Can you imagine being unable to move or communicate for 23 years but being fully conscious the entire time?! That is what happened to Rom Houben. Click here to read the article from which these quotes are taken.
A man who emerged from what doctors thought was a vegetative state says he was fully conscious for 23 years but could not respond because he was paralyzed, his mother said Monday. Houben, 46, had a car crash in 1983 and doctors thought he had sunk into a coma.
Searching finally got (His mom) in touch with (a physician), who put Houben through a PET scan that indicated he was conscious. The family and doctors then began trying to establish communication. He used the device to tell a reporter for the German magazine Der Spiegel that: “I screamed but there was nothing to hear.”
Imagine yourself in that condition… for 23 years… hearing everything that was going on around you… and not being able to communicate! While reading the article I couldn’t help but think about Terri Schiavo… Dr. Jack Kevorkian (Dr. Death)… Mrs. Billy Graham’s own request to have her feeding tube removed… and my dad.
Could Ms. Schiavo also hear and understand all that was going on around her? Was she screaming to be allowed to live but there was nothing to hear?
Did Kevorkian really comprehend the intricacies of the body… life… death… and the afterlife as he assisted 130+ to die?
Then there’s Ms. Graham… a Christian lady who understood her time had come to be with Christ.
Did my dad, as he was laying in a hospital bed unable to speak, really not want a feeding tube and no measures taken to sustain life when those decisions finally had to be made for him (He had communicated that to me many times… but it’s different when you are actually IN the situation. But he couldn’t say otherwise.)?
Human life… ALL human life… is precious because it is in the image of God. Just because a person’s life doesn’t seem to us to have quality doesn’t mean it doesn’t have quality to the person themselves!
God commands through Scripture to defend the weak… those who can’t defend themselves… and all who are powerless. This is one of the reasons I support and signed the Manhattan Declaration (CLICK HERE).
Decisions about when our final days come are difficult in the best of situations (Been there!). At the same time I must assert that short of a person’s wishes being known and their desire against measures to sustain their life… it should and must be protected with all diligence.