Heartbroken Mother Seeks End to Vegetative Son's Suffering | Chicago Med | MD TV 

one of my friends told her mom her wishes, but did not write anything down. Her shunt malfunctioned after 20 years and her heart stopped in the middle of the CT scan, mom freaked out, said "save my daughter!". They did, but it took *minutes* ! She ended up with more damage that she had when she went in. When my friend woke up, she asked what happened. They told her, and when she confronted the mom, the mom said, " I saved your life, you're welcome!" She went ballistic! She refused to go home with the mom, or as she refers to her now: The demon that made me worse. When one of her abled friends heard what happened, they were so appalled they *insisted* on moving in to help her so she wouldn't have to deal with her mom anymore.

Same like bro I have no words and when he tried to resuscitate no one wanted to help him at first

I think the conversation would be they were shocked she didn’t tell them. That they wouldn’t get a chance to say goodbye. But they agreed it was the kindest thing to do. 5:24

@@jessyca1804 maybe a nurse secretly helped them or unless they just pulled the ventilator tube out idk, and I guess maybe they just said their good byes and did it

They wanted to end his suffering, yeah it wasn’t the best way and inhumane, but Sam was gone long ago, his body was there but Sam wasn’t there anymore

@@rarehearts2602 ya and it’s like he was suffering, it must be a night mare to just lay their stuck in your body for 5 years, but like will the family members get arrested?

We are more humane to our animals than we are to Grandpa. We put such value on human life even when it's painful and lacks quality. We give peace to our pets but not to the people we love.

She could have taken it to court. Make your wishes known IN WRITING!

My grandma wanted to die and simply refused all food and fluids. We saw her slowly starving and dehydrating for 2-3 weeks before she finally passed on. She was what they call nil by mouth and any pain was carefully managed so I don't think you are correct in your statement. If anything, it's the discomfort of bedsores you need to watch out for.

@@MusiCatsKing you can even read up on it. Starvation is painful. Your grandma was on pain meds to ease things like you said, but if you do some research, it’s a horrible way to go. There’s a study that was done on starvation where they had men volunteer, the results for that study were horrific. You said it took 2-3 weeks, that’s not a quick death, that is a prolonged death. Plus there’s a difference between someone wanting to die, and someone’s family choosing it for them.

If they remove your feeding tube you go on hospice. They make sure you go peacefully and comfortably

Who is "they"? According to some medical experts, starvation becomes painless after some time.

@@Seek1878 even if it’s after some time, that doesn’t mean it’s painless the whole time. I’m going by what my mom saw, and what I’ve read about and the documentary I saw. Starvation is not a peaceful way to go.

They both are!

They both are!

By law the mother and manning is wrong. Morally its a bit of an grey area.

Legally the mother is in the wrong, morally it kind of depends and is a bit complicated. Her intentions were good, what she did was out of love as far as we are able to tell. Assuming that is the case and ignoring the legal aspect I wouldn't necessarily say it was the right thing to do, it depends on things we can't really know for sure. Like what her son actually wanted, how much he was actually suffering, or if he was even capable of wanting anything or conscious enough to suffer. Even if he reflexively reacted to pain and seemed to be in pain that doesn't necessarily mean he actually "felt" it. From what I understand people in vegetative states can experience pain, like their nerves can work and send signals, but FEELING that pain and suffering from it seems to require more than. Idk if we know 100% for sure (because honestly what can you know for sure) but it doesn't seem like they are able to actually experience those things in the same way a normal fully conscious person does, I guess it's case by case and depends on what we can see with brain activity. All of that being considered my overly thought-out personal opinion on the scenario in this TV show is that his mother seemed to care for him deeply and didn't want him to suffer, from her perspective it seemed like he was suffering, she didn't believe he would want that, and she wanted to help him. What she did was illegal but given the circumstances it was understandable. Though if he could experience that suffering how she went about it was not great as it would cause more suffering. It was mentioned that she was considering moving to a place where assisted suicide was legal but with him unable to make his wishes clear that might not have worked out. It's a complicated situation and legal barriers make acting on it in that way even more difficult. There are good reasons for that but it can potentially result in a situation where someone is suffering when they would not want to be. There are all kinds of other questions and opinions involved too, like if he wasn't conscious in any way we can measure then some may already consider him dead. Others would say you should preserve someone's life no matter what. What is it really like for people like that, do they live in their head isolated from the outside world unable to communicate? Is there still something there? Do we have souls separate from our physical body and regardless of outward appearance? What's the value of keeping someone in that state depending on the answers to questions of that nature? That probably depends on what happens to what's left if your body dies, which of course there are many different opinions on that. Basically it's a messy situation and it depends on who you ask. You didn't technically ask and I apologize for this wall of text lmao. It is interesting, though, and I figured why not think about it out loud some.

Yet if it were a pet dog or cat, it wouldn't even be up for debate.

He's the main reason I stopped watching Chicago Med. He grated on my nerves and ruined the show for me.

@@victoriarose4506 I didn't like him either. I thought he was very creepy when it came to Natalie. It felt like he was waiting for her to get over her dead husband so he could be with her. So gross.

He learned his lesson. When he found out that she was on a placebo in the trial he put her in, he literally said, "I should have left her alone." He stopped meddling after that. The worst thing about doctors is that sometimes they forget that just because you can make a person live longer, doesn't always mean you should.

Exactly, in another episode, the doctor who in this video called the police, snatched a tank of nitrogen oxide from the other doctor in the video precisely for that, treating a patient that he misdiagnosed and forcing the baby she was treating to receive a more invasive treatment.

Dr. Halstead ignored a cancer patient's DNR and ended up getting the hospital sued by her. And here he is lecturing Dr. Manning about following the law.

@@deansam1 Yes, and in that episode Dr. Manning was the one that wanted to follow the DNR. But in another episode she had a lot of trouble accepting that a kid with terminal cancer didn't want to continue with his treatment (they didn't mention it, but it was basically also a DNR), and she called CPS on the dad.

@@deansam1 he learned his lesson

It's a TV show

Women can't spin in a circle and turn into wonderWoman nor can a man jump in a telephone booth and turn in to superman

I guess it’s different for each state but tbh if I was the doctor I just would have let her let him go

In this specific method it is technically illegal. You need a medical expert verify that there is zero chance for improvement of life (which is 100% certain for a persistent vegetative state), and signed off by a judge. The real case of Terry Schiavo, which this is probably loosely based on had its own issues mainly due to disputes between who had the right to make that choice, her husband or her parents and no living will to be sure of what she would have wanted. And the parents manipulating the public with videos that made it look like she was smiling at a loved ones face (when really people who were around her said she had those reactions even if nobody was within eysight).

Laws vary so ..

People on set saw that and thought it was okay? Ridiculous.

@@leahmoore6820Well real chest compressions would probably break an actor’s ribs, which isn’t great for doing multiple takes or, yunno, in general

BAHAHAHA

@Justice237 is right tho, real, accurate, deep chest compressions could break and actor's ribs and I have no idea what would happen if you did it on a living patient but I'd imagine it'd cause tremendous pain, possibly messing up their natural heart rhythm. Yes, they could've done it better but I try to give actors grace if its on a real person (if it's a dummy or a fake person then they should be accurate)

well now that you mention it i want him to react to this

One of my sisters’ BILs passed away in his early thirties because he either kept having heart attacks or after a heart attack they couldn’t keep his heart beating on its own/would still stop even on the machine. Doctors weren’t sure either what the damage to his brain looked like due to the flow of blood being constantly interrupted. His wife had to decide whether or not she wanted them to keep trying to keep him alive or to withdraw medical support and let him go. She sat with him for a few minutes and told the doctors to let him go.

yes, yes they can. I've heard of this being tried as manslaughter before, but this mother just dragged her two other kids into this as accomplices. Once you go to prison for something like that, it sticks with you forever. It can affect your ability to find a job, get housing, and bar you from staying in certain communities (i.e. certain neighborhoods, country clubs, clubs that aren't nightclubs in general, I know a guy who got kicked out of his stable because he'd been arrested for drug possession and distribution, guy wound up having to sell his horse because no other stable would let him board). Her kids' futures are ruined because the mom didn't think to get legal counsel for this.

Not really since it is compressing an inch and at around 120BPM if you keep up the rhythm

@@cloudedcolour5329those chest compressions were done the right way for sure, some other character on this show either don’t push hard enough or push to fast

@@cloudedcolour5329 He was going way faster than 120, more like 180. Chest compressions are supposed to be done at 100 bpm.

It's more properly called post-coma unresponsiveness (PCU), but essentially it's because the patient is alive but has minimal voluntary activity, like a vegetable. It was coined in 1972 but it's not considered the most sensitive description of a human being nowadays.

In a lot of cases, when a patient is in a vegetative state they’re basically a living corpse. Awful.

She wasn't intending to give him pneumonia, she was trying to let him go peacefully by blocking his tracheal tube and letting him pass on. Unfortunately he ended up getting pneumonia and she got scared seeing him in so much pain

The blinking can be involuntary movement it doesn't mean anything.

agreed

Given he’s got a trach he’s likely got more vulnerability since it’s an open way for infection to get in and you have a higher risk of antibiotic resistant infections

Good luck getting a jury who will convict!

do you honestly believe ANYONE wants to live like that? can you even call it living?

@@dietotaku No it's not living, it's existing.

@@dietotaku I could believe someone with their sense of self but no ability to communicate it might want to keep living in the right conditions. This is where it gets complicated, because it can be extremely difficult to impossible to know how much of someone is “still in there” and how they feel about their condition. I wouldn’t feel comfortable declaring that life isn’t worth living in that state by default.

Now that's a movie everyone should watch what a heartbreaking movie

DNR is for if they crash and mean they don’t get life saving measures at the end, you mean DNI which is do not intubate

I think he said 18:16

@@FrostBiteBS_officialI believe u r correct it was 18:16

its the military time if you still complain on it being 18:16 time has 24 hours 18:16 would be the hour within the 24 hour period

You have to do it to 120BPM so not too fast

Irrelevant to this scene

Since real compressions break things unrealistic is the way to go.

agreed

Caregivers burn out is very real changing, washing them feed lift them to prevent bed sores. You end up collapsing

@@missytanner3501 a caregiver burning out, probably just means that the caregiver should be switched out with another trusted person to take care of the patient not to take the life of the patient into their own hands and kill them

Then they need to get the whole family. They were all in on this last act.

@@l.a.3479 Agreed, but judgments stigma, and others deciding they don't want to can color your judgment

"Believe"