Questions for those in the medical field or with similar experience...

[Sugar Sand Farm]

Hi I'm sorry for your problems Your in my prayers. It was the opposite with my mother she was undergoing radiation for lung cancer. She had the cancer licked. She started having problems and we took her to the hospital. After we checked her in and they put her to bed we finally left her at 12:30 am my sister and I traveled home During this timne she had a massive heart attack. it came from out of no where as she never had heart problems at all. They lost my mother that night when I tried to call early the next mornign they could not find her. After several franic calls i found out she was in intensive care. We rushed to the hospital to find her on a ventilator. I stayed there with her every day and only left late at night . During that time I never got to talk to the doctors. They use to leave by the back door of intnesive care. We knew nothing. Finally after a week one of her nurses took me aside and said her vital organs were dying. I went ballistic and made a scene.and finally got to talk to the doctor. he said her heart had exploded. there was nothing left of it to beat with out machines, but her brain was fully functioning. So everytime she had a code blue they would resusatate. After days of this her cancer doctor came out and said we can keep doing this until all her organs fail or we can pull the plug. We had to choose. My brother ,sister and i taked it over and he told them to do it. She died a few minutes later. It is hard but I can say we were at peace. my mother never wanted to be on a machine and was very angry when she woke up on one. You will know when its time. Be at peace and remember what she means to you.

 

[HSmamma]

for a doctor to test brain death is reflex of the pupils, eye placements when head is moved back and forth (the eyes turns when heads turns due to balance), needle or flat object such as pen pushed into the quick of toe or finger (one isnt brain dead, would flinch at the pinch of the object), reflexes are non responsive or knuckles rubbing on chest (most will push the hand away) to get a response from the patient. Remember every doctor have their own interpretation of brain death so it is very likely you would need to get a second or third opinion on these matter of "brain death". Not every doctor would agree one hundred percent of their fellow doctors may say of said brain deaths........

Let me just clarify-I'm not sure about other states but in RI, there has to be several tests to declare a person brain dead, yes-the test above are done but so is an apnea challenge ( a person cannot be brain dead and survive off of a ventilator) and the flow study to detect blood flow to the brain is also done. Once a person is declared brain dead-yet another doctor must sign off on this decision. The person is removed from the ventilator unless they go on for organ donation. In order to declare a person brain dead they must have no sedating drugs in their body and their lab levels must be normal including sodium and glucose levels that when not normal can look like brain death. Every doctor does not have their own interpretation. Declaring someone brain dead has very strict criteria as it should. But getting another opinion in any instance is always a good idea.

Again- my heart goes out to you during this difficult time.
-hsmamma