MUNICH (Reuters Health) – A young woman left in a coma for
six years after she collapsed at school has started to respond to the world
around her after her mother took her to see her pop star hero Bryan Adams perform
live.
Christiane Kittel, now 24, was left in a vegetative
state after her collapse on 12 June 1997. Doctors believe her condition was
caused by a combination of hot weather, a hereditary hemophilia condition and
side-effects of the contraceptive pill.
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Strange, usually Bryan Adams’ singing has the opposite effect. One day when I become the Word Czar I am going to strike the term vegetative from being used to describe people in a coma. Isn’t the word coma descriptive enough?
2 comments
I didn’t read the whole article just was struck dumb by the phrase “side effects of the contraceptive pill. . . “–one more reason the Catholc Church ir right and one more article for my teenage daughter to read. I enjoy your blog!
bridgit
Persistent vegetative state is actually a different condition than comatose. They are medically different, and have different prognostications as well. The media is sloppy, as usual.
I would guess that this unfortunate young women had one of the common (and not usually known about until a disaster of some kind) hereditary thrombophilias (not hemophilias). The thrombophilias cause abnormally rapid blood clot formation, especially in the presence of excess estrogen or some other stresses. They may be responsible for many pregnancy complications as well as heart attacks and strokes in pre-menopausal women (for whom estrogen is usually protective). I wish I could get my hands on her medical records!