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A friend of mine had her heart restarted at age 40 after 20 minutes of resus by the excellent London Ambulance Service. Intensive Care then applied a cooling ap

A friend of mine had her heart restarted at age 40 after 20 minutes of resus by the excellent London Ambulance Service. Intensive Care then applied a cooling apparatus to drop brain temperature. My friend was in a coma for 6 weeks and had brain damage because of the lack of oxygen. On one hand, this was distressing because she lost mathematical ability. This prevented her working in her previous field as a chemistry researcher. On the other hand, she switched to psychology via a one year Masters degree and is now working on a fascinating project on hacking the mind's compassion responses to activate the parasympathetic nervous system and damp down anxiety (sympathetic nervous system) triggered by cardiac damage. Just saying that although brain damage sounds terrifying, people can and do cope with it.

hobs 9y ago
Yep. I had a teacher in grade school and one day she didn't come back to class, she had had a gigantic stroke. 6 months later she rolled into class in a wheelchair, a changed person, she could not speak or do basic tasks for herself. Over the next two years she relearned most of her abilities, walking, talking, thinking, speaking, teaching and was back to "normal" again. Then she had another stroke. She did not give up, and did it all over again. She was always a cruel teacher in my eyes (I was very young) but seeing her persist throughout what I would assume would permanently put you out to pasture was an amazing experience and I always had enormous respect for her. She continued teaching and retired ~20 years later.
- taneq 9y ago
  We had a teacher in early high school, lovely lady, who dropped dead over the holidays from an aneurysm. It was a real shock for everyone, and the source of my first proper existential crisis.
agumonkey 9y ago
What's her opinion on the whole cost of survival question ? worth it ?

hobs 9y ago

Yep. I had a teacher in grade school and one day she didn't come back to class, she had had a gigantic stroke. 6 months later she rolled into class in a wheelchair, a changed person, she could not speak or do basic tasks for herself. Over the next two years she relearned most of her abilities, walking, talking, thinking, speaking, teaching and was back to "normal" again. Then she had another stroke. She did not give up, and did it all over again. She was always a cruel teacher in my eyes (I was very young) but seeing her persist throughout what I would assume would permanently put you out to pasture was an amazing experience and I always had enormous respect for her. She continued teaching and retired ~20 years later.

taneq 9y ago
We had a teacher in early high school, lovely lady, who dropped dead over the holidays from an aneurysm. It was a real shock for everyone, and the source of my first proper existential crisis.

agumonkey 9y ago

What's her opinion on the whole cost of survival question ? worth it ?