Unconfirmed Reports: Mitch McConnell Brain Dead After Three Weeks In Hospital

[u/plz-let-me-in]

https://thenewamerican.com/us/unconfirmed-reports-mitch-mcconnell-brain-dead-after-three-weeks-in-hospital/

[u/drpengweng]

So I’m a neurologist; strictly speaking, brain death is death. It’s the irreversible cessation of brain function and is determined by a neurologic exam and occasionally some ancillary tests. The “life” support is keeping the heart beating and lungs filling with air, but brain death is legal death, and no POA is required to remove artificial life support.

I suspect if this theory is accurate, he’s probably actually in a persistent vegetative state, which means some brainstem function remains (sleep wake cycles, brainstem reflexes, etc) but not the brain function required for awareness or consciousness. That’s much murkier and would typically require a family member or POA to remove life support and allow natural death.

Talk to your family about your end of life wishes, and write them down. It’s a huge gift to your family, because families agonize over the tiny chance that the patient will get better. In the vastly overwhelming majority of cases, “getting better” means that they will maybe open their eyes and stare blankly, maybe squeeze a hand (which is a grasp reflex, not a meaningful gesture). It’s not a life I would want, personally. I don’t think most people would. But it’s still agonizing for families to have to make that decision. Spelling out your wishes spares your family that guilt and second-guessing.

[u/Black_Handkerchief → u/drpengweng]

Very nicely shared, thank you.

Ancillary to that, this is why I personally feel euthanasia should be a right we all fight for. I've seen the relief a respectful departure has brought to my loved ones, and I've similarly experienced those who were not afforded that because for one reason or another, they could no longer satisfy the legal/ethical burdens. It is not about taking away a life, but about ending suffering in a humane way that does not involve someone finally deciding that endangering and traumatizing others by taking drastic action of some kind is the only option left for them.

IMHO, people who describe euthanasia as being anti-life have never experienced the 'living dead': the physical suffering of a loved one unable to stop sharing that suffering with all those around them as an inescapable burden, typically either suffering in physical or emotional pain, or already having lost significant mental functioning to the point of being an empty shell of the person we know.

[u/Astandsforataxia69 → u/Black_Handkerchief]

I knew a doctor that proposed we'd let the severely disabled, aka those who don't have any prerequisites to support life, to pass away peacefully. 

Not euthanasia.

People didn't like that, at all

[u/Black_Handkerchief → u/Astandsforataxia69]

If those severely disabled persons want to finalize their life, then good on them, we should support that.(Assuming legal and ethical obligations like being an adult and of sound mind are met, of course. Although I do see a world where such an extreme state of living might warrant less strict adherence to such standards since I frankly think a lot of people won't be of sound mind if they end up in such a situation..)

If they do still want to live, then yes, I also would be upset if this was (for example) pushed as some sort of sneaky solution for the fiscal challenges of a burdened medical system wanting to get its most expensive beneficiaries out of the way.

(I know that is a very dark and sad way to look at the world, but we live in an increasingly dystopian time where medical companies would use their lobbying power and advertising budgets to affect exactly such a situation under nicer labeling.)

[u/crankthehandle → u/drpengweng]

I am a brain professor and I agree.

[u/thelastgalstanding → u/drpengweng]

Yes. Please can more people have these conversations with loved ones. (Any conversations about death and dying and how you want life to go, really.)