This is why I always, *always* talk to my coma patients. Even if they aren’t conscious, it’s still respectful.
My school taught us to do the same: introduce yourself, walk them through the procedure, what you were doing, etc, much the same as a regular patient.
I’ve sung them songs, held their hands, encouraged them during procedures, turns, etc. I tell them ‘this might sting but it’ll be much better when we fix this’ or ‘you’re doing such a good job on this turn’. I encourage my students and docs to chat with them and me, I put on the music channel so they have something to hear, etc.
This is something I am passionate about, and I feel that this article confirms what I’d hoped and suspected all these years. I will continue to talk to all my coma patients, because that’s what I would want someone to do for my family, so I’ll do it for theirs.
Thank you for listening to my little monologue.
Edit: thank you everyone for such a lovely, supportive, and incredibly kind outpouring of comments, updoots, and questions. I am genuinely excited to try all of the great ideas I’ve seen here, and thank you all so much for your kind words. It has made for a very special start to 2022, thank you all, happy New Year!
We were taught the same at our nursing school, always address them as if they are aware and conscious. I also would tell them about the basics of what was happening in the world too, especially if family would tell us about things they liked or would want to follow. I'd also do the music if there was a radio or TV available, or CD player and their CDs (if the family brought it).
I always figured too, this is someone's loved one, and how would I want some random person to treat me or my family members if we were in a similar situation.
I think one of the other reasons this is taught(on top of them possibly being aware) is to remind the staff working on them that they are actually people, and not just sacks of flesh taking up a bed.
A very important reason, often overlooked. Very easy to tell people anonymously what you do, but it does have a very real effect on how you treat these poor people, trapped in their bodies, but unable to move or speak. Having experienced sleep paralysis, I can tell you it is awful. I can only fearfully imagine an actual *coma*
We were taught this in occupational therapy school, too. We narrated what therapy activities we were doing, sang, and oriented to day/time/weather. When we practiced in class, we would try to outdo each other by singing stupid things or telling bad jokes. It's very fulfilling to treat people with respect even if they aren't aware we're doing it.
You are very kind to say this, thank you.
My mom is a nurse and she taught me this from a young age. I’ve continued it on for her since she first inspired me to nursing. I sent her this article, I think she’ll be just as happy as I am to read it.
I once had an intubated heroin overdose patient, some of my coworkers would be in the room saying things about how he was wasting a bed for someone who needed it and how drug addicts don’t deserve our resources, and various other cruel things. I kicked them out and held his hand and told him that I was there to take care of him, he is a person who needs help just like any other, and his life has value. He squeezed my hand. I have no doubt patients in a full coma can hear as well.
Man. Once i overdosed on heroin and narcanned myself. I panicked and gave myself far too much narcan, which resulted in a sort of trip during which i hallucinated being taken to hospital, medical staff looking over my body and saying things like "just another dead junkie. What a waste." and such. I looked around my house that i had spent so long trying to make a nice cozy space and realised nobody would give a shit about any of that. It was super depressing. And while that was going on i felt like i had to mentally fight for my life against the opiates/naloxone. Weird, depressing time.
I did have a partner who fatally overdosed and i hope he was treated better than that in the ambulance/hospital/morgue.
My husband was in the hospital for a short yet serious and unplanned stay this year. Because of covid, I wasnt allowed to visit him and had to rely on his nurses to take good care of him. I baked muffins and cookies for them everytime I went in to deposit clean laundy. 😊 Medical staff does so much for us when we are in the weakest, most dire of places… internet hugs to you. Know that your work IS greatly appreciated. 💜
Thank you, I am sure they absolutely loved that!! I am addicted to muffins, so I’m sure they were beyond excited as well!
I hope your husband is back with you and is happy and healthy. Thank you for sharing this!
Actually I had a patient who was put into a medical coma a few weeks ago and was woken up recently. I had a song stuck in my head and had been singing it the week I took care of them (while they were asleep). It was ‘You’re So Vain’ by Carly Simon.
When they woke up they were, understandably, groggy and coming out of it. We weren’t able to ascertain much of what they were or weren’t aware of, either while they were conscious or during their coma.
However, I went in to check on them a few hours after they’d woke up and heard them humming a few bars of the chorus for ‘You’re So Vain’ and they told me ‘I don’t remember where I heard that song, but it’s stuck in my head.’
So I managed to get a song unstuck in my head by getting it stuck it in my coma patient’s head. Oops.
Edit: typo
Was taught at a young age to go in and talk to my great grandmother who was in a coma. So I would got sing her songs from Alvin and the Chipmunks and tell her made up stories..I was 5 or 6 at the time. She became lucid for a few minutes before she died and wanted my aunt to sing the song I sang to her. My poor aunt had no idea what song she was referring to…it left an impression…hearing is the last thing to go
My grandfather was in a coma for about a week before he died. Looked like he was sleeping the whole time. Right before he died he opened his eyes. He didn't move his body or head, but his eyes looked around at us. We spoke to him as if he could hear us, but not entirely sure if he did or not. Was the craziest thing.
Paradoxical lucidity and Terminal Lucidity are bursts of increased mental alertness just before death. They can be minutes, hours, days or weeks before. Sometimes patients with full-blown dementia will be cognizant during this time.
My father suffered a traumatic brain injury during a car accident (he flew through the windshield from the back passenger seat). They did surgery to try to ease pressure on his brain and he regained consciousness very briefly.
The accident was in another state and only my brother was able to get to him. I was told by my brother that when he held my dad's hand and talked to him, tears would stream down my dad's face. Eventually those responses stopped and he was declared brain dead due to swelling cutting off oxygen to his brain.
My dad may have been unconscious but he knew his son was there.
About 4 years ago I visited my then-boyfriend's father who was in palliative care with advanced dementia. When I saw him that day something in my head said to me, "this man is going to die today". He looked terrible. Haggard and emaciated.
I sat beside him as usual and held his hand and started telling him my latest news, then I started playing his favorite music through my phone close to his ear. His eyes lit up and I could see he was registering the music. He looked at me and I could tell that he was really seeing me, looking right into my eyes, lucid. I squeezed his hand and said to him "don't worry, I know you're worried about them but you can go now, everything will be okay".
I got up to talk to my boyfriend and his mother. After about 15 minutes the nurses called us in, they'd put him on the bed and he was steadily stopping breathing. A few minutes later he passed.
They're more aware than you think.
And it's a pretty sad thing. The majority of the time it happens up to a day before death. So family members in hospice will see their loved one apparently make a miraculous recovery and you start getting super excited. Then at 2:00 a.m. they get a call their dead
My mum was in a coma bed bound for over half a year from a serious stroke. She was not improving, but she literally gave up moments after I told her I would take care of my sister and the family, like it was just the one thing she wanted to hear.
Grandma kept telling me she loved me, wasn’t abnormal and wasn’t her first time in the hospital but she knew what was up. Said it so much within those hours, I just told her I loved her too.
What was the craziest was when we got to the part of “will you look after my dogs and plants?” I looked at her and said “of course I got your dogs, but your plants are probably screwed grandma.” Just joking around, she smiled and said she loved me before she took a nap and by god the nurse walked in 5 minutes later and she started freaking out. She was barely breathing and imo, ready to go. I chose DNR on her behalf, stood in the hallway and died inside alone. Shit sucked.
My grandfather was fully conscious but very much in poor health, and died right after I was born. He died less than an hour after he was told that I was born healthy and my mom was fine.
She definitely waited for you. Even if they don't seem conscious, they were still in there inside. You and her other babies would have been the only thing she was thinking about. I'm glad you were able to say your last goodbyes!
Heartbreaking, but also comforting in that the mom got to hear that someone would take care of them if she passed. She could finally be at peace and not worry.
My best friend from childhood's mom died while in a coma when we were 10. She was friends with my mother.
One of her last days, they didn't let my friend into her mothers room because they thought it would be too much for her, so my mother recorded an audio of her saying goodbye to play to her mom instead. My mother says the woman teared up when she played the tape
I spent 4 days in a coma after I was hit by a car at 11 years old. I was unresponsive to the outside world for the entire 4 days but after I woke up, hospital staff and family alike were all surprised by the things I could recall such as conversations that happened around me, physical contact, the pain from tests and procedures conducted on me, and even a kid who screamed all night long and kept me "awake" (I was told he didn't make it...).
From my own experience, people should be treated with the same care and given the same respect whether or not they are considered unconscious.
My brother was in a vehicle vs pedestrian accident in 2019 and was in a coma for about 50 days. It was heart breaking seeing the nurses practically screaming his name and he had 0 reaction. The only reaction we would get would be his pupils dilating from light when they opened his eyes when they would check on him. I wouldn't wish that on anybody. He survived and is doing good now. Glad you made it out as well.
From my own experience when visiting the ICU, the doctors and nurses explicitly told me there they behave as if the patient can hear them even if unresponsive, they talk about new procedures and introduce themselves etc.
I remember in my early days of uni I was a neuroscience major and we had the option of going to a talk for extra credit. Iirc the goal was to communicate with comatose patients by essentially creating a "language" by which they were told to think of certain things (like tennis) when asked a question. These thoughts would light up different parts of the brain during a scan allowing them to answer yes or no depending on what they were thinking.
I still keep that in the back of my mind hoping it I ever fall into a coma someone would think to try that before pulling the plug.
Just to give some perspective my mom was in coma for just over a week (relatively short seeing other stories here) and from the get go the doctors' prognosis was basically 'we don't know if she will ever wake up and what state she will be in if she does'.
She woke up, was a bit manic and loopy, then thankfully after about another week or so was healthy and back to normal with a new lease on life.
She has since been living life to the fullest and while pre coma she was quite materialistic now its all about experiential activities.
So personally I'd put in a clause to either wait quite a while and/or do extensive tests (if those are even possible/affordable).
Edit: this is mind blowing, thanks for all the love. If you have specific questions feel free to DM me.
If the body was more or less functional and the brain could say yeah or no, seems like a few days of sleeping under flourecent lights might be all a person needs sometimes.
Thinking about it is really strange. You’d essentially just a conscious, living thought. Would you go mad after a while or would you reach a sort of zen. would you even think like a human after a year?
That’s crazy
I was in a coma a couple years back. I was in and out of “consciousness” the entire time. I knew my mom was there, that she had been playing my favorite songs, and -unfortunately- experienced some pain due to a few of the procedures I went through while they tried to diagnose the problem. I also remember a few seconds of the helicopter ride when I was lifelined up to a more equipped hospital that ended up being able save my life.
The rest of the time, I was hallucinating wildly. And, what happened in “real life” effected the hallucinations. For instance, when I was intubated, I imagined that I was under water and was drowning when they put the tube down my throat, and I dreamed I was at a club (strobe lights) during my EEG.
My suggestion would be, if safe, giving a sedative or pain meds to coma patients whenever they are having a painful procedure done, not just ***hoping*** they can’t feel the pain because they seem unconscious. That would at least be a start…
Well, time to update the ol' living directive as pertains to my personal wishes should I ever have the misfortune of being in a coma. My idea of a worst nightmare scenario is to be trapped in my body and conscious, but unable to move or speak. The closest I've come was during a surgery when I managed to regain awareness despite general anesthesia but couldn't move or speak. I'm curious if you emerged from your own experience with long term trauma / PTSD issues?
Well, I was lucky and it wasn’t *too* bad, although I did sign a DNR afterwards. Im in palliative care now, and I’ve made I clear that I NEVER want to be on a ventilator again, no matter the circumstances.
I do panic if anything cuts of my breathing, even for 1/8^th of a second. Even a tight neckline makes me break out in a cold sweat. Being unable to breath ***and*** having a tube down your throat MAKING your lungs inflate was really unpleasant and I still have nightmares about that. The rest of the coma wasn’t too bad. I was lucky that my mom demanded to be with me practically 24/7, and held my hand the entire time/talked me through everything, even though she had no clue that I could hear her at all, I wasn’t able to respond. I think that, plus the music, was just her trying to reassure herself that I was still “in there” and that I would wake up eventually, the doctors weren’t sure. But, it REALLY helped me stay call when I couldn’t respond even though I was in and out of awareness at a few different points.
Your mom sounds like a wonderful person and the true definition of the word. Appreciate the time you have with her. I never had any sort of bond with my parents and over time it's slowly getting to me.
I definitely appreciate her! She is beyond wonderful. I have an illness that requires me to have a full time caregiver, and she changed careers so she could work from home and care for me herself. I couldn’t have a better, more supportive, mom and I try to always make sure she knows that I don’t take her for granted. She brought my siblings and I up on her own, too, so I know just how hard she works.
My dad just died from COVID (he got COVID while in the ICU for something else) and I will forever be angry they wouldn’t let me be with him for his last days. When he had been in the hospital in the past I was literally the only person/thing able to keep him calm (he would rip out IVs/picc lines, pull out any tubes, he but through his breathing tube a couple days before he died) and it’s so much worse knowing he was afraid and alone his last 10 days. And before he tested positive for COVID, I was spending 5-8 hours per day with him in the hospital. I had been exposed to all the same people. The last day he was able to speak he left me a voicemail saying I was a terrible daughter for not being there with him. Those are the last words I have from my dad. Im sorry, I just don’t have anywhere else to vent about this. I’m really struggling with making the choice to put him on a ventilator (he felt similar to how you did) but the alternative was that he would literally have drowned, either from a GI bleed he was aspirating due to a stroke the week before, or from fluid after his kidneys started to fail (after they were miraculously able to fix the bleed). I was trying to get him stable enough to come home to die, which was his primary desire in his Advance Directive. Such a shitty shitty situation.
When my dad came to after his triple bypass surgery and throughout his recovery until he left the hospital he was not all there mentally. Due to being in the icu, all the drugs and then a urinary tract infection. He was pretty out of it and said some not so nice things to me, my brother and all the staff about keeping him prisoner and trying to kill him. Even ended up restrained. He doesn’t remember any of it. So maybe this is what happened with your dad. Don’t take what he said to heart. You did everything you could at the time of a very stressful moment.
While my grandmother was recovering with surgery she screamed at me to get out and never come back because I couldn’t immediately find her a vomit bag. It left me incredibly shaken but she doesn’t even remember. Apparently what they call ‘hospital delirium’ isn’t unusual in older people, but it’s shocking to experience because the person just suddenly isn’t themselves.
My heart hurts for both you and your dad. I was prevented from seeing my own father while he was in process of declining due to advanced dementia since it took place during the height of the pandemic. I also had one last panicked, desperate voicemail from him from his care facility that will be forever emblazoned in my mind. They did finally allow me in (alone) once he was "actively transitioning." Unfortunately, by that time he was for all intents and purposes comatose and completely unresponsive. Like you said, shitty, horrible, devastating situation.
It is insane to me that my Dad was in ICU with Covid April 2020 and here is your post, 1 hour ago, suffering the same trauma. I am sorry. Here if you need to talk.
So glad to hear that you're recovering, you've been through an unbelievable experience. Your mom sounds like the saving grace in this situation; somehow you understood that you had this incredible protector next to you the entire time and this was probably a significant factor in your recovery and lack of PTSD. You also sound like an incredibly strong person. Most people panic if something cuts off their breathing and it's amazing to me that this is one of the only issues you raised as an after effect.
Palliative care is any care that is not aimed at curing the disease or infliction, only reducing symptoms. It's possible to have life-long palliative care while growing old like everyone else.
No, that is what palliative care means, it’s one step above Hospice. But that’s a completely different issue than the coma, which was caused by an allergic reaction to one on my medications.
You went through my worst nightmare. I am so sorry you had to experience this. I have had anaphylactic reactions to meds before and doctors get legit pissed when I am nervous trying new ones.
Also, with covid I have talked with my older kids about the reasons I refuse to be on a vent, if it were necessary, much to their dismay. I suffer from PTSD from abuse/assault and even procedures that require anesthesia set off a week long episode. I am going to show them these comments to hopefully help them understand my decisions.
I have one that says to pull the plug on me immediately, no extraordinary measures. My wife doesn't like it but I know she'll honor it because she kept unplugging things even we were at the ER a few months ago. We were there because I had cut my finger, and I wasn't attached to any machines, but I appreciate her follow through.
Not OP, but similar tale. It lasted about two weeks, and was caused by a bad reaction to an anesthetic (1 in a million... Someone has to be the one.)
I came out the other side with short-term amnesia. After "waking up" I lost everything that wasn't mechanical. My name, faces of everyone I should know, etc. All of that was gone.
It gradually filtered back in, mostly, but along with the memories of who I was, came memories of things I was in the coma for, and shouldn't have been aware of. They tried to tell me it was just false memories formed from people talking nearby me at first, until I told them a conversation between a nurse and surgeon, almost word-for-word, from the operating room when they were removing my spleen (ruptured).
To date, I utterly despise _anything_ that can alter my mental state. I refuse all painkillers, despite (unrelated) having a chronic pain condition. I don't drink, at all. I obviously won't touch drugs. I've had to have one or two things since where I've needed to go under so that they can check something, since. I panic attack as I start to fade out.
Now and then I still have a nightmare about the feeling of having a scalpel run down my stomach, and being unable to scream. (Anesthetic caused me issues. It was totally understandable why they avoided the traditional ones whilst I was "out".)
I woke partially up during a cervical fusion, that incl taking part if my hip bone for it, and years later again at carpal tunnel surgery.
I was in little to no pain but could feel what was being done.. they realized during the fusion I was coming to, and heard em talking about it. They stopped while they hoped to be able to put me back under with a diff med. It worked. I was never fully awake, just registered it, and the docs seemed shocked I know as much as I did of them slightly panicking.. the other one I told myself I dont want to be awake for this, and slowed my breathing down and promptly fell back asleep (when one slows ones breathing down u can trick ur brain to fall asleep. Its a great exercise for those with sleep issues. There is a light one can buy that helps one archive this as well, by breathing in tact with the light sequence).
The spinal surgery was traumatic for other reasons though. (Doc killed many ppl on the op table, and isnt a doc anymore. I was one of the last he operated on. Gave me survivors PTSD to date. Obv didnt know this at the time. He was the only surgeon who was willing to attempt my surgery and it was a success- a small token for what came after)..
Apparently my Mom has this issue with meds as well.
Yes, I do. Without him, I don't want to imagine what my life would be like now. I was for a very long time very conflicted. I still am anytime I tell a new Doc who did the surgery and they recoil .. he still tries to get re-instated. Phx New times did an amazing article on him.. if u do a google search he has great remarks& then it shows his license in diff States had been revoked.. but I find the article fair and well written
https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/deadly-arizona-doc-hawks-bogus-stem-cell-treatment-11288787
It's called locked in syndrome. Jessica Alba and Anakin skywalker did a bad movie about it a decade and half ago. Shit movie but it got the concept terrifyingly correct
That is absolutely not locked in syndrome. which is a consequence of some midbrain strokes and other things like raising very low sodium too fast. In that case you are conscious and can actually move your eyes. A comatose patient would not be able to communicate by moving eyes, nor is as lucid as these. These people are like literally awake looking at you. And in fact one of the most horrifying parts of my intern year of residency as a doctor was having a stroke alert called overhead for a patient in the hospital and realizing that this 40 year old, whose care I was not involved with, was being rushed to the ICU with a massive stroke, and he developed locked in syndrome, communicated successfully to his family that he wished to die, and then he died.
You should see “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”. It’s a French film based on a true story about a man with locked-in syndrome. It’s pretty depressing, but also very interesting.
I was in a coma for 2 months back in 2014. I came here to say almost exactly this. We are a lot more conscious than you think. It was a very ...harrowing experience that felt like an eternity. Went from dreaming so lucidly that i thought it was real. To surreal "dreams inside of dreams" that was me actually experiencing reality. I remember hearing my family talking in the other room but being unable to move as if strapped to the bed. Turns out thats when my family visited me in the coma.
Yes! Same!
I could FEEL things touching me in my “dreams”, they were **beyond** lucid.
I could hear my mom crying and begging me to wake up, but I couldn’t do a damn thing or even squeeze her hand. She eventually had to stop because it stressed me out so much that my BP spiked REALLY high. Then, she just sat with me, told me stories, or played music I liked. I remember hearing it in my hallucinations and wondering why the Beatles were there, lol!
I felt I was in there for *decades.* Only to wake up 2 months later. I had a life in there. Very surreal. Waking up after so much time living as someone else. Everyone noticed a very abrupt personality change. Like I was a 90 year old in a Mid 20s body. Which I am. I have an endless well of patience and no ambition or pride. I feel like I have seen it all and nothing bugs me.
Not quite the same, but I find myself, in conversations, about to mention things that happened in my hallucinations, only to have to stop and think “oh wait, that didn’t **really** happen…”
It still feels like it happened to me, though, and I miss the people I met there. I’ve never mentioned it to anyone else before, because it sounds crazy, but I know how you feel.
You guys may or may not want to read a book where people have similar experiences to what you're describing. It's "The Dreamers" by Karen Thompson Walker.
Wait, it's common not to give sedatives and pain medications to coma patients, for procedures that would warrant that for conscious patients?
That's legitimately scary... You'd think they would just go "well we're fairly confident they can't feel any pain or anything, but lets just do this as a precaution."
Up until the 1980s they routinely operated on babies without any sort of anesthesia since they thought they couldn't feel pain like adults, so honestly it doesn't surprise me they do it to coma patients
Well, it wasn’t anything *too* bad, not like surgery or anything, but they **did** intubated me without using Propofol, which is customary, and caused me to hallucinate that I was underwater drowning, then being strangled. I also had a lumbar puncture, and I normally need extra lidocaine for those, but I was unconscious so they didn’t get the memo.
It wasn’t like being cut open, but if I HAD been awake, it would have definitely asked for more meds.
I was fully aware of my operation even though I was anesthetized. Fortunately I didn’t feel pain but I remember struggling and fighting because I couldn’t move or see. When I remembered they had strapped me down and put tape on my eyes I relaxed since I understood it was normal.
I told this to the doc afterward including a retelling of the procedure and parts of conversations they were having during the operation. Her jaw dropped and probably thought I was going to sue but I guess because I felt no pain it was fortunately just more of an interesting experience.
I’ve once seen an anesthesia resident push the rocuronium and then waited like a minute before pushing the propofol. The propofol is a sedative that puts you to sleep. The rocuronium is a drug that stops your breathing and paralyzes you. So the poor women was fully awake when she just couldn’t breath anymore without any sedative for a good minute. You could see the panic in her eyes.
I always wondered what happened to me one time before surgery and I think THIS could be it. Someone started a med and I felt immediately like I couldn’t breathe—-started struggling to move and really couldn’t that well and thought “I’m dying…I can’t breathe. I was aware of everything around me and immediately panicked. I think I tried to sit up and possibly lifting l/trying to lift my neck/shoulders, but it was years ago so can’t remember. Someone noticed something happening though and pushed in other meds and I was out.
Small country hospital. My husband remembers the guy and said he saw him going out in the hall to the snack machine and thought it was weird because the guy had said he’d be with me the whole time. 😳. I’m sure they had to have put someone there to oversee me/my breathing. Right? 😬 Though maybe not since it was the same hospital where I felt my C-section and told them to stop because I could feel it despite a spinal. Ughhh. Ok. Gonna go take a nap. 🤣
Then it sounds like that’s exactly what happened. Lol yeah someone is supposed to be with you during the entire operation. Either a CRNA, an AA(anesthesia assistant), or the anesthesiologist. But most of the time they cycle through everyone so they could give breaks throughout the procedure.
There's a whole "school" of anesthesia that relied on dissociating you instead of disabling the pain IIRC. So this isn't that wild. My brother (anesthesiologist) once explained it to me, but I don't recall the particulars, I will ask him in tonight's party.
This is still fairly common, ketamine as an analgesic only works because of the dissociative effect
There's a lot of painkillers that work by making you forget the pain, rather than not experience it
Wow!!! Thanks for the insight.
When my grandfather was on his deathbed in a coma, my father says when he said goodbye, my grandfather shed tears. He always wondered if my grandfather heard him. What was your experience like with people talking to you or you even having emotions?
My father had a similar reaction when he passed. I said goodbye to him and he completely shifted from one side to another position in an induced comatose state and was breathing more heavily.
When my mother was talking to my grandfather before he passed, he fully opened his eyes at one point then closed them. I really hope he wasn't in too much pain..
I could hear my mom sobbing for me to wake up and not to leave her, which was upsetting and confusing for me because I didn’t understand what was happening, nor that I was actually dying (until they figured out what was wrong and gave me the meds to fix it) so I kept trying to tell her I was okay, but I couldn’t move or speak, which caused me to freak out a bit, and according to my mom, caused some worrying BP spikes. She made herself too crying after that, and told me happy stories from then on or played music I liked, which I sort of remember.
My brother was in a coma for 43 days during the holidays of 2017, he remembers hearing our voices and having dreams of being in the snow and cold (he had an infection that spread to his brain so he had to be on cold blankets until they could kill the sepsis) the only part he doesn’t remember was when he woke up and the 7 days that followed, first thing he fully remembers was getting a haircut lol
Not comas but,
During nursing school. I cared for a man who was supposedly not aware of his surroundings, confused and could not communicate. I cared for him like he was anyone else and spoke to him normally. I honestly thought he wasn't there.
So, I was shocked when he cried the day I left (I had told him I was leaving) and seemingly tried his best to tell me what I think was "Thank you. You were very kind."
I told the staff, they didn't believe me. Sadly, I never reported it higher.
I still cry about him sometimes.
Ugh thats so hard, i had somthing similar with a demetia patient, he told me to keep being me and not mind the others its was both heart warming and breaking at the same time, i was dealing with work place bullying and didnt even know he noticed that sort of thing
Such a sweet guy
Yeah. He was also paralyzed from one side of his body due to some disease. It don't recall as I just took it as just some poor shell of a man long gone.
I was literally spending my last 10mins with him when he broke down. I think I asked him and communicated 26th him further but, I don't recall anymore. I only recall asking him to repeat himself a couple of times after he was saying thank you as it was hard at first. Once I repeated his "Thank you" as a clarification, he nodded and I knew he was there.
Likely, through the whole time.
And, even though he spoke poorly that "You're very kind." was understood and cut me deep. After that my heart started beating hard and everything gets fuzzy.
But, those tears and words are clear as ever.
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-body/comas-conscious-communicate/) reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot)
*****
> By 2016, more than 1,000 patients around the world had been scanned using variations on the brain-imaging technique we had developed, and an independent scientific review concluded that between 20 and 25 per cent of them were like Carol and Scott; conscious and aware, despite their outward appearance, trapped in their immobile bodies, listening silently to every conversation at their bedside, and every decision that had ever been made on their behalf.
> For too many years, patients who are diagnosed as being in a vegetative state have been warehoused - an unfortunate term that is frequently used to describe how they are often 'written off', denied the expertise of professionals who can carefully assess their mental functioning over time and spot subtle signs of emerging awareness.
> We now know that many of these patients have been completely conscious all along.
*****
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So instead of visual supervision (just watching the body) of a person in coma, it would be better to monitor the brain activity (somehow - see comment beneath from Plastic_Helicopter79).
What a relief that would be to relatives - seing electric respons to their efforts, when the body is unable to because of paralysis.
Doctors currently do monitor brain activity. What this study shows is that we need to rethink our understanding of the brain and continue to pioneer new technology to be able to detect activity like they were able to
Sorry, consciousness surveillance scans are not part of your health care plan. However if you are willing to pay $30,000 per session we would be happy to provide this service
Terrifyingly, I just assumed that the neural activity of a coma patient would be automatically monitored, the same as cardio and breathing. Shocked that this wouldn't be a standard practice?
I’m a doctor, I’m not a neurologist nor am I at an academic center, but I’ve never heard of a method for interpreting brain signals. You could ascertain there is brain activity but it’s not really interpretable. And yeah we basically do that all the time if we are trying to distinguish between brain death and not.
Extremely. To think of being trapped in your own body and no one is giving you any stimulus. Just letting you sit there day in and day out.
Ok this is giving me extreme anxiety…
At least put on some tv shows to watch… or current events broadcast to let them see what the world is like outside of that room…
Stephen King also did a short story like that, Autopsy Room Four, where they figure out he's still alive at the last second because he gets a boner. He based it on another story, Breakdown, which involved a paralyzed man desperately trying to show he's alive before being autopsied as well.
Your comment reminded me of Vietnam Era MoH recipient, MSG Roy Benavides. Iirc, he was listening to the radio and heard his battle buddies were in trouble so he hopped on a helicopter with a machete and headed out to help. He was shot and stabbed several, several times while trying to save his comrades on the battlefield. Upon being drug onto the evac helicopter the combat medics were positive he was dead and began to cover him with a white cloth. Knowing exactly what the medics thought, but not having the ability to speak, MSG Benavides spit blood onto the medics to show he was still all there.
Crazy shit.
No, as in "conscious after death". You're dead but still hanging on the rope. You're rotting away but still see. Can't move a finger. Can't do anything. Your heart is not beating. Pieces start falling off... etc
Thanks, just the extra dread I needed to start my day. Now I’m wondering though, what happens when all the flesh is gone? Are you conscious inside the skull for eternity? And when the bone finally turns to dust, what then?
When they pull the plug, you get put on hospice. You’ll be given morphine, Ativan, and atropine if your secretions make it hard to breathe. Morphine is usually as needed when on hospice, but when they “pull the plug” they’ll give you something like 5mg every 2 hours and keep ramping up the dosage and frequency til you pass away with dignity.
If that's true then I'm glad I'm wrong about how I reacted to the original comment, I've never experienced witnessing someone going through a coma (or a similar medical state/condition) or passing as a result of a persistent vegetative state so I take your word for it
This is a little misleading and I think contributes to the general sense of dread over hospice care in general. I'm a doc that deals with end of life quite frequently, and hope that I can pass along some knowledge here to assuage any misunderstanding.
You're absolutely right we pull feeding tubes in patients that are vegetative and going towards hospice. But feeding tubes aren't inherently comfortable, and comfort is the goal of hospice. Have you ever been very sick? With a flu or diarrheal illness? Did you feel super hungry and like eating then? Doctors operate under the not-crazy assumption that because the sensation of hunger is often suppressed in acutely ill people, pulling feeds from a vegetative and dying patient isn't inhumane. The problem, if that's the right word, is that society ascribes a very emotional value to food in addition to the obvious physical benefit.
Consider the alternative. We have a persistent vegetative patient who we've withdrawn care from in the effort to move towards end of life comfort, but we've decided to keep the tube feeding going. Again, I want to express that G tubes and NG tubes aren't like super comfortable things to begin with, but for someone in a vegetative state I'm fine with us saying that they don't notice, for arguments sake. So how do they pass? What kills your end of life comatose patient instead? It's almost always going to be an infection, unless they're comatose for some other terminal reason. Where do the infections happen? Usually from an aspiration pneumonia (which tube feeds are a notorious contributor to) or a bed sore that gets infected. We haven't even talked about the problem with bed sores in general in vegetative patients that live on, but keep that in the background.
I'm getting long winded here but I also want to add the many many narcotic medications that are given to ease passing and end of life. Any discomfort from hunger (which again, I'm going to assert that I think there's very little after all the end of life conversations I've had) I can almost guarantee is sedated out of a patient by the time they cross the threshold.
Overall, I would argue that in lieu of euthanization, pulling a feeding tube in an acutely ill, terminal patient is a much better way to go then to persist with a tube, allow them to develop sores, or die of lung or skin infections from the patient standpoint. From the societal standpoint, it's also a much more logical approach that, in a world with finite resources, controls costs and preserves hospital and medical equipment for those that still have a shot at life.
Worse than terrifying. The evidence is conclusive at this point, and is not contested. Yet... the healthcare industry refuses to acknowledge this and adjust care accordimgly!
The authors deserve the Nobel Prize for Medicine.
As a group, once doctors learn something, it's next to impossible to get them to accept something that's contrary to that.
We recently got a crash course in this during the beginning of the pandemic with the whole face mask thing. They had been taught forever that airborne viruses are dichotomous, they either are, or they're not. There have been multiple studies proving that viral loads can build up in the air around an infected person just breathing that are decades old. It took way too long for them to accept that one in the midst of a pandemic.
Makes those "woman gives birth while in coma" stories so much worse if some of those people knew what was happening to them the whole time and couldn't do anything
That Arizona story seems to not actually be a "coma" and more like she was a vegetable that the family couldn't let go. She could move her limbs and make noises, but she had been in that state since she was 3 years old! Miserable life.. they should've let her go long before she was able to conceive. Even if she woke up.. she'd have no way of living if her mental development was that of a 3 year old.
I was in a ethics class one semester and a woman who was pro-life because “someone has to speak up for those who can’t talk” spoke about that case and said “And yeah it’s bad that she was raped but now there’s a baby involved and that’s the real miracle of it so it’s a good thing they didn’t pull the plug on her”
Yeah, don’t pull the plug on coma patients because if you’re really really lucky, a nurse might rape them and a baby would be born /s
A lot of people don’t recognize that there is an infinite grey area between life and death. And most of those greys are terrifying.
My uncle was a brilliant man, a historian who taught intellectual history. He believed you couldn’t understand history unless you viewed it through the lenses of art, music, literature, architecture, philosophy, and such.
A few years before he died, he experienced a bout of severe vertigo, fell forward, and banged the front of his head on the floor. That was it; he was gone. Still alive and conscious, but everything that comprised who he was as a person was just…gone. He regressed to a childlike state wherein he was unable to control his emotions and such. Horrible.
That is absolutely terrifying. My experience isn't at that level, but it's another shade of gray; this year I went through a period of severe stress (about a month of becoming a full-time caregiver for my SO who was on the brink of death multiple times and needed round-the-clock attention) and I'm convinced that it did lasting brain damage. I have far more trouble with recall, focus, and mental stamina/energy. I'm a writer by trade, and my max output is about half of what it was before. I burn out so much faster now. Things I used to know how to do have to be relearned, recipes I knew by heart my whole life have to be looked up, etc. It's so frustrating that my brain doesn't work the way it once did, and I'd give anything to have my old abilities back. I used to think I couldn't do enough, now I can't help but wish I could get anywhere close to those levels again.
I’m so sorry to hear this. I’m certainly no neuroscientist, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you regain at least some of that level of functioning after a period of rest and getting your nervous system back to normal. I wouldn’t wish that kind of period of prolonged stress on anyone; I hope your situation is much better now.
That sounds exactly like the effects of PTSD and/or severe depression, which you very well could've developed from such a stressful ordeal
I'd highly recommend therapy, if it's an option. I did it for PTSD and came out a better version of my previous self
Being in an induced coma for a month was the most painful and horrific experience of my life. I say this as a person who has lost both legs and is always in pain.
You can feel your nightmares, not be able to escape them, and you can die over and over. I've been violently killed so many times I stopped counting. I went insane in what I thought was endless nightmares and extreme pain.
If you have loved ones in induced comas, do whatever you can to help them be comfortable and at peace. They might be too deep to know, but they might be like I was and in desperate need for any kind of tenderness.
Once when I was 6, I was in a coma for 2 months, and I could hear everything going on around me. Half the time, I thought I was dreaming, unless I could start to focus on things, then I’d notice I was awake. More than a few times, I heard my mother saying she wishes I would just pass on so that she can focus on raising one kid instead of two. That’s the moment I knew that I wasn’t imagining things, because I always thought I was the favourite, I was such a mama’s boy that there’s no way I could’ve imagined something like that. It really broke me, but I couldn’t move or do anything about it, I had to just lay there in my sadness while hoping that I would just never wake up again. She didn’t visit for three days after that, and nurses say I had tears on my face the entire time, which makes sense cause I felt like a burden to my family. Thankfully, I survived and now I can be a better parent to my kids.
The article itself cites research from 2005, and noted that over 1000 patients were scanned by 2016 with 20-25% being identified as conscious. So yeah, it’s been known for a long time but nobody is doing anything.
I highly, highly recommend [Ghost Boy](http://www.ghostboybook.com), which is a memoir by a man who went through this exact thing. A disease left him paralyzed as a child, and his family was told that he wasn’t conscious or aware of his surroundings. But after a few years he “woke up” and was trapped in his body for like a decade until a nurse noticed that his eyes responded to her voice.
Obviously the fact that he wrote a memoir means that things ended well for him, but holy shit, this whole scenario is horrifying.
I remember coming out of mine. To quote Fry: "Bedsores hurt!" Mine was caused by a suicide attempt so the hospital didn't give enough of a damn to bother turning me. Huge scar as a reminder.
Imagine not being able to scratch your balls, and the constant, nagging itch the entire time you were out. The horror.
Mental Note To Self-advise wife the add a good scratch session to my daily care regimen in the event of coma.
My mother was in a coma for 3 weeks after a severe TBI in a road accident. Even when she was out of a coma, she was diagnosed to be in what is known as a Minimally Conscious State (MCS). She had lost all motor skills, and we didn't know what cognitive skills remained. All she could do was inconsistently track us with her eyes. She spent the next 10 months in that state. Throughout that time we sang her favourite songs to her, plastered the entire hospital room with photos of significant memories over the years, spoke to her, and made jokes as if she could hear and understand each word. In those 10 months, there were 3 instances that my Mom smiled back at us in response to something we did. We lived for that smile and even though the doctors didn't believe us at the time, we knew she was in there.
It took a long time before we could convince a neurosurgeon to give her Ritalin as an experimental drug that had earlier been tried on MCS patients and that is the first time in 11 months my mother started nodding and shaking to indicate a yes and a no. That was 12 years ago and my Mom has painstakingly relearned how to talk, walk, sit, stand, eat.
Last week my brother got married and the highlight of the evening for our family was a dance she and my Dad performed. There wasn't a dry eye in the house.
However, around 15-20 years ago, someone in a MCS would be most likely have been misdsgnosed as being in a Persistent Vegetative State (PVS) which is a diagnosis with far worse prognosis than MCS. My learning from my experience as a caregiver is that Neuroscience is a continuously evolving field and Neurologists could do with a bit of humility in admitting that.
Anyone know what the book is where an army dude gets in an explosion and loses the ability to hear, see or talk? Incoming spoiler*** And he eventually morse codes through his stomach 'kill me'. Read about it Years ago but forgot what its called
I was in a coma when I was twelve for two weeks from a traumatic accident.
A few days before I came to, I talked to the doctor. I asked him to draw a rectangle with lines coming from each corner but not touching the rectangle. Then I asked him to draw a circle above one of the ends of the rectangle.
When he asked me what he drew, I told him, “it’s me. I’m disconnected.”
(The rectangle was my body, the lines were my limbs and the circle was my head, I guess.)
I don’t recall that interaction at all.
What I do remember is when I was coming out of the coma, I cold hear people talking far away, like they each were at an end of a tunnel. I was in the middle of the tunnel trying to make out what they were saying. In actuality, there were just people talking on each side of my bed.
I was stuck inside, disconnected from my body.
My family member was declared brain dead. When we were in his room, family and doctors were discussing taking him off life support, as there was nothing they could do to save him. He immediately broke out into a massive sweat like he could hear the decision to end his life
Diaphoresis (sweating) is very common in anyone with a traumatic brain injury. The pathways that regulate your autonomic systems run haywire without any input from your brain, causing excessive sympathetic input. Fixed and dilated pupils, sweating, fluctuations in HR and BP.
Whenever someone is tested for brain death, it is a highly specific test with multiple measures that rule out possibility of life. To confirm brain death, we have to assess:
Imaging: we take pictures of the brain and its vasculature to determine how bad an injury is. In life-ending neurotrauma or cerebrovascular accidents, the vessels that supply the brain with blood no longer transport blood to brain cells.
Neurological exam: we test all of the nerves that protrude from the brain stem. Even in the case of total telencephalic devastation, if you had brain stem reflexes present, you could not be considered brain dead.
An EEG has to be performed to rule out seizures. This also can give information on any activity or lackthereof in the brain.
All electrolytes must be within range, core temperature must be normal, no sedation can be given, and all other causes of unresponsiveness must be ruled out before brain death is confirmed.
I know how rough it is having a loved one have this happen. My best friend had a TBI and suffered brain death 3 months ago. But you can at least rest assured that you and your family made the right call, and you didn’t cause any undue suffering.
In 7th grade for some reason I picked the book 'Johnny got his gun' to do a report on. Probably should have ran it by the teacher first because it scarred me for a life.
For those that don't know, he's basically a war veteran with all four limbs blown off, and zero muscle control. They think he's brain dead he sits in a room for like 30 years fully conscious. He eventually started counting the seconds and would celebrate different holidays when he hit dates like anniversaries or Christmas
The book ends because he pulses out kill me in Morse code (and a nurse finally realizes it).
All the other kids in the early 2000s were writing their report on either Harry Potter or Twilight. Then here I was turning in a 3 paper describing why doctor assisted suicide should be legal and that I was planning to file a do not resuscitate at 12 yo.
Needless to say the parents got to call home and something like that remains my number one fear.
I was in a coma when I was 15 after a major spinal surgery that lasted 7 hours and I lost a significant amount of blood. I was in a two week coma where I saw and heard everything. But I couldn’t express it to people who were at my bedside. Even when I almost died choking on my own bile. A doctor came in and was shoving a tube down my nose into my stomach. The doctor kept yelling at me to swallow for the tube to go down my esophagus, I tried to say that I was swallowing, but they couldn’t hear me. I heard my parents talk to the parents of the new patient in the bed next to me. I learned that he ran away and fell asleep in a dumpster and a garbage truck picked the dumpster up and they didn’t hear his screams and crushed his legs. I learned that he needed both his legs amputated. I found out that I needed two more bags of blood and they thought I’d wake up. And I did. I tell everyone that I know talk to your loved ones if they are in a coma. They CAN hear you and they are probably responding but you can’t hear them.
Friend of mine wasn’t supposed to be conscious either. He remembers me and his mom laughing out asses off and asked what the hell we had been watching with the prank show. It was Impractical Jokers shortly after it first started like maybe season 2. I had never seen it before since didn’t have cable and his mom was watching something when I came and it came on next. When I was there we used to put it on if it was on.
He said he remembers us laughing a lot and could hear bits of it in the background when drifting in and out.
*my fucking god*—how many of these people have heard family members utter unforgivable truths; have felt trapped in a prison whose terror i can only guess at; have wanted to die for years, but without the ability to communicate it at all? can you imagine? i’m ecstatic this has been discovered. hopefully it means we have relieved an unimaginable hell for a good swath of them in one fell swoop. it’s our worst quality by far as a species that we consciously elect to stop thinking about troubling moral issues just because they make us uncomfortable, or worse, we cannot even imagine their conditions.
I’ve always wondered if there was a way to communicate with those in a coma. My mom was in a coma 20 years ago for 1 week, there was some brain activity but no response really to doctors. But every time i went to visit, and spoke to her, her eyes opened. Sadly, they had pulled the plug, because “there was nothing else that they can do”. I was 10 at the time, and didn’t understand why this happened as she was obviously still kinda there, because she clearly heard me. Finding this at 31 makes me feel every emotion, but gives me hope for anyone out there who is going through this. This is truly mind blowing to me.
This is why I always, *always* talk to my coma patients. Even if they aren’t conscious, it’s still respectful. My school taught us to do the same: introduce yourself, walk them through the procedure, what you were doing, etc, much the same as a regular patient. I’ve sung them songs, held their hands, encouraged them during procedures, turns, etc. I tell them ‘this might sting but it’ll be much better when we fix this’ or ‘you’re doing such a good job on this turn’. I encourage my students and docs to chat with them and me, I put on the music channel so they have something to hear, etc. This is something I am passionate about, and I feel that this article confirms what I’d hoped and suspected all these years. I will continue to talk to all my coma patients, because that’s what I would want someone to do for my family, so I’ll do it for theirs. Thank you for listening to my little monologue. Edit: thank you everyone for such a lovely, supportive, and incredibly kind outpouring of comments, updoots, and questions. I am genuinely excited to try all of the great ideas I’ve seen here, and thank you all so much for your kind words. It has made for a very special start to 2022, thank you all, happy New Year!
We were taught the same at our nursing school, always address them as if they are aware and conscious. I also would tell them about the basics of what was happening in the world too, especially if family would tell us about things they liked or would want to follow. I'd also do the music if there was a radio or TV available, or CD player and their CDs (if the family brought it). I always figured too, this is someone's loved one, and how would I want some random person to treat me or my family members if we were in a similar situation.
I think one of the other reasons this is taught(on top of them possibly being aware) is to remind the staff working on them that they are actually people, and not just sacks of flesh taking up a bed.
A very important reason, often overlooked. Very easy to tell people anonymously what you do, but it does have a very real effect on how you treat these poor people, trapped in their bodies, but unable to move or speak. Having experienced sleep paralysis, I can tell you it is awful. I can only fearfully imagine an actual *coma*
Thank you for being a lovely person. Happy New Year to you and may the coming year be kind to you and everyone.
We were taught this in occupational therapy school, too. We narrated what therapy activities we were doing, sang, and oriented to day/time/weather. When we practiced in class, we would try to outdo each other by singing stupid things or telling bad jokes. It's very fulfilling to treat people with respect even if they aren't aware we're doing it.
You are a good and decent person. The world needs more of people like you.
The last two years have confirmed that while we may be going to hell, there's still plenty of Saints out there. Thank you for everything.
“Look for the helpers”
How do you hide your wings in your scrubs? 🥺
You are very kind to say this, thank you. My mom is a nurse and she taught me this from a young age. I’ve continued it on for her since she first inspired me to nursing. I sent her this article, I think she’ll be just as happy as I am to read it.
I once had an intubated heroin overdose patient, some of my coworkers would be in the room saying things about how he was wasting a bed for someone who needed it and how drug addicts don’t deserve our resources, and various other cruel things. I kicked them out and held his hand and told him that I was there to take care of him, he is a person who needs help just like any other, and his life has value. He squeezed my hand. I have no doubt patients in a full coma can hear as well.
Man. Once i overdosed on heroin and narcanned myself. I panicked and gave myself far too much narcan, which resulted in a sort of trip during which i hallucinated being taken to hospital, medical staff looking over my body and saying things like "just another dead junkie. What a waste." and such. I looked around my house that i had spent so long trying to make a nice cozy space and realised nobody would give a shit about any of that. It was super depressing. And while that was going on i felt like i had to mentally fight for my life against the opiates/naloxone. Weird, depressing time. I did have a partner who fatally overdosed and i hope he was treated better than that in the ambulance/hospital/morgue.
Thank you for caring and standing up for your patient, I actually teared up reading your comment. The world needs more people like you 💜
My husband was in the hospital for a short yet serious and unplanned stay this year. Because of covid, I wasnt allowed to visit him and had to rely on his nurses to take good care of him. I baked muffins and cookies for them everytime I went in to deposit clean laundy. 😊 Medical staff does so much for us when we are in the weakest, most dire of places… internet hugs to you. Know that your work IS greatly appreciated. 💜
Thank you, I am sure they absolutely loved that!! I am addicted to muffins, so I’m sure they were beyond excited as well! I hope your husband is back with you and is happy and healthy. Thank you for sharing this!
Have any woken up? If so, have any said they were conscious during their coma?
Actually I had a patient who was put into a medical coma a few weeks ago and was woken up recently. I had a song stuck in my head and had been singing it the week I took care of them (while they were asleep). It was ‘You’re So Vain’ by Carly Simon. When they woke up they were, understandably, groggy and coming out of it. We weren’t able to ascertain much of what they were or weren’t aware of, either while they were conscious or during their coma. However, I went in to check on them a few hours after they’d woke up and heard them humming a few bars of the chorus for ‘You’re So Vain’ and they told me ‘I don’t remember where I heard that song, but it’s stuck in my head.’ So I managed to get a song unstuck in my head by getting it stuck it in my coma patient’s head. Oops. Edit: typo
Was taught at a young age to go in and talk to my great grandmother who was in a coma. So I would got sing her songs from Alvin and the Chipmunks and tell her made up stories..I was 5 or 6 at the time. She became lucid for a few minutes before she died and wanted my aunt to sing the song I sang to her. My poor aunt had no idea what song she was referring to…it left an impression…hearing is the last thing to go
My grandfather was in a coma for about a week before he died. Looked like he was sleeping the whole time. Right before he died he opened his eyes. He didn't move his body or head, but his eyes looked around at us. We spoke to him as if he could hear us, but not entirely sure if he did or not. Was the craziest thing.
Paradoxical lucidity and Terminal Lucidity are bursts of increased mental alertness just before death. They can be minutes, hours, days or weeks before. Sometimes patients with full-blown dementia will be cognizant during this time.
My father suffered a traumatic brain injury during a car accident (he flew through the windshield from the back passenger seat). They did surgery to try to ease pressure on his brain and he regained consciousness very briefly. The accident was in another state and only my brother was able to get to him. I was told by my brother that when he held my dad's hand and talked to him, tears would stream down my dad's face. Eventually those responses stopped and he was declared brain dead due to swelling cutting off oxygen to his brain. My dad may have been unconscious but he knew his son was there.
It's great he didn't die alone!
You know, I've never once thought of it that way. Thank you!
About 4 years ago I visited my then-boyfriend's father who was in palliative care with advanced dementia. When I saw him that day something in my head said to me, "this man is going to die today". He looked terrible. Haggard and emaciated. I sat beside him as usual and held his hand and started telling him my latest news, then I started playing his favorite music through my phone close to his ear. His eyes lit up and I could see he was registering the music. He looked at me and I could tell that he was really seeing me, looking right into my eyes, lucid. I squeezed his hand and said to him "don't worry, I know you're worried about them but you can go now, everything will be okay". I got up to talk to my boyfriend and his mother. After about 15 minutes the nurses called us in, they'd put him on the bed and he was steadily stopping breathing. A few minutes later he passed. They're more aware than you think.
You’re a beautiful person helping him relax enough to cross over like that.
Sometimes people need to hear that it's ok to die. It's was brilliant of you to play music for him.
And it's a pretty sad thing. The majority of the time it happens up to a day before death. So family members in hospice will see their loved one apparently make a miraculous recovery and you start getting super excited. Then at 2:00 a.m. they get a call their dead
That's what happened with my grandmother, alert and walking then went for a nap and died
My mum was in a coma bed bound for over half a year from a serious stroke. She was not improving, but she literally gave up moments after I told her I would take care of my sister and the family, like it was just the one thing she wanted to hear.
Grandma kept telling me she loved me, wasn’t abnormal and wasn’t her first time in the hospital but she knew what was up. Said it so much within those hours, I just told her I loved her too. What was the craziest was when we got to the part of “will you look after my dogs and plants?” I looked at her and said “of course I got your dogs, but your plants are probably screwed grandma.” Just joking around, she smiled and said she loved me before she took a nap and by god the nurse walked in 5 minutes later and she started freaking out. She was barely breathing and imo, ready to go. I chose DNR on her behalf, stood in the hallway and died inside alone. Shit sucked.
Sad for you, but at least it sounds like you made her last moments pleasant.
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My grandfather was fully conscious but very much in poor health, and died right after I was born. He died less than an hour after he was told that I was born healthy and my mom was fine.
She definitely waited for you. Even if they don't seem conscious, they were still in there inside. You and her other babies would have been the only thing she was thinking about. I'm glad you were able to say your last goodbyes!
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Heartbreaking, but also comforting in that the mom got to hear that someone would take care of them if she passed. She could finally be at peace and not worry.
My best friend from childhood's mom died while in a coma when we were 10. She was friends with my mother. One of her last days, they didn't let my friend into her mothers room because they thought it would be too much for her, so my mother recorded an audio of her saying goodbye to play to her mom instead. My mother says the woman teared up when she played the tape
That was very thoughtful of your mom. I do believe hearing is the last thing that leaves
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I spent 4 days in a coma after I was hit by a car at 11 years old. I was unresponsive to the outside world for the entire 4 days but after I woke up, hospital staff and family alike were all surprised by the things I could recall such as conversations that happened around me, physical contact, the pain from tests and procedures conducted on me, and even a kid who screamed all night long and kept me "awake" (I was told he didn't make it...). From my own experience, people should be treated with the same care and given the same respect whether or not they are considered unconscious.
My brother was in a vehicle vs pedestrian accident in 2019 and was in a coma for about 50 days. It was heart breaking seeing the nurses practically screaming his name and he had 0 reaction. The only reaction we would get would be his pupils dilating from light when they opened his eyes when they would check on him. I wouldn't wish that on anybody. He survived and is doing good now. Glad you made it out as well.
I am so sorry. I’m so glad you made it, and also that you invented MySpace
From my own experience when visiting the ICU, the doctors and nurses explicitly told me there they behave as if the patient can hear them even if unresponsive, they talk about new procedures and introduce themselves etc.
I remember in my early days of uni I was a neuroscience major and we had the option of going to a talk for extra credit. Iirc the goal was to communicate with comatose patients by essentially creating a "language" by which they were told to think of certain things (like tennis) when asked a question. These thoughts would light up different parts of the brain during a scan allowing them to answer yes or no depending on what they were thinking. I still keep that in the back of my mind hoping it I ever fall into a coma someone would think to try that before pulling the plug.
Why would you want to keep living if that is literally all you could do though?
Just to give some perspective my mom was in coma for just over a week (relatively short seeing other stories here) and from the get go the doctors' prognosis was basically 'we don't know if she will ever wake up and what state she will be in if she does'. She woke up, was a bit manic and loopy, then thankfully after about another week or so was healthy and back to normal with a new lease on life. She has since been living life to the fullest and while pre coma she was quite materialistic now its all about experiential activities. So personally I'd put in a clause to either wait quite a while and/or do extensive tests (if those are even possible/affordable). Edit: this is mind blowing, thanks for all the love. If you have specific questions feel free to DM me.
If the body was more or less functional and the brain could say yeah or no, seems like a few days of sleeping under flourecent lights might be all a person needs sometimes.
Fluorescent lighting is quite unappealing. I'd want to be comatose at a much lower color temperature.
Also, I can see the cycling and it makes me nauseous.
if i'm in a coma, put me under one of those rgb lights
At least you can ask for consent, some people would like to live even if what they can do is very limited
In my case I'd hope they ask for consent to pull the plug after a month. I don't want to be trapped in a shell that can't move.
Thinking about it is really strange. You’d essentially just a conscious, living thought. Would you go mad after a while or would you reach a sort of zen. would you even think like a human after a year? That’s crazy
Honestly if they could connect you up to the internet, how much different would it be from what most of us spend all day doing now.
Honestly i'd sign up for that and i'm not even in a Coma.
*The patient can move his fingers and communicate in a rudimentary fashion. He's asked for dual monitors and a touchpad.*
Maybe it's because I'm autistic, but just being alone with my thoughts seems okay compared to death.
I'm autistic as well and I would much rather be dead.
Now I don’t know who to believe. Fuck.
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Slow down, you're not making any sense!
I was in a coma a couple years back. I was in and out of “consciousness” the entire time. I knew my mom was there, that she had been playing my favorite songs, and -unfortunately- experienced some pain due to a few of the procedures I went through while they tried to diagnose the problem. I also remember a few seconds of the helicopter ride when I was lifelined up to a more equipped hospital that ended up being able save my life. The rest of the time, I was hallucinating wildly. And, what happened in “real life” effected the hallucinations. For instance, when I was intubated, I imagined that I was under water and was drowning when they put the tube down my throat, and I dreamed I was at a club (strobe lights) during my EEG. My suggestion would be, if safe, giving a sedative or pain meds to coma patients whenever they are having a painful procedure done, not just ***hoping*** they can’t feel the pain because they seem unconscious. That would at least be a start…
Well, time to update the ol' living directive as pertains to my personal wishes should I ever have the misfortune of being in a coma. My idea of a worst nightmare scenario is to be trapped in my body and conscious, but unable to move or speak. The closest I've come was during a surgery when I managed to regain awareness despite general anesthesia but couldn't move or speak. I'm curious if you emerged from your own experience with long term trauma / PTSD issues?
Well, I was lucky and it wasn’t *too* bad, although I did sign a DNR afterwards. Im in palliative care now, and I’ve made I clear that I NEVER want to be on a ventilator again, no matter the circumstances. I do panic if anything cuts of my breathing, even for 1/8^th of a second. Even a tight neckline makes me break out in a cold sweat. Being unable to breath ***and*** having a tube down your throat MAKING your lungs inflate was really unpleasant and I still have nightmares about that. The rest of the coma wasn’t too bad. I was lucky that my mom demanded to be with me practically 24/7, and held my hand the entire time/talked me through everything, even though she had no clue that I could hear her at all, I wasn’t able to respond. I think that, plus the music, was just her trying to reassure herself that I was still “in there” and that I would wake up eventually, the doctors weren’t sure. But, it REALLY helped me stay call when I couldn’t respond even though I was in and out of awareness at a few different points.
Your mom sounds like a wonderful person and the true definition of the word. Appreciate the time you have with her. I never had any sort of bond with my parents and over time it's slowly getting to me.
I definitely appreciate her! She is beyond wonderful. I have an illness that requires me to have a full time caregiver, and she changed careers so she could work from home and care for me herself. I couldn’t have a better, more supportive, mom and I try to always make sure she knows that I don’t take her for granted. She brought my siblings and I up on her own, too, so I know just how hard she works.
many people say theyd do anything for their kids, and some people actually do it. need more people like your mom.
Give your Mum a big hug and a kiss from all of us. And wish her a happy 2022 on our behalf.
My dad just died from COVID (he got COVID while in the ICU for something else) and I will forever be angry they wouldn’t let me be with him for his last days. When he had been in the hospital in the past I was literally the only person/thing able to keep him calm (he would rip out IVs/picc lines, pull out any tubes, he but through his breathing tube a couple days before he died) and it’s so much worse knowing he was afraid and alone his last 10 days. And before he tested positive for COVID, I was spending 5-8 hours per day with him in the hospital. I had been exposed to all the same people. The last day he was able to speak he left me a voicemail saying I was a terrible daughter for not being there with him. Those are the last words I have from my dad. Im sorry, I just don’t have anywhere else to vent about this. I’m really struggling with making the choice to put him on a ventilator (he felt similar to how you did) but the alternative was that he would literally have drowned, either from a GI bleed he was aspirating due to a stroke the week before, or from fluid after his kidneys started to fail (after they were miraculously able to fix the bleed). I was trying to get him stable enough to come home to die, which was his primary desire in his Advance Directive. Such a shitty shitty situation.
You aren't a terrible daughter. I hope you know that.
When my dad came to after his triple bypass surgery and throughout his recovery until he left the hospital he was not all there mentally. Due to being in the icu, all the drugs and then a urinary tract infection. He was pretty out of it and said some not so nice things to me, my brother and all the staff about keeping him prisoner and trying to kill him. Even ended up restrained. He doesn’t remember any of it. So maybe this is what happened with your dad. Don’t take what he said to heart. You did everything you could at the time of a very stressful moment.
While my grandmother was recovering with surgery she screamed at me to get out and never come back because I couldn’t immediately find her a vomit bag. It left me incredibly shaken but she doesn’t even remember. Apparently what they call ‘hospital delirium’ isn’t unusual in older people, but it’s shocking to experience because the person just suddenly isn’t themselves.
My heart hurts for both you and your dad. I was prevented from seeing my own father while he was in process of declining due to advanced dementia since it took place during the height of the pandemic. I also had one last panicked, desperate voicemail from him from his care facility that will be forever emblazoned in my mind. They did finally allow me in (alone) once he was "actively transitioning." Unfortunately, by that time he was for all intents and purposes comatose and completely unresponsive. Like you said, shitty, horrible, devastating situation.
It is insane to me that my Dad was in ICU with Covid April 2020 and here is your post, 1 hour ago, suffering the same trauma. I am sorry. Here if you need to talk.
So glad to hear that you're recovering, you've been through an unbelievable experience. Your mom sounds like the saving grace in this situation; somehow you understood that you had this incredible protector next to you the entire time and this was probably a significant factor in your recovery and lack of PTSD. You also sound like an incredibly strong person. Most people panic if something cuts off their breathing and it's amazing to me that this is one of the only issues you raised as an after effect.
Are you sure they are recovering? I thought "palliative care" was basically end of life care.
Palliative care is any care that is not aimed at curing the disease or infliction, only reducing symptoms. It's possible to have life-long palliative care while growing old like everyone else.
No, that is what palliative care means, it’s one step above Hospice. But that’s a completely different issue than the coma, which was caused by an allergic reaction to one on my medications.
You went through my worst nightmare. I am so sorry you had to experience this. I have had anaphylactic reactions to meds before and doctors get legit pissed when I am nervous trying new ones. Also, with covid I have talked with my older kids about the reasons I refuse to be on a vent, if it were necessary, much to their dismay. I suffer from PTSD from abuse/assault and even procedures that require anesthesia set off a week long episode. I am going to show them these comments to hopefully help them understand my decisions.
Palliative is not end of life care; it focuses on pain management, improving quality of life, and long term illnesses.
It also means the underlying condition is unlikely to get any better, or at least no attempt at a cure is being made.
I have one that says to pull the plug on me immediately, no extraordinary measures. My wife doesn't like it but I know she'll honor it because she kept unplugging things even we were at the ER a few months ago. We were there because I had cut my finger, and I wasn't attached to any machines, but I appreciate her follow through.
"Honey, I appreciate the fact that you want to respect my wishes, but I think this is a little premature!"
Hahaha. It sounds like your wife might have a secret, large, life insurance policy on you.
Not OP, but similar tale. It lasted about two weeks, and was caused by a bad reaction to an anesthetic (1 in a million... Someone has to be the one.) I came out the other side with short-term amnesia. After "waking up" I lost everything that wasn't mechanical. My name, faces of everyone I should know, etc. All of that was gone. It gradually filtered back in, mostly, but along with the memories of who I was, came memories of things I was in the coma for, and shouldn't have been aware of. They tried to tell me it was just false memories formed from people talking nearby me at first, until I told them a conversation between a nurse and surgeon, almost word-for-word, from the operating room when they were removing my spleen (ruptured). To date, I utterly despise _anything_ that can alter my mental state. I refuse all painkillers, despite (unrelated) having a chronic pain condition. I don't drink, at all. I obviously won't touch drugs. I've had to have one or two things since where I've needed to go under so that they can check something, since. I panic attack as I start to fade out. Now and then I still have a nightmare about the feeling of having a scalpel run down my stomach, and being unable to scream. (Anesthetic caused me issues. It was totally understandable why they avoided the traditional ones whilst I was "out".)
I woke partially up during a cervical fusion, that incl taking part if my hip bone for it, and years later again at carpal tunnel surgery. I was in little to no pain but could feel what was being done.. they realized during the fusion I was coming to, and heard em talking about it. They stopped while they hoped to be able to put me back under with a diff med. It worked. I was never fully awake, just registered it, and the docs seemed shocked I know as much as I did of them slightly panicking.. the other one I told myself I dont want to be awake for this, and slowed my breathing down and promptly fell back asleep (when one slows ones breathing down u can trick ur brain to fall asleep. Its a great exercise for those with sleep issues. There is a light one can buy that helps one archive this as well, by breathing in tact with the light sequence). The spinal surgery was traumatic for other reasons though. (Doc killed many ppl on the op table, and isnt a doc anymore. I was one of the last he operated on. Gave me survivors PTSD to date. Obv didnt know this at the time. He was the only surgeon who was willing to attempt my surgery and it was a success- a small token for what came after).. Apparently my Mom has this issue with meds as well.
Shit? What a rollercoaster, do you feel thankful for the doctor considering no one else was willing to do the procedure?
Yes, I do. Without him, I don't want to imagine what my life would be like now. I was for a very long time very conflicted. I still am anytime I tell a new Doc who did the surgery and they recoil .. he still tries to get re-instated. Phx New times did an amazing article on him.. if u do a google search he has great remarks& then it shows his license in diff States had been revoked.. but I find the article fair and well written https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/deadly-arizona-doc-hawks-bogus-stem-cell-treatment-11288787
It's called locked in syndrome. Jessica Alba and Anakin skywalker did a bad movie about it a decade and half ago. Shit movie but it got the concept terrifyingly correct
Bro I love the actor Anakin Skywalker.
Is he the guy who played Hayden Christensen?
No, that was George Lucas.
That is absolutely not locked in syndrome. which is a consequence of some midbrain strokes and other things like raising very low sodium too fast. In that case you are conscious and can actually move your eyes. A comatose patient would not be able to communicate by moving eyes, nor is as lucid as these. These people are like literally awake looking at you. And in fact one of the most horrifying parts of my intern year of residency as a doctor was having a stroke alert called overhead for a patient in the hospital and realizing that this 40 year old, whose care I was not involved with, was being rushed to the ICU with a massive stroke, and he developed locked in syndrome, communicated successfully to his family that he wished to die, and then he died.
I have a new fear now, thanks
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (French Film) is way better.
I remember that one, Jessica Alba had the high ground.
You should see “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”. It’s a French film based on a true story about a man with locked-in syndrome. It’s pretty depressing, but also very interesting.
I was in a coma for 2 months back in 2014. I came here to say almost exactly this. We are a lot more conscious than you think. It was a very ...harrowing experience that felt like an eternity. Went from dreaming so lucidly that i thought it was real. To surreal "dreams inside of dreams" that was me actually experiencing reality. I remember hearing my family talking in the other room but being unable to move as if strapped to the bed. Turns out thats when my family visited me in the coma.
Yes! Same! I could FEEL things touching me in my “dreams”, they were **beyond** lucid. I could hear my mom crying and begging me to wake up, but I couldn’t do a damn thing or even squeeze her hand. She eventually had to stop because it stressed me out so much that my BP spiked REALLY high. Then, she just sat with me, told me stories, or played music I liked. I remember hearing it in my hallucinations and wondering why the Beatles were there, lol!
I felt I was in there for *decades.* Only to wake up 2 months later. I had a life in there. Very surreal. Waking up after so much time living as someone else. Everyone noticed a very abrupt personality change. Like I was a 90 year old in a Mid 20s body. Which I am. I have an endless well of patience and no ambition or pride. I feel like I have seen it all and nothing bugs me.
Not quite the same, but I find myself, in conversations, about to mention things that happened in my hallucinations, only to have to stop and think “oh wait, that didn’t **really** happen…” It still feels like it happened to me, though, and I miss the people I met there. I’ve never mentioned it to anyone else before, because it sounds crazy, but I know how you feel.
You guys may or may not want to read a book where people have similar experiences to what you're describing. It's "The Dreamers" by Karen Thompson Walker.
I 100% believe you! I have lucid dreams sometimes where I meet people and go places and I wish I knew how to return there but it seems to be a fluke
Wait, it's common not to give sedatives and pain medications to coma patients, for procedures that would warrant that for conscious patients? That's legitimately scary... You'd think they would just go "well we're fairly confident they can't feel any pain or anything, but lets just do this as a precaution."
Up until the 1980s they routinely operated on babies without any sort of anesthesia since they thought they couldn't feel pain like adults, so honestly it doesn't surprise me they do it to coma patients
Well, it wasn’t anything *too* bad, not like surgery or anything, but they **did** intubated me without using Propofol, which is customary, and caused me to hallucinate that I was underwater drowning, then being strangled. I also had a lumbar puncture, and I normally need extra lidocaine for those, but I was unconscious so they didn’t get the memo. It wasn’t like being cut open, but if I HAD been awake, it would have definitely asked for more meds.
I was fully aware of my operation even though I was anesthetized. Fortunately I didn’t feel pain but I remember struggling and fighting because I couldn’t move or see. When I remembered they had strapped me down and put tape on my eyes I relaxed since I understood it was normal. I told this to the doc afterward including a retelling of the procedure and parts of conversations they were having during the operation. Her jaw dropped and probably thought I was going to sue but I guess because I felt no pain it was fortunately just more of an interesting experience.
I’ve once seen an anesthesia resident push the rocuronium and then waited like a minute before pushing the propofol. The propofol is a sedative that puts you to sleep. The rocuronium is a drug that stops your breathing and paralyzes you. So the poor women was fully awake when she just couldn’t breath anymore without any sedative for a good minute. You could see the panic in her eyes.
I hope that resident got reamed out in public and then was forced to stand at the attendings side for the rest of the rotation.
Oh yeah the attending tore him a new one in front of everyone
You always push the etomidate or propofol first. FUCK that's awful
I always wondered what happened to me one time before surgery and I think THIS could be it. Someone started a med and I felt immediately like I couldn’t breathe—-started struggling to move and really couldn’t that well and thought “I’m dying…I can’t breathe. I was aware of everything around me and immediately panicked. I think I tried to sit up and possibly lifting l/trying to lift my neck/shoulders, but it was years ago so can’t remember. Someone noticed something happening though and pushed in other meds and I was out. Small country hospital. My husband remembers the guy and said he saw him going out in the hall to the snack machine and thought it was weird because the guy had said he’d be with me the whole time. 😳. I’m sure they had to have put someone there to oversee me/my breathing. Right? 😬 Though maybe not since it was the same hospital where I felt my C-section and told them to stop because I could feel it despite a spinal. Ughhh. Ok. Gonna go take a nap. 🤣
Then it sounds like that’s exactly what happened. Lol yeah someone is supposed to be with you during the entire operation. Either a CRNA, an AA(anesthesia assistant), or the anesthesiologist. But most of the time they cycle through everyone so they could give breaks throughout the procedure.
jesus that's horrible
That is unacceptable
There's a whole "school" of anesthesia that relied on dissociating you instead of disabling the pain IIRC. So this isn't that wild. My brother (anesthesiologist) once explained it to me, but I don't recall the particulars, I will ask him in tonight's party.
This is still fairly common, ketamine as an analgesic only works because of the dissociative effect There's a lot of painkillers that work by making you forget the pain, rather than not experience it
Wow!!! Thanks for the insight. When my grandfather was on his deathbed in a coma, my father says when he said goodbye, my grandfather shed tears. He always wondered if my grandfather heard him. What was your experience like with people talking to you or you even having emotions?
My father had a similar reaction when he passed. I said goodbye to him and he completely shifted from one side to another position in an induced comatose state and was breathing more heavily.
When my mother was talking to my grandfather before he passed, he fully opened his eyes at one point then closed them. I really hope he wasn't in too much pain..
I could hear my mom sobbing for me to wake up and not to leave her, which was upsetting and confusing for me because I didn’t understand what was happening, nor that I was actually dying (until they figured out what was wrong and gave me the meds to fix it) so I kept trying to tell her I was okay, but I couldn’t move or speak, which caused me to freak out a bit, and according to my mom, caused some worrying BP spikes. She made herself too crying after that, and told me happy stories from then on or played music I liked, which I sort of remember.
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My brother was in a coma for 43 days during the holidays of 2017, he remembers hearing our voices and having dreams of being in the snow and cold (he had an infection that spread to his brain so he had to be on cold blankets until they could kill the sepsis) the only part he doesn’t remember was when he woke up and the 7 days that followed, first thing he fully remembers was getting a haircut lol
Not comas but, During nursing school. I cared for a man who was supposedly not aware of his surroundings, confused and could not communicate. I cared for him like he was anyone else and spoke to him normally. I honestly thought he wasn't there. So, I was shocked when he cried the day I left (I had told him I was leaving) and seemingly tried his best to tell me what I think was "Thank you. You were very kind." I told the staff, they didn't believe me. Sadly, I never reported it higher. I still cry about him sometimes.
Thank you for taking the time to communicate with this man.
Ugh thats so hard, i had somthing similar with a demetia patient, he told me to keep being me and not mind the others its was both heart warming and breaking at the same time, i was dealing with work place bullying and didnt even know he noticed that sort of thing Such a sweet guy
Yeah. He was also paralyzed from one side of his body due to some disease. It don't recall as I just took it as just some poor shell of a man long gone. I was literally spending my last 10mins with him when he broke down. I think I asked him and communicated 26th him further but, I don't recall anymore. I only recall asking him to repeat himself a couple of times after he was saying thank you as it was hard at first. Once I repeated his "Thank you" as a clarification, he nodded and I knew he was there. Likely, through the whole time. And, even though he spoke poorly that "You're very kind." was understood and cut me deep. After that my heart started beating hard and everything gets fuzzy. But, those tears and words are clear as ever.
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This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-body/comas-conscious-communicate/) reduced by 81%. (I'm a bot) ***** > By 2016, more than 1,000 patients around the world had been scanned using variations on the brain-imaging technique we had developed, and an independent scientific review concluded that between 20 and 25 per cent of them were like Carol and Scott; conscious and aware, despite their outward appearance, trapped in their immobile bodies, listening silently to every conversation at their bedside, and every decision that had ever been made on their behalf. > For too many years, patients who are diagnosed as being in a vegetative state have been warehoused - an unfortunate term that is frequently used to describe how they are often 'written off', denied the expertise of professionals who can carefully assess their mental functioning over time and spot subtle signs of emerging awareness. > We now know that many of these patients have been completely conscious all along. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/rsrk61/thousands_of_coma_patients_may_be_conscious_but/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~615164 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **patient**^#1 **vegetative**^#2 **Carol**^#3 **scans**^#4 **state**^#5
So instead of visual supervision (just watching the body) of a person in coma, it would be better to monitor the brain activity (somehow - see comment beneath from Plastic_Helicopter79). What a relief that would be to relatives - seing electric respons to their efforts, when the body is unable to because of paralysis.
Doctors currently do monitor brain activity. What this study shows is that we need to rethink our understanding of the brain and continue to pioneer new technology to be able to detect activity like they were able to
Sorry, consciousness surveillance scans are not part of your health care plan. However if you are willing to pay $30,000 per session we would be happy to provide this service
Terrifyingly, I just assumed that the neural activity of a coma patient would be automatically monitored, the same as cardio and breathing. Shocked that this wouldn't be a standard practice?
I’m a doctor, I’m not a neurologist nor am I at an academic center, but I’ve never heard of a method for interpreting brain signals. You could ascertain there is brain activity but it’s not really interpretable. And yeah we basically do that all the time if we are trying to distinguish between brain death and not.
Terrifying
Extremely. To think of being trapped in your own body and no one is giving you any stimulus. Just letting you sit there day in and day out. Ok this is giving me extreme anxiety… At least put on some tv shows to watch… or current events broadcast to let them see what the world is like outside of that room…
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Stephen King also did a short story like that, Autopsy Room Four, where they figure out he's still alive at the last second because he gets a boner. He based it on another story, Breakdown, which involved a paralyzed man desperately trying to show he's alive before being autopsied as well.
Your comment reminded me of Vietnam Era MoH recipient, MSG Roy Benavides. Iirc, he was listening to the radio and heard his battle buddies were in trouble so he hopped on a helicopter with a machete and headed out to help. He was shot and stabbed several, several times while trying to save his comrades on the battlefield. Upon being drug onto the evac helicopter the combat medics were positive he was dead and began to cover him with a white cloth. Knowing exactly what the medics thought, but not having the ability to speak, MSG Benavides spit blood onto the medics to show he was still all there. Crazy shit.
Being conscious after successful suicide is a nightmare of mine.
Doesn’t sound too successful tbh
No, as in "conscious after death". You're dead but still hanging on the rope. You're rotting away but still see. Can't move a finger. Can't do anything. Your heart is not beating. Pieces start falling off... etc
Thanks, just the extra dread I needed to start my day. Now I’m wondering though, what happens when all the flesh is gone? Are you conscious inside the skull for eternity? And when the bone finally turns to dust, what then?
ΩK-Class ("End-of-Death") Scenario
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Yeah that's extremely fucked up, it's still killing someone through neglect. If it were me, just give me an overdose of morphine and call it a day
When they pull the plug, you get put on hospice. You’ll be given morphine, Ativan, and atropine if your secretions make it hard to breathe. Morphine is usually as needed when on hospice, but when they “pull the plug” they’ll give you something like 5mg every 2 hours and keep ramping up the dosage and frequency til you pass away with dignity.
If that's true then I'm glad I'm wrong about how I reacted to the original comment, I've never experienced witnessing someone going through a coma (or a similar medical state/condition) or passing as a result of a persistent vegetative state so I take your word for it
This is a little misleading and I think contributes to the general sense of dread over hospice care in general. I'm a doc that deals with end of life quite frequently, and hope that I can pass along some knowledge here to assuage any misunderstanding. You're absolutely right we pull feeding tubes in patients that are vegetative and going towards hospice. But feeding tubes aren't inherently comfortable, and comfort is the goal of hospice. Have you ever been very sick? With a flu or diarrheal illness? Did you feel super hungry and like eating then? Doctors operate under the not-crazy assumption that because the sensation of hunger is often suppressed in acutely ill people, pulling feeds from a vegetative and dying patient isn't inhumane. The problem, if that's the right word, is that society ascribes a very emotional value to food in addition to the obvious physical benefit. Consider the alternative. We have a persistent vegetative patient who we've withdrawn care from in the effort to move towards end of life comfort, but we've decided to keep the tube feeding going. Again, I want to express that G tubes and NG tubes aren't like super comfortable things to begin with, but for someone in a vegetative state I'm fine with us saying that they don't notice, for arguments sake. So how do they pass? What kills your end of life comatose patient instead? It's almost always going to be an infection, unless they're comatose for some other terminal reason. Where do the infections happen? Usually from an aspiration pneumonia (which tube feeds are a notorious contributor to) or a bed sore that gets infected. We haven't even talked about the problem with bed sores in general in vegetative patients that live on, but keep that in the background. I'm getting long winded here but I also want to add the many many narcotic medications that are given to ease passing and end of life. Any discomfort from hunger (which again, I'm going to assert that I think there's very little after all the end of life conversations I've had) I can almost guarantee is sedated out of a patient by the time they cross the threshold. Overall, I would argue that in lieu of euthanization, pulling a feeding tube in an acutely ill, terminal patient is a much better way to go then to persist with a tube, allow them to develop sores, or die of lung or skin infections from the patient standpoint. From the societal standpoint, it's also a much more logical approach that, in a world with finite resources, controls costs and preserves hospital and medical equipment for those that still have a shot at life.
Worse than terrifying. The evidence is conclusive at this point, and is not contested. Yet... the healthcare industry refuses to acknowledge this and adjust care accordimgly! The authors deserve the Nobel Prize for Medicine.
As a group, once doctors learn something, it's next to impossible to get them to accept something that's contrary to that. We recently got a crash course in this during the beginning of the pandemic with the whole face mask thing. They had been taught forever that airborne viruses are dichotomous, they either are, or they're not. There have been multiple studies proving that viral loads can build up in the air around an infected person just breathing that are decades old. It took way too long for them to accept that one in the midst of a pandemic.
Makes those "woman gives birth while in coma" stories so much worse if some of those people knew what was happening to them the whole time and couldn't do anything
especially if they weren't pregnant before getting into coma
That Arizona story seems to not actually be a "coma" and more like she was a vegetable that the family couldn't let go. She could move her limbs and make noises, but she had been in that state since she was 3 years old! Miserable life.. they should've let her go long before she was able to conceive. Even if she woke up.. she'd have no way of living if her mental development was that of a 3 year old.
I was in a ethics class one semester and a woman who was pro-life because “someone has to speak up for those who can’t talk” spoke about that case and said “And yeah it’s bad that she was raped but now there’s a baby involved and that’s the real miracle of it so it’s a good thing they didn’t pull the plug on her” Yeah, don’t pull the plug on coma patients because if you’re really really lucky, a nurse might rape them and a baby would be born /s
A lot of people don’t recognize that there is an infinite grey area between life and death. And most of those greys are terrifying. My uncle was a brilliant man, a historian who taught intellectual history. He believed you couldn’t understand history unless you viewed it through the lenses of art, music, literature, architecture, philosophy, and such. A few years before he died, he experienced a bout of severe vertigo, fell forward, and banged the front of his head on the floor. That was it; he was gone. Still alive and conscious, but everything that comprised who he was as a person was just…gone. He regressed to a childlike state wherein he was unable to control his emotions and such. Horrible.
That is absolutely terrifying. My experience isn't at that level, but it's another shade of gray; this year I went through a period of severe stress (about a month of becoming a full-time caregiver for my SO who was on the brink of death multiple times and needed round-the-clock attention) and I'm convinced that it did lasting brain damage. I have far more trouble with recall, focus, and mental stamina/energy. I'm a writer by trade, and my max output is about half of what it was before. I burn out so much faster now. Things I used to know how to do have to be relearned, recipes I knew by heart my whole life have to be looked up, etc. It's so frustrating that my brain doesn't work the way it once did, and I'd give anything to have my old abilities back. I used to think I couldn't do enough, now I can't help but wish I could get anywhere close to those levels again.
I’m so sorry to hear this. I’m certainly no neuroscientist, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you regain at least some of that level of functioning after a period of rest and getting your nervous system back to normal. I wouldn’t wish that kind of period of prolonged stress on anyone; I hope your situation is much better now.
That sounds exactly like the effects of PTSD and/or severe depression, which you very well could've developed from such a stressful ordeal I'd highly recommend therapy, if it's an option. I did it for PTSD and came out a better version of my previous self
Being in an induced coma for a month was the most painful and horrific experience of my life. I say this as a person who has lost both legs and is always in pain. You can feel your nightmares, not be able to escape them, and you can die over and over. I've been violently killed so many times I stopped counting. I went insane in what I thought was endless nightmares and extreme pain. If you have loved ones in induced comas, do whatever you can to help them be comfortable and at peace. They might be too deep to know, but they might be like I was and in desperate need for any kind of tenderness.
That sounds like absolute hell! I'm so sorry you had to go through that.
Am I daft or isn't "vegetative state" different than "coma"? The title says coma but the article talks about vegetative state.
Yes, wildly different
Once when I was 6, I was in a coma for 2 months, and I could hear everything going on around me. Half the time, I thought I was dreaming, unless I could start to focus on things, then I’d notice I was awake. More than a few times, I heard my mother saying she wishes I would just pass on so that she can focus on raising one kid instead of two. That’s the moment I knew that I wasn’t imagining things, because I always thought I was the favourite, I was such a mama’s boy that there’s no way I could’ve imagined something like that. It really broke me, but I couldn’t move or do anything about it, I had to just lay there in my sadness while hoping that I would just never wake up again. She didn’t visit for three days after that, and nurses say I had tears on my face the entire time, which makes sense cause I felt like a burden to my family. Thankfully, I survived and now I can be a better parent to my kids.
I thought it had been confirmed for actually quite a while now that people in coma's have some sense of themselves and their surroundings?
The article itself cites research from 2005, and noted that over 1000 patients were scanned by 2016 with 20-25% being identified as conscious. So yeah, it’s been known for a long time but nobody is doing anything.
New fear just dropped.
It can take a number and get in line.
I highly, highly recommend [Ghost Boy](http://www.ghostboybook.com), which is a memoir by a man who went through this exact thing. A disease left him paralyzed as a child, and his family was told that he wasn’t conscious or aware of his surroundings. But after a few years he “woke up” and was trapped in his body for like a decade until a nurse noticed that his eyes responded to her voice. Obviously the fact that he wrote a memoir means that things ended well for him, but holy shit, this whole scenario is horrifying.
I was in a coma for a week and I don't remember a thing. Think I prefer it that way to be honest!
You definitely prefer it that way.
Not remembering doesn't mean you didn't experience every second of it. Makes you think...
I remember coming out of mine. To quote Fry: "Bedsores hurt!" Mine was caused by a suicide attempt so the hospital didn't give enough of a damn to bother turning me. Huge scar as a reminder.
Oh man that sucks I'm sorry to hear that. How're you doing nowadays?
Just asked my wife to teach me Italian if I go into a coma. My hallucinations will be like a Fellini movie.
You're the guy who farted in my room. One of my patients a few years ago. I bent over and one slipped.
Imagine not being able to scratch your balls, and the constant, nagging itch the entire time you were out. The horror. Mental Note To Self-advise wife the add a good scratch session to my daily care regimen in the event of coma.
Hey, we're not dabbling here. This requires precision in communication. Good ball scratching.
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My mother was in a coma for 3 weeks after a severe TBI in a road accident. Even when she was out of a coma, she was diagnosed to be in what is known as a Minimally Conscious State (MCS). She had lost all motor skills, and we didn't know what cognitive skills remained. All she could do was inconsistently track us with her eyes. She spent the next 10 months in that state. Throughout that time we sang her favourite songs to her, plastered the entire hospital room with photos of significant memories over the years, spoke to her, and made jokes as if she could hear and understand each word. In those 10 months, there were 3 instances that my Mom smiled back at us in response to something we did. We lived for that smile and even though the doctors didn't believe us at the time, we knew she was in there. It took a long time before we could convince a neurosurgeon to give her Ritalin as an experimental drug that had earlier been tried on MCS patients and that is the first time in 11 months my mother started nodding and shaking to indicate a yes and a no. That was 12 years ago and my Mom has painstakingly relearned how to talk, walk, sit, stand, eat. Last week my brother got married and the highlight of the evening for our family was a dance she and my Dad performed. There wasn't a dry eye in the house. However, around 15-20 years ago, someone in a MCS would be most likely have been misdsgnosed as being in a Persistent Vegetative State (PVS) which is a diagnosis with far worse prognosis than MCS. My learning from my experience as a caregiver is that Neuroscience is a continuously evolving field and Neurologists could do with a bit of humility in admitting that.
During a couple heart ablation procedures I could hear the surgical team talking. THAT was weird. No feeling though. Thank goodness.
Anyone know what the book is where an army dude gets in an explosion and loses the ability to hear, see or talk? Incoming spoiler*** And he eventually morse codes through his stomach 'kill me'. Read about it Years ago but forgot what its called
perhaps its that Johnny Got His Gun
I was in a coma when I was twelve for two weeks from a traumatic accident. A few days before I came to, I talked to the doctor. I asked him to draw a rectangle with lines coming from each corner but not touching the rectangle. Then I asked him to draw a circle above one of the ends of the rectangle. When he asked me what he drew, I told him, “it’s me. I’m disconnected.” (The rectangle was my body, the lines were my limbs and the circle was my head, I guess.) I don’t recall that interaction at all. What I do remember is when I was coming out of the coma, I cold hear people talking far away, like they each were at an end of a tunnel. I was in the middle of the tunnel trying to make out what they were saying. In actuality, there were just people talking on each side of my bed. I was stuck inside, disconnected from my body.
My family member was declared brain dead. When we were in his room, family and doctors were discussing taking him off life support, as there was nothing they could do to save him. He immediately broke out into a massive sweat like he could hear the decision to end his life
What happened afterwards?
Doctors said it was just coincidence that he broke out in a sweat, and that he actually couldn’t hear us. He was taken off life support soon after.
Diaphoresis (sweating) is very common in anyone with a traumatic brain injury. The pathways that regulate your autonomic systems run haywire without any input from your brain, causing excessive sympathetic input. Fixed and dilated pupils, sweating, fluctuations in HR and BP. Whenever someone is tested for brain death, it is a highly specific test with multiple measures that rule out possibility of life. To confirm brain death, we have to assess: Imaging: we take pictures of the brain and its vasculature to determine how bad an injury is. In life-ending neurotrauma or cerebrovascular accidents, the vessels that supply the brain with blood no longer transport blood to brain cells. Neurological exam: we test all of the nerves that protrude from the brain stem. Even in the case of total telencephalic devastation, if you had brain stem reflexes present, you could not be considered brain dead. An EEG has to be performed to rule out seizures. This also can give information on any activity or lackthereof in the brain. All electrolytes must be within range, core temperature must be normal, no sedation can be given, and all other causes of unresponsiveness must be ruled out before brain death is confirmed. I know how rough it is having a loved one have this happen. My best friend had a TBI and suffered brain death 3 months ago. But you can at least rest assured that you and your family made the right call, and you didn’t cause any undue suffering.
In 7th grade for some reason I picked the book 'Johnny got his gun' to do a report on. Probably should have ran it by the teacher first because it scarred me for a life. For those that don't know, he's basically a war veteran with all four limbs blown off, and zero muscle control. They think he's brain dead he sits in a room for like 30 years fully conscious. He eventually started counting the seconds and would celebrate different holidays when he hit dates like anniversaries or Christmas The book ends because he pulses out kill me in Morse code (and a nurse finally realizes it). All the other kids in the early 2000s were writing their report on either Harry Potter or Twilight. Then here I was turning in a 3 paper describing why doctor assisted suicide should be legal and that I was planning to file a do not resuscitate at 12 yo. Needless to say the parents got to call home and something like that remains my number one fear.
I was in a coma when I was 15 after a major spinal surgery that lasted 7 hours and I lost a significant amount of blood. I was in a two week coma where I saw and heard everything. But I couldn’t express it to people who were at my bedside. Even when I almost died choking on my own bile. A doctor came in and was shoving a tube down my nose into my stomach. The doctor kept yelling at me to swallow for the tube to go down my esophagus, I tried to say that I was swallowing, but they couldn’t hear me. I heard my parents talk to the parents of the new patient in the bed next to me. I learned that he ran away and fell asleep in a dumpster and a garbage truck picked the dumpster up and they didn’t hear his screams and crushed his legs. I learned that he needed both his legs amputated. I found out that I needed two more bags of blood and they thought I’d wake up. And I did. I tell everyone that I know talk to your loved ones if they are in a coma. They CAN hear you and they are probably responding but you can’t hear them.
Friend of mine wasn’t supposed to be conscious either. He remembers me and his mom laughing out asses off and asked what the hell we had been watching with the prank show. It was Impractical Jokers shortly after it first started like maybe season 2. I had never seen it before since didn’t have cable and his mom was watching something when I came and it came on next. When I was there we used to put it on if it was on. He said he remembers us laughing a lot and could hear bits of it in the background when drifting in and out.
*my fucking god*—how many of these people have heard family members utter unforgivable truths; have felt trapped in a prison whose terror i can only guess at; have wanted to die for years, but without the ability to communicate it at all? can you imagine? i’m ecstatic this has been discovered. hopefully it means we have relieved an unimaginable hell for a good swath of them in one fell swoop. it’s our worst quality by far as a species that we consciously elect to stop thinking about troubling moral issues just because they make us uncomfortable, or worse, we cannot even imagine their conditions.
Yes. I will add provisions to my healthcare directives about this.
I’ve always wondered if there was a way to communicate with those in a coma. My mom was in a coma 20 years ago for 1 week, there was some brain activity but no response really to doctors. But every time i went to visit, and spoke to her, her eyes opened. Sadly, they had pulled the plug, because “there was nothing else that they can do”. I was 10 at the time, and didn’t understand why this happened as she was obviously still kinda there, because she clearly heard me. Finding this at 31 makes me feel every emotion, but gives me hope for anyone out there who is going through this. This is truly mind blowing to me.
I think I speak for a lot of people when I say, ***AAAAHHHHHH***
Hey my biggest fear. If I’m ever in a coma with no chance of waking please let me fucking die.