I Should Be Non-Vegetative

'Non-vegetative' is not an accepted diagnosis, like 'semi-vegetative', my current diagnosis. Use it Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. You are on a roll. -Angela 

A brain injury must get rid of your star.

From social media: "It's going on 17 years since my stroke. I'm still waiting to be rescued. What you see now I have done on my own. This is typed with one finger."

Shocking evidence shows people in vegetative states may be conscious

I'm vegetative. I thought that typing out my answers would change my diagnosis. I thought wrong. The reason for my diagnosis only changed. First, I was vegetative because I did not talk or make any physical response to people I did not know. 

When I started vocalizing, the doctor "did not understand me." I decided to rehab my hand so I could type it out. I knew how to rehab a hand enough to use it. I was an infant specialist years ago. I could at least rehab to a baby. 
 

When I started vocalizing, my diagnosis was changed to "semi-vegetative." The word 'vegetative' was kept. Whether it was for legality or discrimination, this was wrong. The error made in misdiagnosis was being seen. Instead of fixing the error, it is carried forward and the word "semi" was added. At this time, it should have been changed to "MCS, or Minimally Conscious State."

I'm able to now write full papers and make videos. A new diagnosis is in order.

No, now I'm vegetative because I can't swallow. I did not swallow barium during a swallow study. This usually is a 3-party test, in my experience. There are the x-ray technician, someone to administer food + barium (usually a speech therapist), and the test subject. The administer was lacking from the government when they ordered testing for diagnosis. A doctor wouldn't have missed this. They know what is involved with the x-ray. The hospital therapist stepped in during my x-ray. I did not swallow barium in applesauce.

Since the word 'vegetative' is being kept, I propose that my diagnosis is now made 'non-vegetative.' this should mean that I am conscious. I was conscious before, yet the word 'vegetative' meant I wasn't.
  

As far as disability, use the term 'brain injury.' "Quadriplegia" is not sticking. I'm using my left hand to type. There is no such thing as tri-plegia. 

I'm not using magic and a special changing machine. It is called time and growth, and the little knowledge I had of rehab.  (Well, maybe a lot of knowledge.)

Brain Injury Rehab 
in this case

Retire On This!

Disability is not income. I don't have income tax. When has a vegetative person paid income tax? I don't see people in comas working. That's what makes this weird. I was in a total coma, opened my eyes, my body still appeared to be in coma, and then I start talking. To top it off, I am knowledgeable. People in comas don't write. (Talking is years later.)

Social Security is a real retirement program. The healthcare part is called Medicare. If you become disabled before retirement age, you can collect it if approved.  

What Do You Do?

I wrote this last year as an answer to a question. Now it's for everyone else. I don't make plans to do anything. I just lay in bed all day. I don't even eat. I have a feeding tube. (That's why the lollipops I have are a big deal now. It's been 17 years with no food.) I will speak now. If I do anything special it is with words.

The question clicks back to the original. It has over 100 answers.

What do you do for a living?

This question previously had details. They are in a comment.

Angela Ronson, studied at San Francisco State University

Answered Mar 19, 2018

Originally Answered: What is it that you do for a living? 

Nothing, but this isn’t living. Now is it?

Right now, at this very moment, I am classified as in a coma. My diagnosis is semi-vegetative. Vegetative is a coma and the eyes may be open. “Semi” was added after I started talking.

So I don’t do anything but breathe. I’ll type on the computer, but it’s not for a living. According to my diagnosis, I am not conscious. So I don’t know what this is.

I only use one finger to type. That’s not enough to make a living at anything according to the powers that may be in my life.

Reasons Why I'm Vegetative

I don't think reasons 2 and 3 are valid.

-Angela 7/24/2019

1.  I was in a coma. I didn't speak.

Initially, I was in a full-on, eyes-closed coma. I wasn't expected to wake. Family members have said they were told that I was brain dead. This meshes with medical records. Records do not say "brain  dead," but use the term "decerebrate." 

After 5  weeks, I slowly opened my eyes, one eye at a time over days. Around this time I was moved to a different hospital. I did not speak. I started making sounds months later. Speaking like I do today has taken  years.  

Persistent Vegetative State, or just vegetative, is what I was given. It is still a coma, but the eyes are open. 

   

2.   My speech isn't understandable.

I moved to different hospitals and care homes. There were two care homes, one was licensed and one wasn't. Both had the same owner. There was also a sub-acute long-term care hospital. That place actually got indicted. 

I communicated wants and needs with nurses and staff at all these places. I pointed, shook  or nodded my head, and used a word or strings of words. The strings of words got longer with time. I was understood... until it came to diagnosis change. Then, "Who knows what she is saying." I started writing.

3.  I don't swallow barium.

I clearly write. There is no mistaking ideas or intent.

Some other reason had to be found to keep the word "vegetative." Now I am  vegetative because  I don't swallow a spoonful of barium mixed into applesauce. 

I probably don't have a full swallow yet. I close off my airway so I can have lollipops. I know that these things can teach swallowing. I'm In no hurry.

Why is the government trying so hard to keep the word "vegetative?" This has never happened before. No one has gone straight from vegetative to conscious. Of course no forms exist.

Some way my case will have to make it to whoever makes the rules.

______________________________

Speech seems to be tied to cognition. I don't have to speak to write these essays. My true cognitive essence is seen.

Throughout the music video there are movie clips 
where a man thinks but does not speak.

"How do you get on here?"

"How do you get on here?" I was asked. "Carefully! " I wrote back."Ha! This has taken me yrs. I do have 1 finger to use now. My head is full of knowledge."

Watch how the boy points at letters. I am doing the same except with a computer keyboard. I don't have any of those behaviors.

I can move my left arm as I want. I worked a long time and have refined my ability to hit and press a key. At first, I took days to write an answer. Now it might be 10 minutes if not too much is needed. 

                                                        

__________________

I said that I didn't have the behaviors in that video. I didn't have any behavior. In the following video, see how the man sits and stares until his father puts music on. I don't require music, but the lack of behavior is the same.  

This movie is based on an Oliver Sacks case.
The man has a brain tumor.

"Everyone has some level of innate intuitive capability"

So, I am Jedi....

I came across a paper describing how to develop Jedi powers.

 __________________

"Everyone has some level of innate intuitive capability." https://globalfreedommovement.org/scientific-proof-of-jedi-powers-and-how-to-develop-them/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=SocialWarfare&fbclid=IwAR2xLAIP5pl-7XlBqwIiRl7gB_O9cnobCKX-KpUiHKbBjVXN3EwHWgzd0zI 
I already knew mine. It happened once and I knew it would keep happening. I learn extremely fast. It has been so fast that it attracted the attention of the school psychologist. 

I got bumped up in work level. By the time that I hit the 7th grade, I was having my mother drive me to the local university library to use the journals for research papers. I had a learning ability, not a super power. Maybe I thought this way because I did remain with my peers. I was to be moved up a grade level in kindergarten, but my mother was against it. In the fourth grade, I only did pull-out for reading. Junior high and high school had advanced placement classes with my peers. 

When I had this injury I got an idea. I had the stroke in 2002 and the neurological repair surgery in 2004, so the idea had to come in 2005. That sounds about right, because that is when I started work on this hand that I type with. It had to move appropriately. My idea was simple for me. I would do it. I would "rehab" my body. 

So much time has passed that it can't be called rehab, but it should be called remediation. There has to be over-lap.

 __________________

"Parts of the brain are associated  with psychic powers. "Dr. Melvin Morse believes humans have a sixth sensory ability located “within” the right temporal lobe, hippocampus, and related limbic structures. According to him, this region “interprets information obtained through communication with an interactive universe,” and allows for telepathic communication with other people through their right temporal lobes. “It involves perception of other realities.” He states that we perceive the operation of the right temporal lobe as “intuition.”              

https://globalfreedommovement.org/scientific-proof-of-jedi-powers-and-how-to-develop-them/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=SocialWarfare&fbclid=IwAR2xLAIP5pl-7XlBqwIiRl7gB_O9cnobCKX-KpUiHKbBjVXN3EwHWgzd0zI

No wonder why Dr Morse would ask me what I smelled that day. Smell is part of the limbic system.

Functional neurogenesis is there.  I had a brain injury. My focus was there. I wanted new neurons. Neurons are mostly made in the hippocampus (area of brain), but you don't smell with that. There's no excitement there. However, some neurons are made in the olfactory bulb. Now that was exciting. The sense of smell came from there.

 __________________

I speak. Once I couldn't. I typed this with my left hand. I couldn't move my arms after the stroke. "I went from no swallow to a very small one." (Facebook comment) Now I can eat lollipops. It has been years, but these skills are now enough to be worked on by a therapist.

That's getting people. That means I was there all this time. That means I was misdiagnosed. That means I AM CURRENTLY MISDIAGNOSED.

Long ago I was told in that government program at the last hospital in my long stay, that I was imagining improvement. I left. They were doing nothing. I could do more as incapacitated as I was (long ago I worked with special needs children). Sure it's slow now, but it is better than nothing. That is why I speak enough to be understood and type with one finger, but I am vegetative. I slowly work on it.

 __________________

The old mind-body problem comes up.
My case takes you closer.

Getting My Story Out

"It was an honor to tell Angela’s miraculous story in my Merced Sun-Star column" -Mike Tharp.
 

The article was scanned. The direct link doesn't work anymore, but  I put the article in this story,  https://thoughtfulveg.blogspot.com/2012/02/angela.html My music therapist scanned it for an e-mail.

I made the therapist's e-mail into a story. He gives his first-hand account of me. He saw that I was placed with the vegetative patients and that I had started talking. He saw that I was put up front to show off my success. (Unknowingly, the hospital was showing off a grave error. They were showing off that I was misdiagnosed.)

___________________

I don't know why the government STILL says I'm not conscious. It doesn't look good. It looks like they are hiding something. It looked like they were hiding me.

It doesn't make  any sense. I can give the first 5 years to honest mistake. The second set of 5 years should have been investigation. What is the third set (10-15 years)? I'm now on  my way to 17 years. There's no excuse.

___________________

This is the problem with the government's cookie cutter policy. Other cases are not like mine. Every brain injury is different as is every brain. We are individuals.

Saying that we are individuals can get me in trouble. Yes, people as a group are alike in many ways. Each person, though, is unique.

___________________

My brain injury was repairable. I wouldn't immediately have regression and die if I was given the proper treatment. I had to find the independent university that would do this. Stanford, this university, was never given any credit.

What you have been seeing is brain growth. It's slow and methodical. I am not recovering lost skills. I am re-learning them. I'm a fast learner (but it's still years from my injury.)