I'm just wondering what are the survival rates with someone who has suffered a massive heart attack. The doctors and nursing staff haven't commented on what specifically caused it.. They assume some sort of distress. He had his heart attack on Friday, August 1st, 2008.
They've also said that he's sustained some brain damage from either falling and hitting his head, or from the extended period of time that he went without oxygen. Which, according to the woman who called the ambulance was approximately 15 minutes or so. The doctor's first bit of news was basically, "He has very low brain activity." Which made my mother extremely hysterical and she was sobbing for hours. Even though the medical staff have told her that the sedatives that he's on will also lower the brain's general activity.
Now, I've read some places online that it can take up to a year to determine whether or not a patient will be in a vegetative-state or near-vegetative-state indefinitely. I'm not the power of attorney, although, the actual power of attorney, his sister, has requested that I manage all of this stuff for her. She says it's just far too stressful and she's too emotional to handle anything major at this time. So, all of the doctors and nurses have been calling me to obtain consent for every procedure that he has undergone in the past couple of days.
I just don't want to get my family's hopes up. I've always been a very realistic kind of person, and I know that someone who has had as unhealthy of a life as he, would have very slim chances of survival. He smoked, drank heavily, and ate pretty much nothing other than red meat and junk food. He's really skinny, but that's from a fairly recent addiction to Methamphetamines, which is labeled "Crank" on the streets.
I'm not exactly shocked nor sad, which none of my family can understand. I knew this was coming, and I'm being pressured by family to decide whether or not to pull the plug. But from my small grasp of medical knowledge.. It's just too soon to make such important decisions about a person's life. I understand that this is a very severe condition, and he's even lucky to have made it to the ICU.
I know I posted another question the other day regarding his Social Security information, but we have social workers dealing that now.
: http://alcoholdrugstreatment.info/survival-rate-with-massive-heart-attacks
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