Reply #32: It *is* astounding. [View All]

[Withywindle]

And kind of horrific in its own way. I kind of think that, a few years in, my will to live should have shut itself off. I NEED stimulus of some kind. I could accept being a quadriplegic, I think, I could accept having a body that was fading in a sort of Stephen Hawking way--as long as I still had a way to communicate and respond to others.

To lie there staring at a ceiling for a quarter of a century, with no way to tell my loved ones, 'HELLO, I AM STILL SENTIENT!'

I read that when it was first recognized that he was "awake" and attention was paid to helping him communicate, "It was like a second birth." I bet. And more intense than the first. I really hope he does get a way to tell his story - and that story convinces people that quality of life is VERY important, that human dignity is important, that a peaceful death is NOT the worst thing in the world when compared to a tormented life.


I still have nightmares about Terri Schiavo for the same reason. No, I don't think she would ever be capable of independent life--but the idea that she MIGHT be "awake" on some completely non-communicative level, and that she had relatives willing to keep her in that hell for decades was so much more horrifying to me than thinking that her husband wanted to let her pass away peacefully. Fuck, if the best I can ever do is make blurry eye movements at the sight of a balloon or some shit? PUT A PILLOW OVER MY FACE, for fuck's sake!