Thanks Prog/Doctor. Really she wanted to not be kept alive if she had any major impairment, as she was already debilitated from years of COPD. But the law here, at least as the Adventist hospital she was at was interpreted, meant they would not withdraw support until she was beyond the beyond. It was eerie to see her at times; eyes open, but nobody home behind them. She could respond to simple, forcefully loud commands from nurses, such as, "Cough!" when they changed her tube out, would continue to do leg pedaling motions for many minutes after her PT left the room from doing muscle tone therapy sessions with her. It took nearly a month of steady decline from a 9 on the Glasgow to the five where they would follow my demand to withdraw support.
The brain stem plus a little bit more intact structure can give people hope where there should be none. The stem is nearly identical to a reptiles entire brain, hence the patient's ability to "recognize" family member's voices and faces, as a pet lizard can do just as well, imprinted with it's owner's voice and appearance. The intelligent person that the formally intact brain once contained is long gone, though.
