You will suffer from serious cognitive deficiencies and display obvious signs of paranoia but, even worse, you will lack the self awareness to even realize it and will also suffer from extreme self delusion. For example, in one study a lobotomized patient was unable to name the title of even one magazine that she reads and would ramble on incoherently about “hopey changey stuff” and use nonsensical words such as “refudiate,” but would refuse to come to terms with her limitations, instead blaming the “lamestream media”. Yet, despite being the laughingstock of the entire Western Hemisphere, she went on to humiliate herself even further by starring in her own reality show and, for a while, even thought she was a credible candidate for POTUS in 2012.
When I was a child, my parents knew a man who defected to the Soviet Union with his family. Once in the Soviet Union, he handed over what secrets/classified info he had managed to steal from the US military and was granted permanent resident status. At some point he was lobotomized, probably for schizophrenia, and died some time later. His family eventually was repatriated to the US and we kept touch with them off and on for a while. I’ve always wanted to investigate this story more fully. I remember the widow showing us a picture of her husband after the lobotomy looking very blank, and can still hear her say “He was never himself anymore after that.”
Well, as noted already, the known results have been all over the range of possibilities, from mild cognitive impairment to total zombie. Those with some lesser degree of zombieness could tell their tale or write their memoirs, as Dully has. Others have too, I think. The more severely zomboid ones, not so much. Wonder what THAT feels like?
Same questions, of course, for stroke victims in general, or other brain injuries or degenerative diseases.
My speculation: If I’m ever in such a state that I am mentally unable to formulate a choice whether I want to be kept alive, or physically unable to communicate such a choice, with little prospect for any significant improvement, then my choice would be to Pull The Plug!
If this is what you want please complete some form of advance directive this link is to a State of TN sitebut has good information for all. Google your own state and advance directives for more specific information. Talk to your immediate family members and make sure everyone understands what you want, and get your PCP to sign it.
I have an AHCD, but I’m not really satisfied with it. It’s a standard-issue form with several pages of simple questions with multiple-choice checkbox answers or short fill-in-the-blank answers. I think it’s too superficial and perfunctory.
I want to write an AHCD in some kind of essay form, where I could write things like I wrote above.
and maybe more, along lines like that. I think that’s legal and valid in California. But I’m not so confident that anybody would actually, like, read the thing.
My bigger fear is that, without friends or family or kinfolk or money, I won’t be able to afford decent treatment (palliative or otherwise) and there won’t be anybody there to pull for me and keep on my case, other than some overworked and underpaid social worker who will spend 15 minutes a year on my case, and leave me on deposit at the first Medi-Medi nursing home in her Rolodex that has an available bed. Without someone pulling for me personally, I just don’t have any confidence that any doctors, nurses, hospitals, insurance companies, or anybody will honor and maybe not even pay any attention to my AHCD, or that I will get any other kind of adequate care either.
ETA: Sorry, I guess this is drifting rather far afield from grude’s OP.
FTFY:
Sorry, I didn’t mean to subliminally suggest all those things, I meant to say them outright but didn’t have time. I can’t decide between 5 straight hours of “Say Yes To The Dress” or 5 straight hours of UFO shows tonight.
When I was a kid they were still performing this surgery. One kid I knew was deaf and had fits of rage sometimes so they performed the surgery to calm him down. He still had fits of rage but were much less frequent but many times more violent when they did occur. My general impression of him was that he was mildly retarded.
Another boy I knew had stabbed his sister, they performed the surgery on him also, we never saw him again.
