Reply #44: Yes, you do have issues. [View All]

[Bouncy Ball]

Your issues seem to involve not understanding the full extent of the damage to her brain.

Because she is looking around doesn't mean she tracks objects with her eyes (she doesn't) and it doesn't mean she has any awareness (she doesn't). PVS (persistent vegetative state) can be HIGHLY misleading to the rest of us, who have all of our brains.

Terri is NOT brain dead and no one here is saying she is. "Brain dead" and "brain damaged" are two different things. Brain dead means machines have to do EVERYTHING for the person, because NONE of the brain is functioning.

Terri's LOWER brain is functioning. That's the part that makes her breathe and her heart beat. It's the part responsible for involuntary, reflexive stuff. (You don't think "heart beat, heart beat" all the time, do you? No, it just beats!)

But her brain damage is SO extensive and SO permanent, it's absolutely catastrophic. She has NOTHING other than a beating heart and expanding and contracting lungs. None of "Terri" is left. Nothing that made her Terri is there.

YOU are projecting YOUR feelings onto her. She is a shell. No personality, no awareness, no consciousness, no thoughts (she CAN'T even form a THOUGHT in her head, but people think she can SPEAK???), she most likely cannot see or hear or feel any touch. If you hit her knee with one of those little hammers, her leg might kick (actually probably not because of muscle and bone atrophy, but whatever) but ONLY because that's a reflex movement, not a voluntary one. She can't decide on her own to even move her pinkie.

The brain tissue necessary for those things simply ISN'T THERE. And you cannot just re-grow it.