Archives For Success Stories

One “More” Reason I Don’t Believe in Brain Death

March 15, 2014 — Leave a comment

Lexi Hansen wakes up

Lexi Hansen Lexi Hansen was hit by a car on the 26th of February while attending college at BYU.

When her brother, Tanner and his girlfriend arrived at Utah Valley Hospital they were greeted by a Social Worker who told them:

“Lexi has suffered a very traumatic brain injury and the extent of her injuries were still uncertain. He also explained that she was not breathing when the ambulance had arrived and had to be resuscitated at the scene.”

The Social Worker told them that Lexi had bleeding in the deep part of her brain and possibly on the upper layers of her brain as well. She also had a C2 fracture of her spinal cord and contusions to her lungs. He stated that everything was considered minor compared to the injuries to her brain.

The doctor explained that Lexi had experienced a shearing injury in the subarachnoid area of her brain, as well as bleeding in either the epidural or subdural area. They would not be able to operate as the injury was too deep in her brain and the damage had already been done. A shearing injury is when the neurons that carry electrical signals in your brain get sheared, or ‘cut-off,’ from each other. These are vital connections in our brain and they cannot be repaired once they are lost. After learning this news we asked if we should have the family members living out-of-state fly in. Travis’s response to this was a non-hesitant, ‘Of course,’ meaning they had not given Lexi a real chance of even making it through the night. Both Travis and the doctors kept asking when the soonest all the family could be here and how long would be needed to extend Lexi’s life.

The family was shown the results of her CT scan. The doctor’s pointed out little white specks on the CT and stated that these were the areas of ‘shearing.’ One us chimed in and asked what percent chance she had of coming out of this. He sighed and said, “One percent, maybe two. Maybe.”

He went on to explain how with brain injuries they can never truly know the severity of the outcome and if Lexi were to make it she may never walk or speak again. He said that many people who suffer brain injuries end up in a care center, never to be independent in functioning for the rest of their lives. (Of course doctors always give people the worst most hopeless news)

When Lexi came into the ER she had come in with a GCS (Glasgow Coma Scale) score of 3. (A GCS score is used to evaluate how conscious and responsive someone is after a traumatic brain injury).  He explained that patients that come in with a GCS score of 3 pretty much have zero chance. He also explained that Lexi had been displaying ‘decorticate’ and ‘deceberate’ posturing, and had even been transitioning back and forth between the two. Both signs of posturing indicate severe brain damage.

A Miracle

The family made their home at the hospital and continued round the clock prayer and fasting for Lexi.

On Sunday with two family members in the room, Lexi opened her eyes.

“We ran to get the rest of the family that was in the waiting room. With us all together, we decided to shut the door and sing hymns to her to invite the spirit as we had done before. We sang hymns like, “Be Still My Soul,” “Abide With Me,” “I Need Thee Every Hour.” While were singing, Lexi had completely opened her eyes and was looking at each of us surrounding her at her bed.While we were singing, she hand signed I love you, moving her arm around so that everyone could see. She then reached for each person’s hands individually so she could squeeze them.”

On Monday they removed the breathing tube. Remember I’ve written many times the ventilator’s are our friends when we are severely injured.

On Friday she was moved from the ICU to a Neurology Rehab Unit of a hospital.

Everyday Lexi is improving.

Marcia Hansen said her daughter’s improvement has far exceeded her doctor’s expectations.

“We know that it was a miracle. We absolutely know that. We know that God’s hand was in it,” she said, adding that her daughter’s doctors were amazed. “They tell us all the time she’s a miracle and ‘you have a higher power working for you because she shouldn’t be here.’ She had zero percent chance of making it when she came in and then 1 percent. They weren’t even going to stitch up her face.” ABC News watch the video.

Lexi on long board What we can learn from Lexi:

1) The doctors who champion “brain death” will say the doctors in Utah made a mistake. Rather than admit someone wakes up from brain death,they always “blame the tests” when someone wakes. “No one wakes up from brain death they say”.

2) We can see that even with a Glasgow Coma scale of 3 and a high C2 spine injury she woke up and is alive.

Jamie was at a 7 GCS when he was brought to Vanderbilt and he had a high C5-6 spinal cord injury.

3) Most Level 1 trauma centers would have already been talking about organ donation. If you child was a donor they would have told you, “As you can see, your daughter is an organ donor”.

4) The Organ donation industry is BIG business and they don’t want to give the patient time to wake up. I’m so glad for the advice I got years ago from Ft Lauderdale lawyer for injuries Wolf & Pravato, they woke me up to these insidious facts.

There is a Facebook page Prayers for Lexi if you want to follow her progress along.

Exerts from Amanda story, Lexi’s brother’s girlfriend who is in nursing school.

You can read the entire story of Lexi’s miracle there.

As I follow along on this success story I know one day I will see a photo of Lexi back on her long board.

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Mothers Know Best

December 31, 2013 — Leave a comment

Mothers Know Best

Today I watched this video interview from NBC News on a mother who delivered twins. She was told that the boy, Jamie had died. She began to hold him on her chest. The doctors told her his movement was a reflex, same as in brain death. As baby Jamie began to suck breast milk off her finger they called for the doctor who would not come back in.

Only when they told the doctor that they had accepted his death did he come back in.

The rest is history. Not sure if the video will show up but here is the link, watch it. 

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

From the transcript:

He started making movements just five minutes after he had been handed to us, but the movements were just getting stronger and stronger and after two hours, we thought, he’s getting stronger. he’s not dead. eventually, we said to the doctor — he wouldn’t come back. we kept saying, he’s doing things that dead babies don’t do. you might want to come and see this.

he was amazed he was actually alive.

go and tell him that we’ve come to term with the baby’s death, can he just explain it? that made him come back.

The initial interview was done when the twins were five months old, with parents David and Kate Ogg.

Ann Curry did the interview, who I miss terribly on NBC.

JJamie and Emily 2 years laterA follow up story in March 2012 shows the twins Jamie and Emily growing and doing well.

When I read this story this morning (via a photo on Pinterest that lead me there), I could not help but this of Jahi McMath and her mother Nailah Winkfield, a mother who is fighting to keep her child on life-support to give her time to heal.

Medical miracles do happen and I continue to pray that Jahi will wake up and God will expose the horrific lie of brain death.

Kangaroo Care

The Ogg’s were following a procedure that began in Australia called Kangaroo Care. Skin-to-skin contact with their mothers releases oxytocin, the so-called “cuddle hormone,” which affects multiple areas of newborns’ brains.

Despite the evidence that it works, the medical establishment has been slow to recommend skin-to-skin contact with newborns. Ignorance about the research findings and fear of handling premature babies are two of the main obstacles, say Ludington and Spatz, who works at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

“In the United States, our biggest reason is the physicians don’t know about it because it’s nursing-generated knowledge,” Ludington says. “The physicians want to see the data, but they don’t read any nursing journals.”

Fear plays a role, too, Spatz says. “I still see in most NICUs (neonatal intensive care units) that skin-to-skin is not a standard of care.” NICU babies tend to be tiny and fragile and hooked up to tubes and machines, and both nurses and parents worry about trying to move them, she says. Source

One of my big regrets was that I did not get in bed with my Jamie and hold him.

Nailah, if you can get in that bed with Jahi and hold her.

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Mr. Templin Didn’t Die When Told He Would

May 25, 2013 — Leave a comment

Mr.Templin

A Montana man brain cancer diagnosis shows how difficult it is to determine whether or not a person has a “terminal illness”. Mark Templin was awarded US $59,000 for expenses and emotional stress after his doctor wrongly told him in 2009 that he had only six months to live. “It is difficult to put a price tag on the anguish of a man wrongly convinced of his impending death,” said the judge. “Mr. Templin lived for 148 days … under the mistaken impression that he was dying of metastatic brain cancer.”

One of Templin’s daughters asked the doctor how her father would die and “he explained one of the tumors would grow ‘like cauliflower’ and Templin would die from a brain bleed.”

After that disturbing diagnosis, Mr Templin sold his truck and quit his job. He put his affairs in order and displayed a large sign in his home saying “Do Not Resuscitate”. His family held a “last birthday” dinner for him and he paid for a funeral service. His son-in-law made a wooden box for his ashes. He entered a hospice for dying patients.

He even considered shooting himself to spare himself and his family the pain of a terminal illness.

However, Mr Templin began to get better, not worse. He booked himself out of the hospice and had more tests. These revealed that he had a stroke and that he did not have a brain tumour.

Award

A judge ordered that Fort Harrison Veterans Affairs Medical Center pay Mr Templin $59,000 for the distress that the diagnosis had caused and to reimburse him for his “last” birthday celebration and his pre-arranged funeral.

Link to original article 

http://www.bioedge.org/index.php/bioethics/bioethics_article/10530#comments

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Brain Dead Woman Delivers Baby;Then Wakes Up

May 17, 2013 — 3 Comments

Brain dead woman delivers a baby and then wakes up

A pregnant Filipina who was declared clinically (brain) dead just before delivery at a hospital in Kuwait came back to life moments after her boy was born. The baby boy weighed 6.8 lbs. and mom and baby are doing fine.

“This is a scientific miracle at all levels,” doctors at Farwaniya Hospital in the capital Kuwait City said.

“A 36-year-old Filipina who was nine months pregnant was hospitalised at 3:30 AM on Friday in a critical condition with extremely high blood pressure,” Dr Humoud Al Zobi, the hospital manager, said. “The woman suffered a cardiac arrest while being examined in the casualty department after she coughed and spat blood. Her heart then stopped beating and she stopped breathing,” he said.

She was declared clinically dead and was immediately rushed to the operation theatre to save the baby. 

Hospital director Dr. Humoud Al-Zo’abi told KUNA Saturday that the woman “entered in clinical (brain) death with neither heartbeat nor breathing.”

Clinically dead means brain dead; brain death is a theory and not a scientific reality. This is the term used to pronounce dead under the Uniform Determination of Death Act.

The Caesarean operation was performed without anaesthesia as the mother was considered dead.

The Doctors

Dr Mohammad Hassan, who supervised the operation, said.

“This is a scientific miracle at all levels. As soon as the woman was checked and declared clinically dead, the maternity division of the hospital was put on alert for a Caesarean. The woman and her baby are now in stable condition,” he said.

As soon as the woman was checked and declared clinically (brain)dead, the maternity division of the hospital was put on alert for a Caesarean. The woman and her baby are now in stable condition,” he added.

This story broke on May 14th, 2013, don’t be mislead about brain death.

Read more, here and here. 

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Doctor’s Prayer Brings A Man Back To Life

May 17, 2013 — Leave a comment

Doctor’s prayer brings a man back to life

I think it is important to read success stories about people who have been considered hopeless or who have been pronounced died and then wake up. Every Friday I try to post on one I have read.

Dr Chauncey CrandallDr. Chauncey Crandall, Cardiologist in Palm Beach, Florida,  is a Yale-educated cardiologist whose Palm Beach practice includes some of the most powerful people in American society, including several billionaires.

On October 20, 2006, a middle-aged auto mechanic, Jeff Markin, walked into the emergency room at the Palm Beach Gardens Hospital and collapsed from a massive heart attack. Forty minutes later he was declared dead.

After filling out his final report, the supervising cardiologist, Dr. Chauncey Crandall, started out of the room. “Before I crossed its threshold, however, I sensed God was telling me to turn around and pray for the patient,” Crandall explained.

“Father God, he said, under his breath, I cry out for this man’s soul. If he does not know you as his Lord and Savior, raise him from the dead now, in Jesus’ name.”
With that prayer and Dr. Crandall’s instruction to give the man what seemed one more useless shock from the defibrillator, Jeff Markin came back to life and remains alive and well today.

Dr. Crandall is in active medical practice. He does not, like some contemporary “faith healers,” scorn medical means to bring about healing. He simply gives patients the best of both worlds–his prayers and his medical knowledge–to bring about healing.

He freely admits that not everyone who is prayed for gets healed. Miracles still ultimately depend on the will and intervention of God. I like his honest assessment of prayer and miracles. He lost his son Chad so I can identify with his courage to carry on and not allow his faith to waiver. In fact it was through the up’s and down’s of Chad’s illness that Dr. Crandall went from a nominal christian to a radical warrior for God against diseases.

Just because our prayers don’t get answered the way we want them to, does not mean that we don’t trust God in His Sovereignty.

After I see an astonishing video like the one below, I like to Google people to learn more about them. I loved seeing the photos of Dr.Crandall’s work in Haiti as a Medical Missionary.

Raising the Dead book His book Raising The Dead is and the story of the video on praying for Jeff is on Amazon.

I just downloaded the book and will read this weekend, the reviews were great.

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