Jahi McMath: Family says brain-dead teen's body may be too deteriorated to save

[RandySF]

A day after winning the three-week battle to take their brain-dead daughter from Children's Hospital Oakland, the family of Jahi McMath conceded Monday they are losing the ghastly war against nature.

Her body, checked in at an undisclosed care facility Monday morning, has deteriorated so badly, that "Right now, we don't know if she's going to make it," said attorney Christopher Dolan.

"She's in very bad shape," he said. "What I can tell you is that those examinations show that her medical condition, separate from the brain issue, is not good."

Dolan's frank and sober assessment echoes a Friday legal declaration by Children's Hospital Oakland critical care pediatrician Dr. Heidi R. Flori, who opposed surgical insertion of a feeding tube because the girl's body was deteriorating.

Brain-dead for 25 days, Jahi has been sustained under court order with a breathing machine and other medical interventions since complications arose after surgery to remove her tonsils and other tissue.


http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_24857783/jahi-mcmath-brain-dead-teens-body-may-be

[scarletwoman]

1. I can only feel very sorry for the family.

I had no idea that tonsillectomies were still being performed. I thought they were discredited/superceded by other treatments long ago.

I can understand the family's reluctance to accept their child's death. I can only hope that they find their way through the grief.

[malaise]

5. The kid was overweight and had serious sleep apnea

McMath underwent a tonsillectomy and other operations to alleviate her sleep apnea on Dec. 9. She began bleeding profusely and went into cardiac arrest shortly after.

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2014/01/06/22197615-brain-dead-girl-jahi-mcmath-released-to-coroner-mother-hospital?lite


Really sad but parents are going to have to be more aggressive re childhood obesity.

[scarletwoman]

7. Thanks, I haven't following this story beyond DU post subject lines.

Still, if sleep apnea was the problem, why not a CPAP machine? I can't help but wonder if there weren't some seriously incompetent doctors at the root of this debacle.

A lot of DUers have been railing against "woo" lately. But it's not as if the non-woo medical profession doesn't have its own clowns and charlatans.

All this pain that the family is going through just seems so unnecessary, if only they had gotten better medical advice in the first place.

[dflprincess]

11. It wasn't just a tonsillectomy

per the info in this thread http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014689792

[div class = "excerpt"]
She had massive growth of lymphoid tissue in the nasopharynx in addition to the tonsils. She also had uvulopalatopharyngoplasty as well where they reduce the size of the uvula and palate to enlarge the airway.

CPAP is great treatment for uncomplicated OSA



Tonsillectomies are still done - but not in the wholesale manner they were when we were kids (my internist was surprised that someone my age managed to keep her tonsils). My cousin's granddaughter has had repeated bouts of tonsilitis and strep and they're talking about taking hers out. Her mother is dithering but my cousin, a nurse, thinks it should be done.

I have serious questions about the ethics of the facility that was willing to take this child's body. All it did was continue to string the family along when what they needed was people who could guide them to accepting that she was gone.

[scarletwoman]

14. Thanks for the further details. It's just very sad all the way around.

I totally agree with your with last sentence, seems like the family needs help to accept that their girl is gone, more than anything.

[niyad]

15. from discussions last week, her body was more than likely taken to "new beginnings" a facility

run by a hairdresser, and one of whose major influences, if not supporters, is the terri schiavo foundation, and terri schiavo's brother, who does not believe in the existence of "brain death".

[lonestarnot]

23. Wow should we expect a differing medical diagnosis from a video from Frist even though he's no

longer in office?

[niyad]

24. have not heard a word from the cat killer.

[Barack_America]

13. Kids don't tolerate CPAP very well.

Compliance is poor.

[Hekate]

30. My dad (born 1918) and his sibs had unnecessary tonsillectomies, and he was so opposed to them...

... that my little sister was really sick before he and mom finally went for it when she was about 10. Every sore throat was a strep throat for her; she was seriously undersized and skinny. Afterwards she started to grow -- grew so fast she stayed skinny for a long time, but finally ended up almost 6 feet tall. None of the rest of us ever needed the surgery.

Edited to add: This is only a reply to one post; I understand that Jahi had very extensive surgery and not a "simple tonsillectomy" as the airheads on TV keep saying.

[FSogol]

2. Very sad. n/t

[niyad]

3. still clearly in denial:

Relieved that she is now "safely where she needs to be," Jahi's family believes she is still alive, uncle Omari Sealey said Monday.

"We're not going to play God," he said. "If her heart stops beating while she's hooked to the ventilator, we can accept that."

[markpkessinger]

10. Re: "We're not going to play God"

And yet, by artificially prolonging her life by means of a ventilator, are they not doing precisely that?

[niyad]

17. of course they are, but we are not supposed to notice it.

[malaise]

4. It's an awful way to lose a child - a so-called routine operation

but dead is dead and she's been brain dead for almost a month.

[niyad]

21. not routine--see post 12

[Mojo Electro]

6. "Right now, we don't know if she's going to make it,"

[niyad]

18. "she's dead, jim"

[Warren Stupidity]

8. That might be because she is dead.

[TheCowsCameHome]

9. What does the family actually expect to happen?

This is so sad, but...............I mean.........what? She's gone.

[niyad]

19. even their money-grubbing attorney is admitting that she "is failing'

[Starry Messenger]

12. Children's Hospital is an exemplary hospital.

The family needs to let go. It's sad what happened, but Jahi isn't going to rise from the dead. There are many murky details behind this case, and if this goes to trial, I don't think the family is going to get what they think.

http://sprocket-trials.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-long-sad-death-of-jahi-mcmath.html

In the hospital’s attorney’s brief, the statement was made that CHO staff is “demoralized” by the court’s forcing them to care for a dead girl, and that the family’s demanding of the surgical procedures “grotesque and unprecedented.”

Doing my usual perusal of the Internet and message boards, it was revealed in a television report (a local SF station) by the teen’s uncle that she’d had two other surgeries to correct sleep apnea, and that she had nocturnal enuresis (bedwetting) because of the obstructive apnea.

Message board comments have said family court documents reveal that Jahi’s body has diabetes insipidus, which is a known complication of brain death.

There are also remarks that Jahi’s mother, grandmother and stepfather all suctioned her oropharynx when bleeding started, before summoning an ICU nurse. Hearsay, yes, but remember, families and visitors of other patients are not bound to silence by HIPAA. Did they worsen the bleeding by too-aggressive suctioning?

This was not a "routine tonsillectomy" as the media kept reporting,

http://sprocket-trials.blogspot.com/2014/01/jahis-legacy.html

From CHO’s attorney’s response court filings on December 20, we learned that Jahi had not had a simple tonsillectomy, but actually several invasive procedures to open up her upper airway. She’d undergone an adenotonsillectomy, uvulopalatopharyngoplasty, and submucous resection of bilateral inferior turbinates. In laymen’s terms, her tonsils and adenoids had been surgically removed from the back of her throat, her uvula (that thing hanging down at the back of your throat) and soft palate removed or remodeled, and excess soft tissue removed from the back of her nose. These tissues are very fragile and highly vascular, meaning they can bleed a lot, as anyone who has had a nosebleed can testify to. We learned via local media that the teen had recently been given the privilege of taking the bus to nearby Berkeley to get her favorite treat from an ice cream shop: a snickerdoodle ice cream sandwich with vanilla ice cream, despite weight being a huge factor in obstructive sleep apnea.

[lindysalsagal]

16. If the mom, dad and grandma were doing some of the medical work then it's guilt that makes them kee

keep trying.

Guilt is powerful: It can really make you lose your mind and attempt stupid things.

[dflprincess]

25. So can grief especially when it's your child. nt

[hrmjustin]

20. I feel so bad for them.

[LisaLynne]

22. Me, too.

It's just so sad.

[TexasBushwhacker]

26. Tonsillectomies are generally very safe

They have a mortality rate of 1 in 40,000 to 1 in 10,000, but since over 500,000 are performed every year just in the US, that means there will be 20 to 50 tragedies like this every year.

[XemaSab]

27. This wasn't a routine surgery

They removed a lot more tissue than just her tonsils.

[TexasBushwhacker]

29. Yes, it seems she had sleep apnea

and they were removing additional soft tissue and increasing her airway inside her nose. I do wonder if she had any history of bleeding problems. I remember my doctor put me on vitamin K supplements for a month before I had my tonsils out over 40 years ago.

[nadinbrzezinski]

28. This will happen soon

We're not going to play God," he said. "If her heart stops beating while she's hooked to the ventilator, we can accept that."

Then all can rest