Trapped inside their bodies, apparently switched off to the world, but still alive: they are the undead. Or so we thought. Forty per cent of patients in a ‘vegetative state’ are misdiagnosed. John Cornwell Timesonline
An article at Timesonline points to misdiagnosis of persistent vegetative state, or PVS. The person appears to be not conscious nor aware nor reacting to stimuli. There is no perceivable brain response. John Cornwell records many amazing stories in his article and probably the most shocking and amusing at the same time is this true story. (Read them all here)
“Young man with motorbike head injury in a coma. His mum, a keen evangelical, comes every day with friends to sing Onward, Christian Soldiers by his bedside. She’s hoping to stimulate his brain into action. It works: he comes round, but he can’t speak. So they fit him up with one of those Stephen Hawking-type laptops, and the first words he speaks are: “For God’s sake, Mum, shut it!” recorded from a psychologist at Putney’s Royal Hospital for Neuro-disabilityI notice sadly many Christians who seem barely alive in their spiritual lives. Not only do they seem to be going nowhere but they also seem to be either in denial or blissfully unaware that a spiritual life involved all the aspects of human existence and not merely the outward behaviours and vocabulary of religious practice. If there is truly a divine -human relationship then a continuing stream of insights and epiphanies is to be expected as God breaks into mundane human existence to transform it into life in all its fullness.
Kate Bainbridge... suffered severe brain inflammation after contracting a viral infection. When she came out of the coma, she opened her eyes and could breathe naturally, but she was unresponsive to speech and visual stimuli, and appeared to lack all conscious awareness. ... Adrian Owen’s first experiment on Kate involved presenting her with photographs of her mother and father, followed by fuzzy, meaningless pictures, while her brain was being scanned. “We found,” he says, “that areas of Kate’s brain burst into activity when pics of her family were shown that accorded perfectly with the brain locations of healthy volunteers doing the same task.”Labour Day weekend as I was speaking about being fully alive ... I had written in my notes struggling proves that you are still alive and kicking. Now after reading this I wonder whether we ought to ensure we have the right stimulation as well. Reading and praying, fellowshiping and serving are in a sense stimulation situations, where we might prove ourselves alive. Are you alive and kicking? Really?
