How would you write about the experience of a brain injury? And why would you do it?
I would do it to help myself and hopefully others to reflect and maybe to answer some important questions which any of us could face at any time:
- Can an ‘intolerable life’ justify the withdrawal or the denial of life-saving and life-preserving treatment?
- What is an ‘intolerable life’ anyways?
- If no-one can predict the outcome for someone in a minimally conscience state, how can a reduction of treatment be justified by the prognosis that no further recovery can be expected?
- Can treatment be denied based on the prognosis that it would not bring any significant benefit? Are there different answers to this question depending on whether we are talking about terminally ill cancer patients (who will most likely die within a short period of time) and survivors of severe acquire brain injury, sABI, (who have most of their life ahead of them)?
- Why is it almost never a problem to get access to expensive drugs but almost always a problem to get access to much much cheaper therapy?
- Why is it acceptable to abandon survivors of sABI and their families?
- What is the impact of an sABI, not only on the survivor, but on their family and friends?
- Is the question: “Would it have been better had he died” legitimate, ethically correct?
- How do the two rights, the right to die and the right to live, relate to each other?
- Is proper, full rehabilitative treatment a basic and fundamental human right – and can the denial be compared to torture?
As today was a bank holiday, we took it easy, had a lie in, did some basic exercises and went for walks. I went for a run and, miraculously, the back pain that had started to bother me disappeared. And for a moment I had thought I’d better rest instead of going for a run, because of my back.
Meaning: sometimes you have to do the opposite of what you might think you should be doing in order to get the results you’re looking for.
Hospi-Tales 