Sunday, March 20, 2005

 

A Tale Of Two Scans

I couldn't get Hello to work for me yesterday, but a kind friend, Maia Cowan of FailureIsImpossible.com, uploaded the following picture of two brain scans to her web site:

Again, the doctor is pointing to a normal, healthy, living brain. The whitish-grey matter is living brain tissue, the cerebral cortex that makes us thinking, feeling, actively human people. The few dark areas are cavities outlined and filled by spinal fluid. Now, look at the scan next to that one. That's of Terri Schiavo's brain. Notice that the scan of Terri's brain shows a totally different picture. Instead of a whole, healthy, living brain that fills the skull, we see a few shriveled bits of cerebral cortex in a vast pool of spinal fluid. This is not the brain scan of someone who can think, feel, or even react. This is the brain of someone who is brain-dead. Send this picture to your Congresscritters. Enclose the link to the CBS Evening News story from which it was taken, and mention that the pic is to be found at the 1:26.5 minute mark (though the pic already shows that). Bill the Cat-Killer Frist says he thinks the heavily-edited video footage that Operation Rescue and the Schindlers have touted shows that Terri still has a brain. But he hasn't seen the unedited video -- which shows that for every time Terri seems to respond to a balloon or her mother, there are many more times that she does not. And he probably hasn't seen this CBS Evening News video. Send him copies. UPDATE: The scan of Terri Schiavo's brain was done before she had an experimental device implanted, at Michael's request, in a futile attempt to stimulate brain function. (So much for the slanders and libels stating that Michael Schiavo had given up right away on his wife!) Unfortunately, once this was done, future MRIs were impossible because the MRI radiation would have adversely affected the (magnetic) device, which (as a moment's thought will make plain) would not be good for what was left of her brain. (Essentially, it would have cooked what little was left.)


# posted by Phoenix Woman @ 3/20/2005 09:53:00 AM
Comments:
Thank you for your posting. I have been screaming the same thing for years - no one wants to listen - it doesn't sell newspapers. Once again, Thanks
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 3/20/2005 12:50:00 PM
 
Many thanks for posting this. And, how do you know Maia? She's an old friend of mine from SF/fantasy conventions. :)
# posted by Blogger filkertom : 3/21/2005 08:25:00 AM
 
Hey, Filkertom!

I know Maia from Salon's "Table Talk" message boards. I've been hanging out there for so long I can't remember when I first signed on. It was well before the pay-to-post era started, I know that.
# posted by Blogger Phoenix Woman : 3/22/2005 05:27:00 PM
 
Wow! That CAT scan pretty much says it all. But who says that the right-to-life crowd believes in CAT scans?
# posted by Blogger Ian McGibboney : 3/24/2005 09:33:00 PM
 
ian--

Or gravity...in fact, didn't someone claim somewhere that they make their own?

___
Thanks for this PW.
# posted by Blogger RossK : 3/30/2005 12:38:00 PM
 
A quick note:

The scan of Terri Schiavo's brain was done before she had an experimental device installed in a futile attempt to stimulate brain function. Unfortunately, once this was done, future MRIs were impossible because the MRI radiation would have partially melted the device, which (as a moment's thought will make plain) would not be good for what was left of her brain.
# posted by Blogger Phoenix Woman : 11/21/2007 07:01:00 AM
 
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