If she has any glimmer of consciousness, then it’s just all the more gruesome for her.
And the lawsuit has finally been filed.
I guess it’s time for another update. Under the circumstances, zombie jokes may be in somewhat poorer taste than usual.
I don’t have nearly enough medical knowledge to know what’s going on, but I’m beginning to wonder if the family was right after all. Jahi’s family has filed suit in federal court to try to revoke the death certificate.
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Jahi-McMath-s-family-takes-brain-death-lawsuit-6718985.php
From the link:
I’d want to know what those instances entailed, if there is indeed any evidence beyond hormonal changes, and if a neurologist has confirmed brain activity.
I don’t wish to be cruel, but I am willing to dismiss out of hand anything the family, particularly grandma, brings forward. And I’ve known too many oddball docs to accept Dr. Eck’s assertions without corroboration.
.
If her body is still functioning, at all, then I will have to admit she’s not been brain dead for two years. She just couldn’t have been. So either the doctors were wrong, or she’s lying in a stinking puddle of goo somewhere in New Jersey and Dr. Eck is part of a conspiracy.
Since Dr. Eck has never had any sanctions by the medical board in New Jersey (I looked her up on NJ license’s look up), has an unremarkable private practice (the only thing weird about them is that they don’t take insurance) and is in fact something of a public figure, having run for both Senator and Representative in New Jersey… I think it would be a stretch to accuse her of conspiracy.
So the hospital done fucked up. She wasn’t brain dead.
It’s still not certain Dr. Eck isn’t in over her head. And running for office is hardly evidence of sanity or honesty.
Yeah, I’m not certain of anything in this case.
I still don’t buy it.
If you look at the pictures her parents have been showing, her hands are all shriveled up, like they have no bones. (ALWAYS her hands, with her nails done.) And they now have her wearing eye patches, when they haven’t before.
The ad I see in the middle of that story is “There’s nothing like waking up on a Sealy Posturepedic”. 
It’s a shame the hospital screwed up on the brain death diagnosis, validating these people. If she could, I doubt Jahi would thank them for keeping her alive in that state.
Ew.
It’s possible the eye patches are adhesive bandages for keeping the eyelids closed so that her eyes don’t dry out. That’s sometimes done to keep people in a coma from losing their eyes (and making things a bit more comfortable for other people in the room).
Or it’s possible her eyes have rotted out of her skill.
At this point, I can’t even guess.
Isn’t it being right that validates them?
She’s still, at best, massively brain damaged and in a vegative state. Letting her die two years ago would have been kinder. Instead they’re continuing to draw out this charade, and if there was any hope that they’d come to their senses and act in the child’s best interests, that ship has sailed now that they’re fighting to prove the eeeeevil people who declared her dead two years ago wrong. From my understanding of their legal circumstances, there’s big money involved too. If they’re right, compo, and if they’re wrong, bankruptcy.
But those people were wrong, apparently. And might possibly have been encouraged to make that wrong diagnosis, given that it may have been malpractice that did the girl in in the first place. That would be evil.
If she’s as bad as all that, and without hope of recovery, there’s not really any “kinder” to be had, for the girl herself, is there? No reason to think she suffers?
But if she’s been kept on life support all this time, wouldn’t that by definition keep her body functioning?
Also, I’m not well-versed in all brain functions, but it seems probable that the hypothalamus could function mechanically while still meeting all accepted definitions of brain death.
As discussed at great length earlier in this thread two years ago, no. Not for someone with, as the hospital claimed, a completely flat EEG. People who are kept functioning on life support for years are people with brain damage, but with brain stems that are still working. People in persistent vegetative states, not brain death.
Things reported two years ago, like the mucosal lining of the intestines sloughing off, were consistent with brain death, and incompatible with long term functioning, even with life support.
The hypothalamus is part of the brain. The hospital’s claim, as I understand it, was that there was absolutely no brain function.
The latest report, if true, does certainly cast doubt on the hospital’s evaluation. That’s a big if.
That’s what her mother claimed – although I have my doubts, considering the way her hands look. Can any living human possibly get their hands in that type of position?
They’re now saying “she’s moving”, but the angles in the video make it tough to tell if someone’s making it happen. Who knows? I’m not a medical expert.
Not to be crude about it, but pre-surgery photos of Jahi (see here ) pretty clearly show breast development. She didn’t just enter puberty within the past year or so. If the family is willing to stretch the truth about this, what else are they stretching the truth about? Previously, the family has said that she is receiving a cocktail of medications, so could various sex hormones be part of that mix?
The longest period of mechanical maintenance after diagnosis of brain death is 14 years.
Jesus. I assume this is the case you’re talking about:
http://www.casinapioiv.va/content/dam/accademia/pdf/sv110/sv110-shewmon.pdf
That is so horrifying, I don’t even have words. I know, I know, he wasn’t there to suffer. But…shudder
What’s the mode for duration of period of mechanical maintenance after diagnosis of brain death?
Yes, “T.K.” was the case to which I referred. (Sorry, I was remembering 14 years; it was really over 20.)
An article about him, including details and photos of his brain autopsy, was published in the Journal of Child Neurology. He was four years old when meningitis destroyed his brain; over the following two decades he grew some (104 cm and 70 kg at autopsy) and developed a few secondary sexual characteristics, although obviously did not develop normally. His limbs would respond to tactile stimulus, and sometimes he made apparently random and spontaneous movements, particularly of his legs. His mother kept him in a small apartment in her basement for much of that twenty years. His brain was GONE: “Subsequent autopsy revealed a calcified intracranial spherical structure weighing 750 g and consisting of a calcified shell containing grumous material and cystic spaces with no recognizable neural elements grossly or microscopically.”
There are a few other cases of long-term maintenance; Alan Shewmon found “approximately 161 documented survivals of at least 1 week, approximately 67 at least 2 weeks, approximately 32 at least 4 weeks, approximately 15 at least 2 months, and 7 at least 6 months.” (Shewmon has argued against the very definition or concept of brain death, hence use of the word ‘survivals.’) All of the cases that lasted long-term were children, most of them very young.
Usually, medical personnel don’t even try long-term maintenance, so I’m not sure anybody has any meaningful statistics on how long is typical, or even possible. (T.K. was finally declared dead only because his mother gave up and decided no further attempts at resuscitation would be taken the next time he went into cardiac arrest.) Most often, after the diagnosis is made and confirmed, the hospital gives the family a few days to come to terms and then the machines are turned off.