 12-year-old (they exist) spayed so that they wouldn't have the burden of a grandchild? What about the ramifications to the disabled population? This is a slippery slope, my friends. I feel sorry for this girl, but I can't really do anything for her - I wouldn't spend too much time thinking about her if it was just about HER. This is about all of us - auties, the ret*d, the paralyzed, and even promisuous female children. Think about that...

As for removing the breasts as a way to prevent sexual abuse, that's a total myth. All too often, sexual molestation happens before puberty sets in. I also think that the parents are the type who would have had an abortion if they knew about the disability during pregnancy. By posting that blog and going on CNN, I think the parents probably have Muchausen's as by publicizing their daughter's surgery in such a way, they get the attention they crave.

Abortion is legal in the US and major birth defects is a reason most people would support an abortion being preformed.

She has a mind of an infant. Would she be even aware what is being done to her? Would an infant know if surguries were being doen on them?


They removed her breast tissue and uterus because she has no need for them. The parents did mention large breasts grow in their family and they didnt want her have them too and then suffer from back pain because that has happened in their family. My mother had big oens and had to have them made smallar because they were hurting her back and shoulders. Mmm, she could have had them all removed since there would have been no need for them since she wouldn' be able to breast feed. When she decided to get her tubes tied, she could have had her utrus removed since there be no need for it since she didn't want anymore kids.


Taking care of grown ups who have a mind of infants is hard work because they are hard to carry and lift. Imagine havign to change them too or give them a bath or dress them. I don't know how they get cared for depsite their size. I imagine a bunch of people lift them up and put them in their wheel chair and in their beds Then I saw somewhere they use this thing it's liek a crane. They have this harness under you and they use this machine to lift you up in it and put you in your wheelchair.

But these people, they just want to make it easier for them so they would't have to put her in any home because they love her so much. Maybe they are also doing it to save money so they wouldn't have to hire anyone to take care of her but they are sure spending lot of money of surguries.


I don't know what to think of this of what they're doing. She has a mind of an infant so i can't decide if this is right or not.

On the Paula Zahn segment, she interviewed the mother of a boy who wasn't able to even sit up. He could turn his head, and had some facial expression, but that seemed to be all. The mother demonstrated how she lifted him, and carried him. (She was a large woman.) She was upset at Ashley's parents, and said she had no problem with her son going through puberty. It's not all that difficult to move someone around who's incapable of doing it themselves. (Ask any nurse who's worked in a care facility.)

As to Terry Schivo, mea culpa. I'm obviously not as well informed as to the details as I thought. May she rest in peace.

As for myself, I want heroic measures. I want life saving equipment. Send in my Pastor, a priest, a shaman, a witch doctor, anybody who might revive me ! !! !

And if all else fails put you on ice for future treatment.

Just like Walt Disney ...

Some people will indicate in a living will that they want nothing whatsoever to be done for them in terms of a vent, feeding tube, or whatever. Not me - if there was any chance that I could be cured from my medical state, I'd want these measures to be taken. Now if I were in Terry Schiavo's situation or the guy in Italy who wanted the plug pulled on his vent, I would want the plug pulled. Here's a link to the Italian situation http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6174603.stm which could probably be its own thread.

Anyway, to me it's a matter of how likely I am to come out of something versus how much financial or emotional burden I am causing. Take my father-in-law for instance. He had a stroke due to a heart attack and needed emergency bypass surgery which was contraindicated in a recent stroke patient. So he was on a vent, feeding tube, pressors (meds that make you sustain your blood pressure), and everything imaginable, even though he had less than 20% chance of surviving everything that he needed. He survived. So if those were my odds, by all means keep me alive.

If, however, my brain were severely oxygen deprived as in the case of Terry Schiavo and all EEG's indicated that only my brainstem was keeping me going, by all means pull the plug. The chances of me being "cured" of that are about the same as someone from the Starship Enterprise who can cure the condition travelling to the year 2007 and choosing to beam down next to my hospital bed.

Anyway, with complex bioethical issues like these, it's hard to plan for every possible scenario. But I don't generally have a problem with routine plug-pullings in terminal cases or in cases where the person is in a persistant vegetative state.