Monday, March 28, 2005
The human heart--a question for physicians and scientists
The scenario--a healthy 27-year-old woman has collapsed on her bedroom floor, facedown on the carpet. Her husband claims she has had a massive heart attack due to a potassium deficiency. No heart attack is ever, however, documented. The woman is without oxygen to her brain for 5 full minutes, causing severe brain damage. Cause is unknown, since, as I said, no heart attack was ever actually documented.
Fast forward 15 years. For the past 10 years this same woman has been deprived of every possible medical and nonmedical treatment. Nobody is even allowed to brush her teeth. She has one infection after another, every one of them untreated, and yet she recovers each and every time. She cannot feed herself, but she can breathe on her own and is not hooked to any other form of tube other than a feeding tube, despite the known fact that she can swallow her own saliva and such foods as jello. The feeding tube is removed by order of her husband.
Fast forward 10 days. Only 10 days. This now-41-year-old otherwise healthy woman has been without nourishment or hydration for 10 days. This woman whose husband claimed that she had a massive heart attack 15 years prior is fighting grimly for her life.
10 days. That's my question, and it's a serious one. Can someone who had a massive heart attack at 27, was deprived of oxygen for 5 minutes and suffered brain damage, survive for 10 days without food and water 15 years after the alleged heart attack? I really would like to hear from anyone who might have anything to say about this...
Fast forward 15 years. For the past 10 years this same woman has been deprived of every possible medical and nonmedical treatment. Nobody is even allowed to brush her teeth. She has one infection after another, every one of them untreated, and yet she recovers each and every time. She cannot feed herself, but she can breathe on her own and is not hooked to any other form of tube other than a feeding tube, despite the known fact that she can swallow her own saliva and such foods as jello. The feeding tube is removed by order of her husband.
Fast forward 10 days. Only 10 days. This now-41-year-old otherwise healthy woman has been without nourishment or hydration for 10 days. This woman whose husband claimed that she had a massive heart attack 15 years prior is fighting grimly for her life.
10 days. That's my question, and it's a serious one. Can someone who had a massive heart attack at 27, was deprived of oxygen for 5 minutes and suffered brain damage, survive for 10 days without food and water 15 years after the alleged heart attack? I really would like to hear from anyone who might have anything to say about this...
