• cdf12345@lemm.ee
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    9 months ago

    I hate BS like this. And yes I’m biased because I got a double lung transplant. There are so many myths about organ donation. You basically have to have no brain activity and be stable.

    • Naja Kaouthia@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      That’s awesome. My niece passed away several years ago waiting on lungs to become available (CF). Everyone in the family is an organ donor now. If we’re not using them might as well give someone else a shot.

      • cdf12345@lemm.ee
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        9 months ago

        I was diagnosed CF at three months old. I made it into my 20’s before I was on oxygen full time and was listed for a transplant. I got my transplant over 15 years ago and I’m still doing awesome now.

        So I try to thank donors in advance on behalf of the potential recipients of those life saving gifts.

        • Naja Kaouthia@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          I don’t know you but hearing this makes me incredibly happy and I wish you a long life and all the joy it brings!

      • cdf12345@lemm.ee
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        9 months ago

        Cystic fibrosis, it’s a genetic thing. The lungs have a harder time clearing mucus out and that eventually scars the lungs and reduces lung function.

        When I was born they didn’t even know what caused it (DNA defect that has a 25% chance of being passed to a child when both parents are CF carriers) .

        Now they have target medications to fix the genes that were damaged. It’s pretty amazing.

        I’m over 15 years post transplant and am doing great.

        • GentlemanLoser@ttrpg.network
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          9 months ago

          I’m really glad to hear it. Modern medicine is pretty wild when you think about it. Here’s to your continued health! 🥂

  • adj16@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    What I really don’t get with these sort of theories is: If something as unethical and outlandish as harvesting organs from a healthy, living person were occurring like this, you really think they’re going to look at a little checkbox on your driver’s license and be like “ah dang no permission for evil today, guess this fucker gets to live”

  • Freshfrozenplasma@sh.itjust.works
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    9 months ago

    The gold standard to declare brain death is nuclear medicine scan of brain blood circulation. This is done in addition to bedside brain death testing and even EEG if the family wants it all. We fucking KNOW if a patient has cerebral blood flow or not. This person is ridiculously incorrect.

  • August27th@lemmy.ca
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    9 months ago

    The author knows this is true because that’s how their brain got removed. 🙄

  • superfes@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    If I’m so injured they’re not sure I’ll make it, but they can save someone else with my organs, please do that.

    Yeesh.

    • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      What is an hour of agony while I’m already suffering and dying to added years of reduced pain to someone who isn’t dying anymore. I don’t know what all I owe my fellow humans, but I know they deserve that.

    • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      I think it’s more like, so injured that you won’t make it. If it was a coin flip for someone’s survival, then it would be basically murder to take someone’s organs.

      • thefartographer@lemm.ee
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        9 months ago

        The original news article has since been archived, but there was a horrifying case in 2007 where EMS in my hometown arrived at an accident for which they were unprepared because dispatch had mislabeled it as low-speed crash. There were 4 occupants in the vehicle, and, according to the fired EMT’s family, the front passenger was so badly injured that pieces of her brain were on the dashboard and she was unresponsive. The ill-equipped team worked to get the other three occupants out of the car and get them to the hospital and ended up assumed that someone on the crew had taken the presumed-dead passenger’s pulse.

        As a result, a tarp was thrown over her body and she was taken away to the morgue where the coroner eventually discovered that she’d died due to her injuries rather than upon impact. All four of the emergency responders faced disciplinary action and I believe the family of the deceased won a lawsuit against the city.

        The bottom line, and to your point, there are very strict guidelines and a lot of red tape before you get to say someone is “close enough to dead” to start carving out their organs.

        • BlanketsWithSmallpox@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Hood said the four paramedics were in the 21st hour of a 24-hour shift that began the previous day.

          The ridiculous way we run 24 hour emergency services across the world is beyond dumb. How we get away with making EMS, Fire, and Healthcare work 12-24 hour shifts is beyond me.

          10 hours is already stretching it with police (unions OP) or other professions like Security.

          Yeah, non-police can sleep if they’re in a suburb. Until I see data that people running 24 hour shifts vs running classic 1/2/3rd shifts is better on their health, I’m forever going to doubt.

          Alas, there’s no chance we’re mandating no working 2nd and 3rd shifts until we’re practically in a utopia already. The secret toll it takes on people is criminal without proper pay.

          After 22 years, researchers found that the women who worked on rotating night shifts for more than five years were up to 11% more likely to have died early compared to those who never worked these shifts. In fact, those working for more than 15 years on rotating night shifts had a 38% higher risk of dying from heart disease than nurses who only worked during the day. Surprisingly, rotating night shifts were also linked to a 25% higher risk of dying from lung cancer and 33% greater risk of colon cancer death. The increased risk of lung cancer could be attributed to a higher rate of smoking among night shift workers, says Schernhammer.

          https://time.com/3657434/night-work-early-death/

          • PopMyCop@iusearchlinux.fyi
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            9 months ago

            Just want to point out, many, or even most, police work 12 hour shifts as well.

            The second thing I want to point out is that many of these workers want shifts like that. Having to work (depending on your schedule) a 2/2/5/5 or a 3/4/4/3 is seen as a nice thing. I know people in all three of the public service front-facing jobs, and they would fight you if you (as a city council member or something) proposed to change the scheduling from a 12 to an 8.

            The third thing is that rotating shifts suck. I worked one where we switched ever 3-4 weeks, and that was like gargling monkey balls as you try to wake up for that first day shift, or stay awake on that first night shift. I can definitely see how those can contribute to death and dying. Conversely, when I worked straight nights for two years, I never really had issues. Long term, maybe, but the article you linked even mentions that it’s the rotations specifically that make it bad.

            Oh, and the fourth thing. Suburb or not, sleep is rare. I can probably number the number of times a night let you have more than 1-3 hours of sleep in the low scores, whether I was in urban, suburban, or bum-fuck rural (and I’ve done all three, at least 3 years each now). People are always ill, dying, or getting into trouble.

            • BlanketsWithSmallpox@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              The point isn’t to work more homie. It’s to work 32 hours by hiring more professionals at 40 hours of pay. A shift is great until you realize what you should be working in 24/7/365 jobs simply because your employer or the citizens don’t want to pay for what your job truly entails.

              You can complain about fighting their set schedules, but that’s the entire point of my comment, even if you glossed over the fact that 2nd and 3rd shifts are going to send you to an early grave regardless of shift hopping.

              32 hour work weeks. Rotate days off but stay on your shift. If you work 2nd or 3rd, you absolutely require more pay. Chances are you’re going to die 5-10 years younger than your contemporaries. Hire more to cover the gaps without decreasing total pay. This is the way.

              Now getting people to suck it up with taxes is another whole can of worms lol.

    • TexasDrunk@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      I ride motorcycles. When I was young I heard them referred to as “organ donation machines” because Texas doesn’t have a helmet law and in any kind of real crash you’re gonna be at least braindead (I do wear a helmet now, but didn’t in my misspent youth).

      They were trying to talk me out of riding. All they really did was convince me to register as a donor.

      • Illuminostro@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Well, that helmet won’t always save you. My first cousin died in a motorcycle crash of a broken neck. Otherwise, he didn’t have a scratch on him. Be safe out there.

      • PopMyCop@iusearchlinux.fyi
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        9 months ago

        No, no. You gotta use the real medical terms. Riders are “organ donors,” and the bikes are “angel makers.”

  • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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    9 months ago

    Why are there so many people with the desire to make up stupid fantasy stories? This is an obvious example, somebody had to invent this, and write it down, and it’s a guarantee that a few idiots will pick this up and run with it, they’ll repost it to multiple places, they’ll add their own fantasy elements to it to make it even worse, and they too will find an audience.

    It’s painful to watch how much good is being destroyed by these assholes.

    Is it just a snowflake in need of attention issue? Is it a mental disorder issue? It causes way too much damage in our society

  • NutellaIs4Lvrs@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    I’m not sure about other states, but the one I live in usually requires two brain death tests at least 6 hours apart and by different MDs that have to be credentialed to perform brain death testing. They also have(and usually perform) an apnea test where they turn the ventilator off for a set period of time and see if the patient initiates any breathes on their own as well as measuring blood gases before and after the procedure. Finally, they often use an injected nucleotide to measure blood flow to the brain, taking multiple images of several angles to confirm that there is no blood flowing to the brain.

    If the person was on any paralytics, they have to be cleared from the system before testing can begin as well as all labs such as sodium, potassium, etc. and body temperature must be within normal parameters to begin.

    If all those things are confirmed, the person is legally declared dead with an official time of death and only then can the legal next of kin be approached for organ donation.

    Basically, this person is bonkers(as we all know) and organ donation is highly regulated.

  • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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    9 months ago

    You know, that’s exactly right. When I had to have heart surgery, they put me out. In fact, I asked the doc if they could sedate me early cause I was anxious, and he said sure. I woke up with no heart, not eyes, no liver, you get it. How I’ve been able to survive since is a fucking miracle. I’m like a living zombie.

    Give me back my organs, gubment!

    These people are hilarious except for the part where they vote.

  • gedaliyah@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    In a very rigid sense of being composed living tissue, yes - you are alive during organ donation in most cases. In the sense of being a human being or really even an organism… less so.

    If I cut off my arm, the tissue would continue to metabolize for a few minutes (?) but I wouldn’t exactly argue for its right to vote.

  • cultsuperstar@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Conspiracy theorists never have conspiracy theories against people and things they like lol.

    Also, I hope whoever took the screenshot got their food from Uber Eats and the driver didn’t fuck them over.

      • Seleni@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Religious nutters, for one. They believe that when Christ has his Second Coming he will resurrect everyone who has ever died, but only if all their organs and stuff are intact and in place. So organ donation is just a conspiracy by Satan to keep everyone from being gloriously resurrected.

        I honestly wonder what they think their bodies will look like a couple decades after they die. Do they think that, because they were ‘good little Christians’, their bodies will be staying as fresh as when they were interred?

        Or maybe their ‘all-powerful’ God can only restore their organs from dust if that dust is in the right spot?

  • thefartographer@lemm.ee
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    9 months ago

    During this process their heart rate and blood pressure increase substantially.

    Ok, but by how much? I’m a registered organ donor and am now concerned that, as I lay paralyzed and semi-conscious with no brain activity while my organs are butchered out of me, the nurse is then gonna be like, “oh no, his heart rate and blood pressure is increasing substantially!”

    See, if you’re gonna tear my organs out of me in my nightmare state, I want it to be a challenge! You gotta be fast and precise before my blood pressure and pulse explosively increase and I blow out cascades of blood, turning into a sanguineous Water Wiggle. It’s gotta be like a game of Perfection that you either harvest everything in time, or my body explodes.

    • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      Ok, but by how much? I’m a registered organ donor and am now concerned that, as I lay paralyzed and semi-conscious with no brain activity while my organs are butchered out of me, the nurse is then gonna be like, “oh no, his heart rate and blood pressure is increasing substantially!”

      Well for one, you have to have brain function to remain semi-conscious. And part of the way they determine if you are brain dead is seeing if you have any cerebral blood flow. No cerebral blood flow, no consciousness.

      Secondly, people without brain function are incapable of controlling their own blood pressure or heart beat. So any increase in heartbeat or blood pressure is being induced by the anesthesiologist to combat the drop in blood pressure from blood loss.

      • thefartographer@lemm.ee
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        9 months ago

        Well, that anesthesiologist better get some more dilithium crystals or start diverting power, cuz I wanna go all in on these thrusters!

      • skydivekingair@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        First you missed the point of that post.

        Second, people with brain function can’t control their blood pressure. If they could we wouldn’t need BP meds. Unless your name is Dwight or Dennis.

        • thefartographer@lemm.ee
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          9 months ago

          Your second statement is almost correct and then fully wrong, followed by 100% correct. Let’s go sentence by sentence.

          people with brain function can’t control their blood pressure

          Sure you can! But only to a degree. If you’ve got access to a blood pressure cuff, try these things yourself: sitting, standing, while eating, holding your breath at the beginning, holding your breath at the end, holding your breath the entire time (legendary mode), while incredibly thirsty, after drinking water, while petting a dog, while getting bit by a dog (don’t actually do this), or while watching a scary movie.

          Even positive and negative emotions can alter your blood pressure. While these types of things can’t cure someone with congenital heart disease, there are numerous anecdotes of people’s health improving after leaving a stressful job.

          You’re correct, though, in terms of making sudden and significant changes to your BP requires more than just a positive thought and a new position. Sometimes you need some medication or substantial life changes to illicit real change. But to TranscendentalEmpire’s point, your brain absolutely plays a role in regulating your blood pressure. If someone is completely brain dead, they have nothing to close the feedback loop that tells the body “whoa! Heart rate is going up, we’re definitely fleeing from a predator! Increase blood pressure now, dammit!

          If they could we wouldn’t need BP meds

          This is like saying “if people could swim we wouldn’t need boats.” Some people could control their BP by consuming less salt or by not clogging their arteries with cholesterol but they’d rather continue impacting their health and just takes meds to deal with it. Just like how some people would rather be on a boat instead of in the water.

          Some people are born with or naturally develop heart disease and need medication to deal with it. Just like how some people can’t swim and need something to carry them across water.

          Some people, like me, have made poor health choices and found out later in life that they have a congenital heart disease, and then they get a number of different medications including BP pills. This isn’t that different than someone who can swim but fell into the water with their clothes on and are starting to get tired so they need a boat to rescue them.

          Unless your name is Dwight or Dennis

          Fact. This is 100% true.

        • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee
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          9 months ago

          First you missed the point of that post.

          I’m not sure if the post really has a point… I was just explaining how the original post didn’t really make any sense medically.

          Second, people with brain function can’t control their blood pressure. If they could we wouldn’t need BP meds.

          I mean, they can. Unless you believe something other than your cns is controlling your autonomic functions…

          Most people can’t consciously control their blood pressure, but blood pressure is controlled by your cns, that is unless you are brain dead.

  • Lath@kbin.social
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    9 months ago

    Well, he ain’t completely wrong.

    The “no brain activity” is based on trust that the doctor in question knows what the hell they’re talking about and doesn’t have a reason to lie, so it’s usually recommended to get multiple independent opinions to avoid the possibility of malpractice.

    People have been declared legally dead, only to wake up at various points past it, such as the morgue, during autopsy, in the casket without an autopsy, already buried.

    And there have been reports of partial resistance to anaesthetics where patients were paralyzed/partially unconscious, yet felt the pain of operations.

    Organ donation is the right thing to do when you’re certain to die. However, as proven by the Alabama prison system recently, where there’s profit to be made, abuse is the norm, not the exception.

    • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      People have been declared legally dead, only to wake up at various points past it, such as the morgue, during autopsy, in the casket without an autopsy, already buried.

      This bit of evidence doesn’t really support the overarching theory. Since the 1980s there have been only a couple dozen of these incidents, and they for the most part always have one common denominator, the affected persons being very old.

      It can be harder to accurately find the pulse and other life signs on the elderly, and people aren’t as likely to really search for signs of life on someone who looks as fragile as a terminally ill elderly patient.

      The vast majority of transplants are from young healthy people who were involved in traumatic accidents, and thus wouldn’t really be subject to the Lazarus effect.

    • Nougat@kbin.social
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      9 months ago

      People have been declared legally dead, only to wake up at various points past it, such as the morgue, during autopsy, in the casket without an autopsy, already buried.

      Recently?

        • Lojcs@lemm.ee
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          9 months ago

          That seems to be specifically about heart failure. I think they declare the patients dead not because their brain is dead, but because their heart stopped so the brain will die anyways. So if the heart restarts they come back from dead

    • pearsaltchocolatebar@discuss.online
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      9 months ago

      I’m one of those people who are resistant to anesthesia. Waking up during a colonoscopy, remembering a transesophagel echo, and not being numb during a vasectomy are things I wouldn’t recommend experiencing.

  • michaelmrose@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    To plays devil’s advocate there are inconsistent standards of what constitutes dead many established decades ago and whereas some folks are obviously by any standard a potato others including by standards they themselves elect are defunct in ways that we understand far less eg not able to initiate breathing on their own or not capable of regaining consciousnesses. Due to our lack of complete understanding there have been cases in which people were taken off the ventilator to die and spontaneously started breathing. EG our original analysis was obviously incomplete.

    What is experienced if anything by those near or even post official death is also an interesting open question. Experiments involving flooding pig heads dead for > 1 hour with oxygenated liquid have shown some sign of electrical activity in cells for instance. We don’t even know what the subjective experience of people being operated on really is other than obviously NORMALLY they don’t consciously form memories or have control of their faculties.

    All of that said organ transplants save so many lives and it is a voluntary process. If you have any concerns whatsoever you ought to think hard about it and make your wishes expressly known rather than blanket shutting the door on saving those lives. I am an organ donor. I have faith in my family to make intelligent decisions if I’m not able to make them.

    • medgremlin@midwest.social
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      9 months ago

      I’ve worked in ERs before and am somewhat familiar with the process they use for determining brain death. There was a child that came in with catastrophic brain damage, and the process to determine that the child was in a permanent vegetative state was quite extensive. There were multiple evaluation by neurologists and neurosurgeons via MRI and EEG over the course of multiple days to verify a lack of brain function. It’s not something that is determined in the moment. The decision made in the ER is whether or not the organs will be donated because it can make some differences in the life-support care during the brain death determination process.

    • PopMyCop@iusearchlinux.fyi
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      9 months ago

      NORMALLY they don’t consciously form memories or have control of their faculties

      And remember, those two states (not being able to form memories AND not having control of faculties) can be, and sometimes are, two different drugs. It’s why you have the horror stories of people remembering waking up on the surgery table, but being unable to move.