Damn, this is like a nightmare....
Man Actually Conscious Throughout Two Decades of "Coma"
Twenty three years ago, a car crash left Rom Houben totally paralyzed. Doctors gave him a battery of tests and concluded that he was in a vegetative state or a coma. Except that they were wrong: he was conscious the whole time but unable to tell anyone about it.
‘I screamed, but there was nothing to hear,’ said Mr Houben, now 46.
Doctors used a range of coma tests, recognised worldwide, before reluctantly concluding that his consciousness was ‘extinct’.
But three years ago, new hi-tech scans showed his brain was still functioning almost completely normally.
Mr Houben describes the moment as ‘my second birth’.
That may be my highest form of nightmare, tommy. I'm glad technology rescued him. But I don't think I'd ever voluntarily sleep again.
ION, I apologize if anyone else has posted this here, but I loved it and thought I'd share.
[link]
That link should work.
That is possibly the best thing I've ever seen, Bev.
Thanks amy! And Amy! Stoopid linky making me look bad.
love it. They possibly have too much time on their hands, but AWESOME way to use it.
I think I am going shopping at lunch. I have no business doing it, but will anyway. debit card only though.
Eek on being fully conscious and thought to be in a coma.
In other news, we broke down yesterday and adopted a companion kitty for Seamus. Well, actually, two. Pearl is a gray-and-white four-month-old girl. Coco is a black four-year-old boy.
Pearl doesn't seem to like being picked up, but once you succeed, she likes to be cuddled. She's taken to hiding in one corner of a bookcase.
Coco looks like a handful. The rescue group has had him in their system since 2005 (so, since he was a kitten or adolescent). He's fine if you sit still and let him approach you, but he hisses and growls and attacks if you try to approach him with much more than a finger to sniff.
love it. They possibly have too much time on their hands, but AWESOME way to use it.
That's pretty much exactly what I was thinking.
Also, that story of the guy in the coma is terrifying, but amazing that he's communicating now.
They're going to have more difficulty proving the persistent or vegetative parts of persistent vegetative states now, aren't they?
