When Are You Dead?

This is my dad, 14 years after coil embolization to repair a brain aneurysm, a stroke resulting from a clot breaking free after the surgery and further complicated by hydrocephalus and an infection in his brain stem when he was 41 years old [ompldr.org]. As you can see, a substantial portion of his brain is dead. He has left side hemiparesis and initially had massive problems with short term memory loss, swallowing, cognitive function, lack of inhibition, etc during the first year. Today, he's almost normal, though he sometimes gets a little forgetful and he needs help walking (he never regained much of his left hand). Most of the damage was done because it took 2.5 months to get him stabilized enough to go to rehab. After the surgery for the infection in his brain stem, he was in a coma and on a ventilator. I was told that he had 3 days to come out of it or he probably wasn't going to... and, respecting his wish to never be left to live on machines, I had made the decision of when I was going to pull the plug (I was going to wait a week so he didn't accidentally hang on and die on my sister's birthday).

The younger the brain, the more plasticity it has and the more capable of recovering from severe brain damage it is. You might not be the exact same as you are now, but my dad certainly has a decent quality of life today. "He" is definitely still very much there, though sometimes he gets frustrated because he can't do everything he used to do, particularly in way he used to do it. He hates that he's dependent on others... but he finds plenty of enjoyment in life, looks forward to the time he gets to spend with his grandkids, etc. After years of resistance and despite being a grade school dropout, he's finally decided he wants to start learning about computers and stuff.

Massive brain damage isn't the end of the world, though it can certainly be difficult. I understand that it's quite scary to think about and a lot of people would rather be dead than face those challenges. That said, the younger you are, depending on just how severe the brain damage is, you can still have a positive life afterward and you still can even be you. Not every case is an absolute case of permanent vegetative state or "losing the soul."

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/FEw2GYBJaLw/when-are-you-dead

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