"...I was totally trapped in my body, aware of everything going on
around me, unable to communicate with the outside world. I had to live
through the horror of having a feeding tube inserted without enough
anesthesia, so I felt everything being done to me, could not say
anything. That feeding tube was turned off for eight days. I laid there
and literally thought I was going insane. My body was screaming out. I'm
on the inside screaming out, don't let me die. I don't want to die..."

-----------------------------

Withdrawal of food and water was "one of the most painful experiences
you can imagine"

http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/mar/05031408.html

Eight years ago, Adamson was lying in a U.S. hospital intensive care
unit after a near-fatal brainstem stroke. Doctors described her as being
in a "vegetative" state.

Unable to move or communicate, yet fully aware and sensitive to hunger
and pain, the 33-year-old, New Zealand-born athlete and mother of two
heard people around her discussing her condition, whether she should
undergo surgery - and her death.

"It was terrifying," she recalls. "It the loneliest thing you could
imagine. I had to find some way to be able to let people know I could
understand what was going on around me. I was completely paralyzed."

Adamson was also acutely aware on the day she underwent surgery -
without sufficient anesthetic - to have a feeding tube inserted.

"I was aware of what was going on around me, hearing the chit chat
between the doctor and the nurse," she told CNSNews.com from her Los
Angeles home. "It's a difficult place for me to revisit and the horror
of having to live through that ... I could only endure and survive and
pray that I could somehow live through it."

In Florida, Terri Schiavo was not fed for...

http://www.cnsnews.com/Culture/Archive/200312/CUL20031201a.html

Kate Adamson, in 1995, at age 33, suffered a devastating double brain
stem stroke that left her paralyzed. She not only survived, she made
what has been called a miraculous recovery, regaining mobility and
function. She's the author of the book "Kate's Journey: Triumph Over
Adversity." I have the book right here.

And, now -- but you were not brain dead, were you? You weren't in a
vegetative state?

KATE ADAMSON, AUTHOR, RECOVERED FROM DOUBLE BRAIN-STEM STROKE: Well,
first of all, my husband wouldn't let me be labeled with anything.
You've got a woman here who is being labeled as in a persistent
vegetative state. I think based on what's going on, we need to find out
what she can and can't do. I had less than one in a million odds to
survive. My husband hugged the doctor, he said, praise God, she's going
to be the one. He did everything possible to see that I got the
necessary care. He was fighting...

KING: Now, Michael did that, though, for six years. He sued a doctor
over malfeasance with regard to his wife. This -- it was after six years
that he... Right? I mean, he did.

ADAMSON: Larry, I was totally trapped in my body, aware of everything
going on around me, unable to communicate with the outside world. I had
to live through the horror of having a feeding tube inserted without
enough anesthesia, so I felt everything being done to me, could not say
anything. That feeding tube was turned off for eight days. I laid there
and literally thought I was going insane. My body was screaming out. I'm
on the inside screaming out, don't let me die. I don't want to die.

KING: That's amazing.

ADAMSON: Yes, but what's amazing is, I got into rehab. You're looking at
a woman been lying in a hospice in a nursing facility. You've shut me
off from the sunlight, with no human contact, no radio, no TV. I had to
have contact. I had to hear that I was going to survive.

KING: Therefore, are you saying, in a sense, Kate, with your miraculous
-- no one should be allowed to die.

ADAMSON: Err on the side of life. Err on the side of life.

KING: In all cases? Even with a living will?

ADAMSON: First of all, at 33, I wasn't thinking about dying. I was
thinking about living.

KING: But you were not, in all cases.

ADAMSON: Every case is different. This is a feeding tube. We're not
talking -- I was on life support.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0503/24/lkl.01.html

Adamson said Terri is "labeled in a persistent vegetative state," but no
one has given her the opportunity "to see what she can do and cannot
do." She said, "When I had the opportunity to get into rehab, I had to
be the one to do the work." She said she had "ten years of rehab." She
said "Terri was once beautiful and of course, when you push someone
aside, they're going to lose their looks and appeal." She said she was
"lying there, totally trapped in my body. I was actually aware but
nobody thought I was in there. They didn't know what I was aware of."

http://www.newshounds.us/2005/03/22/forget_the_facts_its_about_distortion_spin.php


One has to wonder how many people are aware, but locked in, and never
emerge, as Kate has done, to tell their stories. A recent study (Dr.
Nicholas Schiff, et al, published in Neurology) suggests that there may
be far more awareness than previously thought in patients who are
thought to be minimally conscious or in a vegetative state. Using the
latest fMRI technology to measure brain response to stimuli, the
researchers found that minimally conscious patients, while lacking in
other areas of brain function, responded almost identically to normal
subjects to the voices of relatives telling stories of shared
experiences. There were even indications of activity in the brain's
visual processing areas of a patient with his eyes closed, listening to
his sister's voice. This could be an indication that he was forming
mental images as he heard her speak.

http://www.discardedlies.com/entries/2005/03/kate_adamson_speaks_out_on_terri.php


http://commonsenserunswild.typepad.com/common_sense_runs_wild/2005/02/fighting_to_sav.html


http://myopiczeal.blogsome.com/2005/03/23/kate-adamsons-story/