Archives For Friday Success Stories

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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Suzanne Chin (Friday Success Story)

April 12, 2013 — 4 Comments

Suzanne Chin (Friday Success Story)

I have to admit I was so excited to read the story of Suzanne Chin, the incident happened in 2009 but was not wildly reported until March of this year.

suzanne chin and john alabasterSuzanne is a mother of two and a practicing attorney in Singapore. Her husband is John Alabaster a private investigator.

After getting her children off to school with the usual morning routine she went out for her usual morning hike with her dog. Not feeling well she returned home and told John something was not right.

The last thing she remembered was telling her husband to not call an ambulance.

The head of the intensive care unit, two neurologists and a cardiologist told her husband to prepare for the worst.

Soon, he was advised to take her off life support because, simply put, there was “no hope.”

It was a huge shock for her husband. One day, everything had been normal for the couple, both in their 40s, and their children then aged 12, and seven. The next day, she was in a coma and it looked very bad.

The neurologist told Mr Alabaster she had suffered brain stem death and he had to prepare himself for “letting her go”. In their opinion – and they were very firm – there was absolutely no chance of any sort of recovery,” he recalled.

The next day, a doctor asked him if he had thought about it because his wife was neurologically lifeless, a valve in her heart had been severely damaged and there was no point keeping her alive.

Things looked “worse than bleak” but he refused to say yes to switching off his wife’s life support, even though the doctor had been well-intentioned.

“But his demeanor when I told him of my decision to reject his opinion was one of patronizing incredulity coupled with an un-said “oh, you’ll come around’,” he said.

Mr Alabaster recalled mounting pressure from the medical staff treating his wife to “put Suzanne – and ourselves – out of our misery by switching off machines that were keeping her alive.” Even when she made an occasional twitch, they quashed his hopes by insisting that it was purely a reflex. Their talk always returned to “saying goodbye” and “letting go”.

Dr. Alan Chin

Dr. Alan Chin is the brother of Suzanne Chin and a devote Christian, he flew to Hong Kong and prayed for his sister when she was at her worst. “Suzanne had been pronounced with “brain stem” death and was given no hope. But, my faith in Jesus Christ said there was hope.”

Dr. Alan Chin’s comments on his sister from Citizen’s Watch,  “When I saw Suzanne in ICU, she did not look good. She was on a ventilator; her pupils were 4mm fixed and dilated. Her limbs were flaccid. The respiratory physician advised that the prognosis was very poor with evidence of brain stem death and pituitary gland failure. The room temperature in ICU was kept low to slow down the metabolic processes.”

That afternoon, her condition remained unchanged. The temperature in the ICU was now turned up in a not-too-subtle hint that the doctors had given up.

The respiratory physician again advised that there was no improvement and confirmed that Suzanne had brain stem death (BSD).

It is a term equated with death to describe a person on life-support system when faced with a decision whether or not to switch off the ventilator or to harvest organs for organ transplant.

She advised John to consider switching off the ventilator as Suzanne was now dead and there was no hope of recovery.

and on the third day…

she woke up!

The doctor treating Suzanne added that in medical history there were no cases of anybody recovering from BSD. We were told this too about Jamie.

Of course we know this isn’t true based on the may posts I have posted of Friday Success Stories.

Why are stories of people waking up from brain death not reported here in the United States?

Singapore has an opt-out program for harvesting of organs, this is where we are headed in the United States. It basically means “unless” you opt OUT your organs can be taken when pronounced “brain dead”.

Please click on  the links in this post and read the entire story of Suzanne Chin, you’ll be glad you did read all the details.

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Sam Schmid (Friday Success Story)

March 22, 2013 — 1 Comment

Sam Schmid Friday Success Story

Sam Schmid, was an Arizona college, business major who was wounded in a five car accident on October 19, 2011.

His brain injuries were so severe that he was air lifted to Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, where he had surgery for a life-threatening aneurysm.

They were almost ready to take him off of life support when he miraculously recovered.  They had approached the family about organ donation.

Sam’s mother, Susan Regan, said the hospital staff had began advising them of Sam’s “quality of life”.

“At some point, I knew we had to make a decision and I kept praying, she said.

Dr. Robert Spetzler

He was treated by Dr. Robert Spetzler, who is a world-renowned neurosurgeon who specializes in cerebrovascular disease and skull base tumors. He has been involved in pioneering the technique of hypothermia and cardiac arrest for the treatment of difficult brain lesions.

Dr. Spetzler is the doctor that trained the physician that operated on Congressman Gabrielle Gifford.

Dr Spetzler said Sam’s extraordinary recovery was “like fireworks all going off at the same time.”

“It looked like all the odds were stacked against him.”

“I am dumb-founded with his incredible recovery in such a short time,” Spetzler told ABC News.

“You get incredible highs when you save someone facing neurological devastation or death,’ said Spetzler. ‘That is counter-pointed by the incredible lows when you fail to help someone.”

Dr. Spetzler wasn’t willing to speculate what a comatose patient hears. But he admits, “There are so many things we don’t understand about the brain and what happens at the time someone is near death.”

Video

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