A classmate exclaimed
As Mrs. Ragan shoved
An Aladdin mug
In my face as I
Gained consciousness
During sixth grade
Art class

My first seizure

The depression started
Soon after

10mg of lexapro
Five thereapists
Three neurologists
Doctors ****

Middle school was
A Deep Dark
Dooming Depression
I had no friends
I hated everyone
And everything
But mostly
I hated myself

Wishing I had drowned
Or never woke up from
My first seizure

I seize in the day, I seize in the night

Convulsions plague me throughout my life

  The stiffness comes, And then it goes

But the worst is afterward, when I’ve discovered that my friends can turn into foes

The mere sight of it has scared them off

As a result they laugh, taunt and scoff

I seize in the day, I seize in the night

Medicines plague me throughout my life

The neurologist says “Let’s try this one”

Dilatin, Depakote, Tegretol, Topamax

They try my last nerve, Until finally I say

“Haven’t you tried enough on me, you quacks?!?”

I seize in the day ,I seize in the night

Must I wear a “dogtag” for all my life?

This little tag, on my necklace, it labels me

Can’t you see the medical symbol and on the other side in big bold letters “EPILEPSY”

It’s a ****** on the self-esteem

It’s a reminder that I belong to a different regime

One of a nature gone to extremes, If that is what I let it be

I seize in the day,  I seize in the night

I don’t give up, I say to my brain and my soul, “Fight, Fight, FIGHT!”

I’m frustrated and don’t give up
Although there are times when I want to, I don’t.

I’ve been a fighter from the day I was born

And in the heat of this battle of neurons and neurologists

My determination and perseverance were forged.

The more I seized, the more I fought

Through the trauma of it all, lessons were learned and taught

And the more I seized, the more I realized

  That Epilepsy was a lesson in Serenity.

anyone see the brain i put into the washing machine? i think they took it and hang it out to dry, although i still think it's in a pickle jar of jealous ***** juices, going round and round, getting a brainwashing treatment rather than the joke about the thief who didn't wear leather gloves and a tight ****** hat, who didn't pull out his nails or scrape off his fingerprints, or shave his eyebrows... i mean, hell, i'm not into brainwashing that much - the k.g.b. did the same sloppy job on litvinenko - **** me! all the neurologists in poland are mad, and an m.r.i. machine does not exist in that country! i must have been inside a rocky horror theme-park ride!

there's that famous connotation to pomp, ego tripping,
my my, what a grand psychoactive
drug this is, ever danced smacking your knees
as representation of drumming
with your eyes closed in
a club on the embankment of the river
thames? giggling away at
the chance of momentary blindness?
i'm not here to give a macho representation
of me, far from it,
later ******* in the alley:
every club or bar i went to always
played terrible music, and too loud,
so i stopped going,
too much lip-reading you see,
like with this nurse going to do a job
on the housing project at north harrow
tube station, breakfast stop-over
at the mcdonald's at tottenham court road,
dragging my father out from
the depths of depression after
a man who married my cousin undermined
his team and got kicked out of a
company that later went bankrupt:
indeed that cloud of flies entering my
ear like a rain of syringes, painful like hell,
no respect for the underprivileged in terms of
health, you look like you just had a brain
haemorrhage you get pampering like a panda,
you look strong enough in order to **** someone
they think you're a chizophrenic... nicely done...
nicely done n.h.s., i think i'll take my compensation
in pride and emotions rather than winning
the jackpot of the godforsaken thing that
alienates people: can't cook for themselves,
need restaurants, can't clean for themselves,
need cleaners... civilisation and the death of
intricate tribalism... foremost family...
mano a mano con mammon...
hey, i only asked for an m.r.i. scan, now
i'm split bilingually making one story force
and the other story true...
anyway, back to ego tripping,
ego tripping is indeed a drug, but it's a drug
where you can't coordinate thinking,
it's like a primeval expression of the cartesian maxim,
you just sit there, self-aware (being self-conscious
has negative connotations via sartre's keyhole /
voyeurism), you turn into an object,
for example a tree, you ego trip as the tree
and thoughts are replaced by seasons,
the wind, rain, insects, birds...
you can't identify with anything,
even if you're ego tripping and a theory of relativity
comes along, you can't attach yourself to it,
you're tripping after all...
it's just you and the chaos of thought, there's no
ordered linear method of thinking,
you're strapped to a unit that doesn't move
but is a spectator of other things moving,
attaching themselves, or detaching,
and it's not necessarily egotism, far from it,
it just mean an elevation of *cogito ergo sum,
how to make a blunt knife after it has been sharpened?
i guess ram it into bones or stones a thousand times,
or at least make dinner 360 times during a year
cutting soft flesh of tomatoes and cucumbers...
in terms of elevation i mean you're drunk
and you're tripping on the lack of thought,
a lack of a thinking cohesion / spider-web (
indeed the tarantula is a beggar among smaller
spiders, it has no idea of architecture, it hasn't
evolved technically speaking, tarantula the
anti architect)... so you're still tripping, because you
have no vector in sight, you're a pinpoint now,
a volatile coordinate, whatever thought comes into
range you can't narrate it... let alone vocalise it...
you're entering a void (jeez, this almost sounds
like making a waistcoat clock dangle and perform
a pendulum before opening the gates into
the subconscious and inducing hypnosis...
the gates into the unconscious are done by falling
asleep)... and then you sit down and decipher
all those thoughts buzzing around you that you
can't proceed from... ego tripping is best served
with alcohol - and it's hardly related to pomp,
esp. if you can't vocalise it and attribute the dropped jaw
of a ****** addict to be a symbiotic reflection...
or at least a carousel; in summary, ego tripping
is the cartesian ego sum, and no ergo and certainly
no ego cogito... well the ergo is there,
if you start to write something, but only then
when you step off the carousel.

as any tactician, of any sort, there must be
an introduction into what becomes and expansion
that lasts the entire length of the night,
a liter of whiskey requires a decent amount
of hours to be drank in,
              ensuring that any moth that flies into my
"ivory tower" can loiter for the night,
imploring it: you better not be pregnant
with your moth larvae, otherwise...
     i will have to catch you with my hand,
and release you back into the night...

                        so... an atypical drinking session
begins with a few side orders or
sharpshooters (mix of 3:1 whiskey to ginger
ale)...
      and a few readings of, say,
             heidegger...
                       i already mentioned:
           dasein is more than an event,
          to me it's the equivalent of a crucifix...
it's a word associated to an object,
        rather than a recurring subject...
                  after all...
                          to objectify,
to work wonders in the objective world,
one still cannot escapes being a subject...
   esp. if one becomes a subject of one's own
subject-ive              experience...
     it must be such a boring, lame,
***** almost realism of object-object
          interaction...
                        to­ have:
       but to be unable to appreciate...
                i own about two dozens of vinyls...
but i don't really, really own them...
yes, i "own" them in the sense:
         but they might also be stolen...
        but i appreciate them more than i own
them...
              even if i "own" them,
and one day, do not...
        i owned something more than the object-reality
of the object per se,
       i appreciated them...
the ritual of the needle and the initial
scratching before the music would begin...
plus, not even a CD and esp. not
an MP3 file can give you the sort of ground
gravitational pull toward something
so physically exposing as...
   a... water-mill effect...

i digress...
              of all the three pillars of the mind:
thinking,
          memory and imagination?
i appreciate memory the most...
          you really know you have lived
a reasonably good life
   if your memory faculty is overtly present...
when you remember so much
of your, however mediocre / unspectacular
life...
           thinking can become scrambled,
you have to sometimes associate yourself
to writing when thinking is concerned...
no wonder so many philosophers after
socrates didn't have the patience to
resort to dialectics,
     to talk...
                     at least writing gives one
the capacity to organize, or rather...
devise plans for the labyrinth...

      imagination? plagued by images...
  i do not appreciate conjuring images in my mind,
thinking up dragons and demons...
imagination clouds the mind,
and the ability to concentrate on the skeleton
of man:
                    ⠇⠑⠞⠞⠑⠗⠎
plus, imagination promises and does conjure,
sketches of what an actual reality could
somehow provide...
    i'm not here, bothered about the nature
of "reality", i'll leave that whimsical notion
to english speaking physicists and neurologists...
but imagination clouds the pristine vision
of looking into the abyss,
   and by that, i also imply: looking through
the abyss back onto this world...

and should you think there's anything
profound about that statement?
there isn't...
         but memory...
     to be able to reclaim memory...
    to not seek relief / exodus / escape by
means of the imagination?
     i, frankly, would rather reclaim
the faculty of memory, above all else...
before it was stolen by the indocrination rubircs
of pedagogy...
before schooling set in...
     before, my years from the age of 8
through to the age of 21,
   the faculty of memory was made circumstanced
to "entertain" the bogus threats from
the education system...
             calculus: hardly used in everyday life...
you name it...
           what was the point of discussing
the ethics of abortion to children aged 15?
to scare them, if anything...
  euthanasia discussed aged 15? really?
the moral judgement regarding
   th "right" from the "wrong" was already
settled in the catholic school dogma...
maybe that's why i didn't want the seal
of being confirmed...
   what confirmation name would i have
chosen?
  at first i thought i would have chosen
Michael, as i made my not-to-be-"hope"
of a church wedding...
                 i would have settled on Lothar...
which would fit nicely with my already
second name, Conrad...
maybe even Otto... and dropped the hebrew
name Matthew...
          sure... reading heidegger...
like all philosophy: there's the reading
of a reflective prose, with the immediacy
of a reflexive poetics...
like the ancients: not confined to high school
curriculum of standard poetics:
rhyme and the etc. of techniques...
narrative: pure and simple...
    
              like when heidegger writes about
war (polemic / πoλεμoς)...
                 truth about either war,
or, peace (dialectic) is to chose between
what deserves our attention:
   either being (per se) - or beings...
                 and being (per se) isn't even relegated
to a subjugation to the self...
  a self-improvement, a self-help guru
mentality...
                   it's what the stoic doctor ordered...
there seems to be no fluidity with
an overt-association to a self,
                     self-worth is not exactly
akin to: the worth of being, is it?

        again: coming back to celebrating the faculty
of memory, above thought,
and certainly above imagination...
after all, i remember a period in my life
where i would have celebrated thinking per se
to be above memory and imagination,
when i attained some sort of synch.
   of a lived life of experiences,
that coincided with an equally fruitful
experience of thought that coincided with
the lived life...
            but not since a fateful event...
where memory became elevated above thinking...

so, memory? i have this one particular memory,
i was visiting Venice,
stayed in a hostel with about 15 women,
which, at times felt more intimidating
than sitting in a brothel with 9 bulgarian
prostitutes who i asked: one of you choose me,
one replied that i was not supposed to ask
them to choose, that they indeed were to be chosen,
so i said to her 'you talk a lot, you'll do!'
argentinian, australian girls, a swedish woman,
and two h'american girls...
leigh... and i can't remember the other girl's
name... visiting europe like any
h'american pair might do,
revising the ***** dancing stereotype of
finding "lost heritage"...
all over italy...

              the hostel was run by a h'american
girl and a h'americana boy...
first night? 15 women,
and you're the only man...
and one of them drops a bombshell:
well, as someone as handsome as you...
we took a group trip, via a ferry
to the Venice beach...
  we drank absinthe shots...
   don't ask me how,
but drunks have this GPS system built
into them when drunk... like bees...
i stumbled back to the hostel, alone,
on the ferry, and had a decent night of nod...
me, first time in Venice...
just like me stumbling back to
the hostel in Athens walking from
a strip-club... after having my fill
of smothering two strippers' bosoms...
having ****** my trousers prior,
tantalized by the fact that i was escorted
by a gorilla of a bouncer to the nearest
cash machine... since i ran out of money...
and then sneaking out of the hotel
that had a cash machine...
  first time in Athens... 5 ******* miles...
i made it back to the hostel...

i don't get it... drunks and in-built GPS...
navigated Venice, navigated Athens...
bee in me...

second day in Venice?
         of course... an argument between
the girls... leigh, the jewish girl wanted
to sight-see...
   a bunch of girls ganged up on her...
even her friend...
            so i said...
             well... **** me... if Solomon decided
to settle for the queen of sheba...
between me herding this quasi-tourist harem
of a bunch of australian girls...
   the argentinian etc.,
and this one h'american jewish girl leigh?
so i said: i'll do with you.

                      the numbers looked at me
like frankenstein jr.,
                        oh we had a hell of a time...
a few museums, getting lost in the Venetian
labyrinths, talked and talked...
explored the many flavours of gelato...
i think, i think i had the famous pistachio...
she had the capuccino in st. mark's sq.,
   and then she wanted to show me
the famous Venetian synagogue...
   so sure, we went there,
      but when we got there, it was closing...
boy, she was ******* that she couldn't
allow me to see it...
   instead... we saw the last tourist party
leave...
   and we huddled with some orthodox
students...
           one had a miniature shofar on him,
i told him to blow it, he blew it...
then i sat in a jewish cafe,
finding about the existence of the 613...
mitzvot...
             i wrote some of them down...
and then the weirdest ******* thing happened...
leigh started freaking out...
she was in such a hurry...
        she said she needed to get back,
she needed to get back...
          hell... she even paid of a Venetian taxi,
and Venetian taxis are not cheap,
motorboats on these rat canal aren't cheap...
i wanted to pay half the share...
she didn't want my money...
   next thing i know... she was booking
a flight out of Italy and on her way home...
she and her friend had still planned
another month touring Italy...
  phoom! off she went,
   then the quasi-tourist-harem of girls
came back from their day out...
leigh's friend inquired:
- where's leigh?
- oh, she decided to go home.
                   the next two days were weird...
it's not like i even pulled a ted bundy fast one...
but i remember the h'american girl
running the hostel...
  i ate the most amazing burgers which
she prepared... as if...
i staged some sort of neo-**** scare tactic
on poor leigh...
                rarely does a girl,
who planned this whole summer trip
with her friend, from h'america, all the way
to Europe... decide, on a whim...
to bail...

             Venice... oddly enough i was
not mesmerized...
           Stochholm didn't impress me either...
Amsterdam was just a cafe segment
and the chance to escape police-state
paranoia of England when i still smoked
marijuana... oh... and that one Dutch girl
who turned her head as she rode past me...
Cracow was a... eh... third time i went there?
just a transit point... London is too familiar...
Warsaw: again, transit hub...
Athens: squalor...
only two cities on this earth gave me
                 inspiration: Paris and Edinburgh...
mind you, Macedonia, amazing coach trip...
Belgrade looked stunning, imposing even,
during winter, seemingly a city on a hill...
on the flat-plains of Serbia...
but you need the snow,
   and ******* into it... and shaking from the cold,
because you're under-attired for the trip...

Katowice: but only at night.

   - and that is why i posit memory to
be superior to thinking these days,
  esp. imagination as a mental faculty...
memory has become a cinema to me...
        no wonder i'm bored with movies
these days...
         memory has become a form
of cinema for me...
            sure... it's not much...
but you can work around the "not much"
by fusing all the minor,
"insignificat" details of "skimming"
the narrative...
                       and thank god:
               i'm only given a cameo in all of it...
i'm not an over-bloated stage
actor with a protagonist role...
      in my cinema...
        i'm always the cameo!
                it's so liberating to have lived
a life that doesn't leave one feeling
ashamed...
                         it's hardly petty heroism...
but sure as ****...
     it's worth rememebering things
you can never be ashamed of.

Neurologists say that after breathing ceases
And the body is dead
The brain remains living
For an additional 4-7 minutes.

If mine were to stop tonight
I'd wish you were by my side
And that you'd sing to me in those 4-7 minutes

So my last moments would be surrounded by your love.
So I'd know that it was all worth it.
And so I wouldn't feel as alone as I do right now.

indicative: that's, what i might call an adjective....
      *indication? that's what i'd call a noun -
        indicating? that's probably a verb -

i'm still mystified by this flower or bush or tree
       or whatever the hell it's doing, which, given it's springtime:
is probably just blooming...

                       milk               honey              soap

   or the variant in polish

                        mleko           miód                   mydło;
because that's basically saying:
                  if i've lost my cultural identity, something folkish,
and i get emotional about a scandinavian
                           folk song (herr mannelig) -
                           then i really have to get my act together
and say: you can everything you want!
        have it!             my mother tongue?    you're not having it!
and what is currently the "west"?
              talk of feminism...
                             i once had a girlfriend that told me
i would always be a man-child (christ ref.) -
            but all she said was:                     "real" men don't cry.
well **** me!
                          i can't weep at an ola gjeilo composition?
well... *****... you're really into the jason voorhees types:
and i mean that, i'm dead serious about that point:
    either that or psychiatrists,                 or neurologists.

but so it happens, that i won't be soppy about this debackle...
     you know what i was thinking of?
          the european version of peanut butter & jelly -
well, being a european i'm, quiet frankly, an omnivore...
       and when you're drunk, and you're an attested
tobacco user...          you'll seriously think some weird **** up...
      
                 so yeah, i came with an alternative to the american
sandwich recipe of                 peanut, butter... and jam...
   said like a true nova scotia       "patriot"...
           o.k., i can imagine the scots and the french heading north,
the english the irish and whatever was left-over down south
in the hail! glorious u.s.a.!
                  where did the welsh go to?
                                                             ­    siberia? or alaska?
anyway... my innovation...
                            pâté
                ­              (circumflex)              a bit like a macron (ā) -
so yeah...      pâté! and cherry jam!
                          a bit like saying:
                             à croissant! avec jambon et fromage!
      alt. parisien... à crêpe!          "          "       "       "
                                         (as in, the same as stated above).
oh right, forgot to mention: weet chili sauce with the croissant variation.
**** me! what's with the linguistic aesthetic of
    adding an unnecessary    e in a word like crêpe...
         the word can end on the p... like in english:      crap.

Are people motivated by money? Could money effect a person's behavior? Would a person forsake morality for money? An ***** donor card places a bounty on you. Some of your parts are only of value for transplantation while you breathe. The ***** donor card gives doctors your permission (under contract law) to remove your organs from your warm and breathing and UN-anesthetized, doctor-declared “brain-dead” body. This isn't speculation. Doctors admit to “harvesting organs” from “brain-dead patients” i.e. patients with pulses.

WEB/ Numerous accounts of patients who have recovered after a firm diagnosis of “brain death” demonstrate that “brain dead” patients are not certainly dead. Here are two cases:

Zack Dunlap, a 21-year-old Oklahoman, flipped over on his 4-wheeler and suffered catastrophic brain injuries in November 2007. Thirty-six hours after his accident, doctors at United Regional Healthcare System in Wichita Falls, Texas, declared him “brain dead.” Preparations to harvest his organs were underway when friends and relatives gathered to say their final goodbyes. His cousin, a nurse, wanting to make certain, scraped his pocket knife along the bottom of Zack’s foot. Zack ****** his foot away. Just months later, Zack was walking and talking. Zack recalled hearing the doctor say he was dead and being “mad inside” but unable to move.

Steven Thorpe, a British 17-year-old, suffered horrific injuries in a multi-car accident. Four doctors declared him “brain dead.” Doctors asked his family to consider donating his organs before his life-support was turned off. The family sought a second opinion from a neurologist who detected faint brain waves. Seven weeks later, Steven was discharged from the hospital having made a near-full recovery. In 2013, at age 21, now an accountant trainee, he spoke to the media for the first time: “Hopefully (my experience) can help people see you should never give up. My father believed I was alive—and he was correct.”

"In plain, straight talk," writes Dr. Lawrence Huntoon, editor-in-chief of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, "the survey indicates a high likelihood that some patients are being 'harvested' in some hospitals before they are dead! In hospitals with aggressive transplant programs (hospitals make a huge amount of money on transplant cases), making sure a patient is dead before going to the 'harvesting suite' may be viewed as a minor technicality/impediment."

"Brain death" never was, and never will be true death. This has been known by neurologists and ***** transplanters since the beginning of the multi-billlion industry. So if a declaration of "brain death" is not true death, but organs are taken legally in accord with "accepted medical standards," why not continue to make "acceptable" less stringent criteria? In the 10 years after the ad hoc committee conjured up the Harvard Criteria, 30 more sets were reported by 1978. Every set became less stringent. Less strict sets were reported until eventually there is a criterion that does not fulfill any of the "brain death" criteria? This is known as donation by cardiac death (D.C.D.). Organs are obtained for transplantation by first getting a D.N.R. order, then taking the patient off life support and wait until the patient is without a pulse (NOT WITHOUT A HEART BEAT!). In the past the waiting time was 10 minutes, then shortened to 5 minutes, then 4, then 2 and now in the N.E.J.M. (8-14-08) the waiting time is only 1.25 minutes until they cut out the baby's heart. How shameful can it get! Shame on the medical field for knowing and not protecting these patients! Shame on the transplantation organizations for valuing money over an innocent injured person's life! Shame on the U.S. government, other governments, and clergy for allowing and even encouraging extracting vital organs for transplantation and research! When will doctors informed of the truth stand for life instead of being political creeps?

Are people motivated by money? Could money effect a person's behavior? Would a person forsake morality for money? An ***** donor card places a bounty on you. Some of your parts are only of value for transplantation while you breathe. The ***** donor card gives doctors your permission (under contract law) to remove your organs from your warm and breathing and UN-anesthetized, doctor-declared “brain-dead” body. This isn't speculation. Doctors admit to “harvesting organs” from “brain-dead patients” i.e. patients with pulses.

WEB/ Numerous accounts of patients who have recovered after a firm diagnosis of “brain death” demonstrate that “brain dead” patients are not certainly dead. Here are two cases:

Zack Dunlap, a 21-year-old Oklahoman, flipped over on his 4-wheeler and suffered catastrophic brain injuries in November 2007. Thirty-six hours after his accident, doctors at United Regional Healthcare System in Wichita Falls, Texas, declared him “brain dead.” Preparations to harvest his organs were underway when friends and relatives gathered to say their final goodbyes. His cousin, a nurse, wanting to make certain, scraped his pocket knife along the bottom of Zack’s foot. Zack ****** his foot away. Just months later, Zack was walking and talking. Zack recalled hearing the doctor say he was dead and being “mad inside” but unable to move.

Steven Thorpe, a British 17-year-old, suffered horrific injuries in a multi-car accident. Four doctors declared him “brain dead.” Doctors asked his family to consider donating his organs before his life-support was turned off. The family sought a second opinion from a neurologist who detected faint brain waves. Seven weeks later, Steven was discharged from the hospital having made a near-full recovery. In 2013, at age 21, now an accountant trainee, he spoke to the media for the first time: “Hopefully (my experience) can help people see you should never give up. My father believed I was alive—and he was correct.”

"In plain, straight talk," writes Dr. Lawrence Huntoon, editor-in-chief of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, "the survey indicates a high likelihood that some patients are being 'harvested' in some hospitals before they are dead! In hospitals with aggressive transplant programs (hospitals make a huge amount of money on transplant cases), making sure a patient is dead before going to the 'harvesting suite' may be viewed as a minor technicality/impediment."

"Brain death" never was, and never will be true death. This has been known by neurologists and ***** transplanters since the beginning of the multi-billlion industry. So if a declaration of "brain death" is not true death, but organs are taken legally in accord with "accepted medical standards," why not continue to make "acceptable" less stringent criteria? In the 10 years after the ad hoc committee conjured up the Harvard Criteria, 30 more sets were reported by 1978. Every set became less stringent. Less strict sets were reported until eventually there is a criterion that does not fulfill any of the "brain death" criteria? This is known as donation by cardiac death (D.C.D.). Organs are obtained for transplantation by first getting a D.N.R. order, then taking the patient off life support and wait until the patient is without a pulse (NOT WITHOUT A HEART BEAT!). In the past the waiting time was 10 minutes, then shortened to 5 minutes, then 4, then 2 and now in the N.E.J.M. (8-14-08) the waiting time is only 1.25 minutes until they cut out the baby's heart. How shameful can it get! Shame on the medical field for knowing and not protecting these patients! Shame on the transplantation organizations for valuing money over an innocent injured person's life! Shame on the U.S. government, other governments, and clergy for allowing and even encouraging extracting vital organs for transplantation and research! When will doctors informed of the truth stand for life instead of being political creeps?

Are people motivated by money? Could money effect a person's behavior? Would a person forsake morality for money? An ***** donor card places a bounty on you. Some of your parts are only of value for transplantation while you breathe. The ***** donor card gives doctors your permission (under contract law) to remove your organs from your warm and breathing and UN-anesthetized, doctor-declared “brain-dead” body. This isn't speculation. Doctors admit to “harvesting organs” from “brain-dead patients” i.e. patients with pulses.

WEB/ Numerous accounts of patients who have recovered after a firm diagnosis of “brain death” demonstrate that “brain dead” patients are not certainly dead. Here are two cases:

Zack Dunlap, a 21-year-old Oklahoman, flipped over on his 4-wheeler and suffered catastrophic brain injuries in November 2007. Thirty-six hours after his accident, doctors at United Regional Healthcare System in Wichita Falls, Texas, declared him “brain dead.” Preparations to harvest his organs were underway when friends and relatives gathered to say their final goodbyes. His cousin, a nurse, wanting to make certain, scraped his pocket knife along the bottom of Zack’s foot. Zack ****** his foot away. Just months later, Zack was walking and talking. Zack recalled hearing the doctor say he was dead and being “mad inside” but unable to move.

Steven Thorpe, a British 17-year-old, suffered horrific injuries in a multi-car accident. Four doctors declared him “brain dead.” Doctors asked his family to consider donating his organs before his life-support was turned off. The family sought a second opinion from a neurologist who detected faint brain waves. Seven weeks later, Steven was discharged from the hospital having made a near-full recovery. In 2013, at age 21, now an accountant trainee, he spoke to the media for the first time: “Hopefully (my experience) can help people see you should never give up. My father believed I was alive—and he was correct.”

"In plain, straight talk," writes Dr. Lawrence Huntoon, editor-in-chief of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, "the survey indicates a high likelihood that some patients are being 'harvested' in some hospitals before they are dead! In hospitals with aggressive transplant programs (hospitals make a huge amount of money on transplant cases), making sure a patient is dead before going to the 'harvesting suite' may be viewed as a minor technicality/impediment."

"Brain death" never was, and never will be true death. This has been known by neurologists and ***** transplanters since the beginning of the multi-billlion industry. So if a declaration of "brain death" is not true death, but organs are taken legally in accord with "accepted medical standards," why not continue to make "acceptable" less stringent criteria? In the 10 years after the ad hoc committee conjured up the Harvard Criteria, 30 more sets were reported by 1978. Every set became less stringent. Less strict sets were reported until eventually there is a criterion that does not fulfill any of the "brain death" criteria? This is known as donation by cardiac death (D.C.D.). Organs are obtained for transplantation by first getting a D.N.R. order, then taking the patient off life support and wait until the patient is without a pulse (NOT WITHOUT A HEART BEAT!). In the past the waiting time was 10 minutes, then shortened to 5 minutes, then 4, then 2 and now in the N.E.J.M. (8-14-08) the waiting time is only 1.25 minutes until they cut out the baby's heart. How shameful can it get! Shame on the medical field for knowing and not protecting these patients! Shame on the transplantation organizations for valuing money over an innocent injured person's life! Shame on the U.S. government, other governments, and clergy for allowing and even encouraging extracting vital organs for transplantation and research! When will doctors informed of the truth stand for life instead of being political creeps?