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Good news from Tucson

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This news is too good not to share. I don’t really have anything to add.


Dylan Smith TucsonSentinel.com

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is “100 percent” certain to survive, said Dr. Peter Rhee, a surgeon treating her for a gunshot wound to the head.

“As a physician I’m going to get into a lot of trouble for this, but her prognosis for survival is 100 percent, as far as it being short term,” Rhee told Britain’s Channel 4 News (watch the video below).

“Hopefully she’ll live to be 95 years old,” said Rhee, the medical director for University Medical Center’s trauma center.

“What her recovery is going to do I really don’t know. I’m very optimistic however that she’s not going to be in a vegetative type of state,” Rhee said.

http://www.tucsonsentinel.com/…

h/t Andrew Sullivan


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9 comments

  2. spacemanspiff

    The first thing that came to my mind when I read the description of her injury was Phineas Gage.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P…

    Phineas P. Gage was an American railroad construction foreman now remembered for his improbable survival of an accident in which a large iron rod was driven completely through his head, destroying much of his brain’s left frontal lobe, and for that injury’s reported effects on his personality and behavior-

    This case reads like an urban legend. It’s talked about in most neuroanatomy courses and led to more investigation and greater knowledge of the brain. It’s one of the first things that comes to my mind everytime we get miracle patients who not only survive but thrive.

    On September 13, 1848, 25-year-old Gage was foreman of a work gang blasting rock while preparing the roadbed for the Rutland & Burlington Railroad outside the town of Cavendish, Vermont. After a hole was bored into a body of rock, one of Gage’s duties was to add blasting powder, a fuse, and sand, then compact the charge into the hole using a large iron rod.[n 4] Possibly because the sand was omitted, around 4:30 PM:

    the powder exploded, carrying an instrument through his head an inch and a fourth in [diameter], and three feet and [seven] inches in length, which he was using at the time. The iron entered on the side of his face…passing back of the left eye, and out at the top of the head.[n 5]

    The Wiki page has a great summary of all the events.

    p.s. Am I being insensitive here? Wouldn’t want to come off that way.

     

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