From shinga

[conuly]

Thanks... I think.

The man's doctors think that locked-in syndrome may be much more common than anybody realizes, which is pretty horrific.

Now, some people are saying "God, if that happens to me I hope they pull the plug", but I find it interesting that the person this did happen to - who spent half his life with everybody assuming he was comatose! - isn't saying "Kill me now" or "I wish I'd died back then" but "Hey, now that you all know I'm alive, I want to live my life again!" He's got far more experience with this than I do, so I'm going to go ahead and assume there's a lesson in those words.

With that in mind, I'm teaching myself Morse Code right now*, and I hope people think to try it with me (or even "one if a yes, two if a no") if this fate should ever befall me. It's easy to say now "Gosh, that sucks, I'd hate to live like that", but when push comes to shove I'd really hate to change my mind right as my loving family, trying to respect my wishes, comes along and kills me. That'd really suck. Although that sort of dramatic irony would at least be darkly funny... you know, from a distance.

Morse Code. It's the wave of the future. And if, god forbid, you all think I'm comatose - please, somebody suggest to the doctor that I might not be! (Also? Even if I can't even communicate, I'd appreciate volunteers to read to me and play some nice classic fannish works on TV for me. Just in case.)

*Remember how in Cheaper By the Dozen the author describes their father's mnemonic for learning Morse Code? Did the whole mnemonic ever get written out anywhere?

Comments

[leora.livejournal.com]

My understanding is that not everyone who is aware, but appears comatose or similar (permanent vegetative state, etc.) is able to control their blinking. The wave of the future is likely to be MRI imaging. You ask the person to think of a particular scenario like playing tennis and see what they do. Then you ask them to think of a different scenario and see if you can get them to consistently produce two different brain states when you ask them to, that would show awareness. And then you use them as a yes-no code.

Difficult to pull off currently and MRIs are hideously expensive, but the trend is likely for them to be easier and cheaper. And going directly at looking at the brain seems most likely to help.

Not that you shouldn't learn morse code. It might come in handy. And having an alphabet is a lot better than just having a yes-no binary.

[conuly]

That's what wikipedia says, that most people can control blinking but some can't. (Of course, what if wikipedia is wrong and most people can't but we just don't know?)

[leora.livejournal.com]

That's what brain imaging is for!