jahi is improving, mom says

[niyad]

Brain Dead Teen's Mom Says in Letter that Daughter has Improved

The mother of a teenage girl who was declared brain dead in California after complications during tonsil surgery spoke out in an open letter Wednesday, saying that her daughter is improving.
"I can tell you that she is much better physically since she has left Children's Hospital and I see changes that give me hope," Nailah Winkfield wrote in a letter posted on the "Keep Jahi McMath on life support" Facebook page.


Winkfield thanked people who have been supportive of her cause to keep her daughter on life support, as well as those who have criticized the family's decision.

Jahi McMath was declared brain dead at Children's Hospital in Oakland, Calif., on Dec. 12, 2013, three days after she underwent a routine tonsillectomy (wish they would quit saying this, not true)


Jahi's family fought to keep the eighth-grader on life support even though doctors testified that she was technically dead. Children's Hospital would not treat Jahi and tried to remove her from a ventilator before her family moved her to an undisclosed care facility on Jan. 6.
Winkfield didn't specify where her daughter was, but her lawyer, Christopher Dolan, said on Jan. 8 that doctors inserted gastric tube and tracheotomy tube, procedures that Children's Hospital refused to perform.

"Thank you to all of the people who view my daughter as the sweet, innocent, 13 year old girl that she is and not a dead body or a corpse," Winkfield said.

Those who oppose the decision to keep Jahi alive (not alive) argue that Dolan is giving the family false hope and believe keeping Jahi alive is cruel since she has been legally dead for over two months.
"I know people are concerned and I want to make sure you know that Jahi is not suffering ... I will never let her suffer," Winkfield said. (of course there is no suffering, there is only a dead body!)



http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/brain-dead-teens-mom-says-letter-daughter-has-improved-n34496

[LongTomH]

1. Her family is deluded, of course; but, I can only feel sorrow and compassion.

[niyad]

2. I wonder how much that facility is raking in on this.

[Archae]

3. Terry Schiavo's Mom said the same thing.

[niyad]

4. I know. even though there is a difference between persistent vegetative

state and brain death, same delusions.

[hamsterjill]

5. Graphic question here - sorry, but I have to ask because I don't know.

The mother of the woman who was being kept alive in Texas because she was pregnant (and was FINALLY allowed to stop that insanity) spoke about the actual decay of the body while on life support. The mother said that there were smells and signs, etc. that confirmed to her that her daughter was indeed gone.

Would this not be a consideration in this young girl's situation? I mean, how long can they do this before there is nothing but a skeleton left?

Again...I'm sorry to be graphic.

[Spider Jerusalem]

6. Brain-dead patients have been maintained on a ventilator for years.

They're dead in any meaningful sense; there's no activity in the cortex or brainstem, but as long as the ventilator keeps oxygenated blood flowing to the tissues then body can be maintained for some time. The longest "survival" of a clinically brain-dead patient was in a child who had bacterial meningitis aged 4; the potential length of "survival" seems to be much higher for younger patients. The prognosis is much worse for older patients, and past 30 or so the longest "survival" is, I think, a few years; the systems of the body eventually break down (renal failure, other organ failure). But the body won't rot as long as the heart continues to beat and the ventilator is maintained (although there may be issues with bedsores and potential necrosis).