Who exactly is paying for this care?

(Reply necessary only if it would surprise.)

Well the hospital released the body to the coroner who then released it to the family and they had it moved to an undisclosed facility.

It is a waste of the families emotions. There is no miracle that is going to happen here.

I wonder how long they will keep the body "alive" before they realize the futility of it all...

Very sad indeed.

This is creepy. It's delving off into necromancy. Which "facility" has agreed to keep a quasi-dead body going indefinitely? What are they going to do with circulation to the limbs stops and gangrene sets in?

And, one can't help but wonder... what went wrong with the surgery in the first place?

As long as they did the proper scans, she is likely brain dead.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-27083_3-10403861-247.html

As for expenses thus far, the hospital will likely end up eating the cost of care (Medicaid won't pay for it and neither will any insurance). Any other costs will be eaten by whichever facility has accepted her (or by donations).

Interesting fact: IV potassium is also know as 'lethal injection' if you give too much of it at once (and it has to be given through an IV in one of the major chest veins, not in a hand IV). More interesting fact: this means her kidneys are no longer maintaining electrolyte balance (no brain means no hormones means kidney don't work so well). Likely her body will not survive much longer.

And, one can't help but wonder... what went wrong with the surgery in the first place?

According to reports, nothing. She woke up. These people are going to have a hell of a time winning a lawsuit. Until an autopsy is preformed there can be no definitive "cause of death" or medical certainty as to what went wrong.

And the longer they keep her body alive the more it will degrade and the less likely the chance of discovering the problem.

Wow, Luj, I wasn't aware of that. The plot gets thicker. I'm starting to wonder if there isn't some sort of scam going on here.

The Terri Schiavo family, of course, says it's just a brain injury, and Time magazine gave them space to say it:

"Our experience, similar to those of Jahi and her family, is that people with severe brain injuries are treated like second class citizens, often being denied the treatment, care, and love that their humanity demands."

http://ideas.time.com/2014/01/07/remember-the-humanity-of-jahi-mcmath/

But then again, they continue to raise money from Terri's death, and pay themselves through her foundation. Wonder if the McMaths will do the same?

And, one can't help but wonder... what went wrong with the surgery in the first place?

I tried doing a little digging for more information and found what the major roadblock was: the family will not allow the hospital to release the medical documents to the public. That is, they refuse to sign the HIPPA form that allows the hospital to discuss the specifics of her medical care.

I believe this is telling.

Besides the 'simple tonsillectomy' and the UP3, I saw some references to 'nasal' work, which would be removal of adnoids (way back of nose/top of throat) and turbinates (open the inside of the nose more). Both of these are commonly done on patients with sleep apnea.

Step One: It sounds like there was fairly significant post-surgical bleeding, which is not unusual after even a simple tonsillectomy let alone all the other work done (i.e. more cutting means more bleeding). Moreover, it sounds like she was actively receiving blood transfusions post-op (this also is very unusual in this situation). Step two: ? Step three: She lost so much blood that her heart (and body) could not longer compensate, resulting in cardiac arrest (a.k.a. profound hemorrhagic hypovolemia). There basically was nothing left for her heart to pump and since the blood carries oxygen, no oxygen was getting circulated. This directly leads to brain death.

Step two is where things seem to go dark.

And now for some SWAG (scientific wild ass guess): The parents refused to have her brought back to surgery (probably refused multiple times) as she continued to bleed out. That is why she was getting transfusions (which basically *never* happens post-op in cases of surgical site bleeding). These things are taken back to the OR as about the most spooky-emergent things you have ever seen. Pretty basic actually: you stuck a scalpel in someone and sewed it up. If it continues to bleed then you repair the damage, you don't just keep pouring blood in--unless there is a really good reason. And this is why the family does not want the hospital to discuss the case and why the words 'lawsuit' and 'wrongful death' are not being used in every sentence their lawyer speaks.

You heard it here first!

I read that the decreased child had a type of surgery usually performed on adults for sleep apnea.

"Surgeons removed her tonsils and other parts of her nose and throat to widen the air passages."

So rather than get her obese daughter to a nutritionist and help her lose weight and exercise, the parents opt for surgery. Poor kid.

And supposedly her grandmother is a registered surgical nurse at Kaiser, but maybe niot?

http://allnurses.com/nursing-news/girl-brain-dead-893941-page84.html

This story has been very poorly reported. Short on science, long on sympathy.

> This story has been very poorly reported.

Yes. Yes it has. Consider this from Yahoo news, minutes ago---

Experts: challenges remain for 'brain dead' teen

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The family of a 13-year-old California girl who was declared brain dead after suffering complications…

If you came to America from Mars or Africa or Asia and weren't conversant in the ludicrous postures of detachment which choke our media voices, you'd think that headline was lunacy. You'd be correct.

This is another reason to read that Harding & Kerrigan article... It touches surveys similar terrain of madness.

Americans want to talk about how important our lives are, and we want to worry about it and fight with each other about vanishingly small shades of meaning. The press will serve us by saying stupid things.

So it was with women's sports 20 years ago... And it might still be that way now for all I know. All the machinery of the Olympics and the media had no way to deal with a truly athletic woman; They knew that their audience was more concerned with delicate (and vapid) depictions of femininity than it was with woman who can actually do muscular things.

Touches surveys! Makes perfect sense!

Honestly, you'll be glad you read the Harding & Merriman piece.

Kerrigan, not Merriman. For all the intrusive nosiness, the internet still can't read my mind.

I've interviewed both Harding and Kerrigan. Harding was dumb like a fox, but she did not have good taste, or did she have a strong sense of what Olympic judges look for. She was poorly coached. Kerrigan was not book-smart, nor was she very sophisticated, but she had better coaching and better media presentation
The linked piece is heavy on conjecture and research, short on original reporting. It's fine for an academic piece, but it's not really great sports writing.

> It's fine for an academic piece, but
> it's not really great sports writing.

Woekay-fine... But after twenty years, nobody wants "sports writing" about that story. Some of us weren't looking for sports writing at the time. The piece shows that the most sincere (or most rabidly attentive) skating fans were giving their attention to things other than the sporting nature of the contests. Some of us have suspected as much across lengthening lifetimes— That sports, including Olympic sports, are a bullshit measure of human achievement, including athletic performance. Harding/Kerrigan was never a sports story.

If "original reporting" would deliver meaningfully improved understanding, have at it… So far as I know, all the major players in the drama are still alive. Yet apparently no reporter imagines greater truth (or tolerable discomfort) from spending an afternoon with these people in 2014.

I certainly don't, and I got nuthin' against any of 'em. Wikipedia updates some particulars with sufficient poignancy:

Kerrigan's father died at age 70 on January 24, 2010,[41] allegedly due to a violent struggle with his son Mark in a dispute over the use of a telephone.[42] Prosecutors said that Mark was in a drunken rage when he choked his father during the incident. Mark Kerrigan was charged with manslaughter in connection with the death.[43] The family said her father died of a long-standing heart condition.[44] Nancy Kerrigan called the allegation of homicide "unjustified" and said…

If this is "academic" work, we can be grateful that it stretches its feminist muscles to such righteous & illustrative effect, and that it so clearly elucidates the generational portents of the scandal. (Specifically, that the sport of figure skating is now unashamedly focused on pre-adolescent "women" athletes, and that their fans are thus excused from saying weird things on television about the nature of adult strength. In the internet age, all enthusiasms are mere tastes.)

No lines on that page are more revelatory than that of the editor: Our writer "recently completed an MFA in writing from Portland State University"... Yet there are no flowery or naive passages!

I think Marshall nailed this story to the wall... Perhaps because she wrote it for a book, where she knew she'd have time to make her best case. (E.g., if it were a magazine article, she'd probably have condensed the stuff about the abusive husband to something like 'She was probably lying about the gang rape.') Truth sometimes requires space.

I hope she does OJ next. This piece was 11,000 words, and I bet she could tighten up the nightmare on Bundy to a crisp 7K.

Other than that, I can't imagine a similar pre-internet scandal without going the other direction in time.