Two years ago, my wife suffered full cardiac arrest. She required 45 minutes of CPR. She was hit with the defib at least nine times. She lapsed into a coma immediately,... her EEG was flatline. No dreams, no thoughts, no pain, no awareness, no sentience.
Twice, the neurologist came to me to ask if I have discussed with the family, chaplins and other dr.s about removing her from life support. She was rated a 3 (the worse possible) on the
Coma Scale.
She remained in the coma for 3 weeks.
She was on a ventilator which was doing 100% of her breathing for her.
She had catheters for her bodily functions.
A feeding tube inserted directly into her stomach... (originally she was fed through a tube in her nose)
She was posturing (feet and hands drawn up like someone with cerebal palsy)
While she was on the vent, she contracted two infections -
Mrsa and
Acinetobacter .
Her prognosis was not a good one at all.
I share all of this with you as a preface to a really important question. (Important to me, that is... and I hope you will give it some thought before answering.)
"What doctor would pull the plug on a comatose patient (like my wife) if that patient had even a fraction of the
prognosis (forecast) that a pre-birth child has?"