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Thursday, July 27, 2017

Tuesday, July 25, 2017

Mitch McConnell’s Deadly Game of Obamacare Repeal Darts


Miracle GirlMitch McConnell’s Deadly Game of Obamacare Repeal Darts
Mitch McConnell hopes one of his legislative darts will hit the Obamacare repeal mark, but it's the healthcare of millions in his bulls-eye.
The Senate Majority doesn't care about the pain his blind darts "game" will cause.

Friday, July 21, 2017

The Owen Lab: On the Road to Widespread Covert Awareness Testing


Miracle GirlThe Owen Lab: On the Road to Widespread Covert Awareness Testing
My mom thinks nurses were trying to nudge her toward eventually pulling my plug. She refused to even consider it. But what about the other covertly aware consciousness disorder patients?
False hope is a danger, yet false doom can be deadly. Mobile testing by the Owen Lab may save the lives of countless covertly aware vegetative patients.

Wednesday, July 19, 2017

Pottery Barn Rule: You Break the Healthcare System, You Bought It


Miracle Girl: Pottery Barn Rule: You Break the Healthcare System, You Bought It
Forgetting the Pottery Barn Rule, the president has vowed to smash Obamacare. While Trump will buy the blame, the American people who will pay the price.
Sorry, Donald, the phrase doesn't go, "The buck stops with Dem."

Friday, July 14, 2017

Better Care Recovery Act II: Dean Heller Highwater


Miracle GirlBetter Care Recovery Act II: Dean Heller Highwater

If the BCRA fails, the healthcare coverage of millions will have been saved by senators covering something else, especially the GOP's most endangered senator, Dean Heller.
Will Obamacare be saved by a senator out to save his electoral skin?

Wednesday, July 12, 2017

Covert Awareness: Into and Out of the Gray Zone of Consciousness


Miracle Girl: Covert Awareness: Into and Out of the Gray Zone of Consciousness

My coma awakening was a quirk, but Dr. Adrian Owen is making awareness testing a science. Few consciousness disorder patients recover as fully from the "gray zone'' as I have. But the work of dedicated researchers may change that.

Friday, July 7, 2017

Humans and Neanderthals: Kissin’ Cousins in More Ways Than One


Miracle GirlHumans and Neanderthals: Kissin’ Cousins in More Ways Than One
Our early Homo sapien ancestors shagged Neanderthals and any related species, looking past superficial differences.
Were our supposedly primitive human ancestors more "evolved" than us?

Tuesday, July 4, 2017

Separationism: The Battle of Our Founding Fathers is Our Fight Too


Miracle GirlSeparationism: The Battle of Our Founding Fathers is Our Fight Too

Celebrate Independence Day by grabbing a bucket of mortar to patch up breaches in the Wall of Separation. Instead of lighting fireworks this Independence Day, we should light a candle for Church/State separationism.

Saturday, July 1, 2017

Can a Pro-Truth Pledge Combat the Post-Truth Age of President Tantrum?


Miracle GirlCan a Pro-Truth Pledge Combat the Post-Truth Age of President Tantrum?
On the eve of July 4th, wouldn’t it feel good to stand up for truth, justice, and the scientific way?
Our Enlightenment-era Founding Fathers would've weeped to learn that a Pro-Truth Pledge was even necessary in our time.

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Coma Girl

Coma Girl

Not a miracle recovery, but a miracle of modern medicine

In 2013 I fell into a six-week coma and nearly died after I contracted legionella. The Legionnaire's disease was in turn triggered by immunosuppression caused by the prednisone I was taking for my rare autoimmune disease, dermatomyositis.

I suffered a series of strokes on both sides of my brain when the sepsis caused my blood pressure to plummet. I fell into a deep coma. My kidneys and lungs began to fail, as my body was began dying one organ at a time. My doctors told my loved ones to give up hope for my full recovery. They expected me to die, and even if I somehow lived, I would remain a vegetable or at best left so hopelessly brain-damaged that I would never be same. But unbeknownst to them, while they were shining lights in my eyes and shaking their heads, I was telling them in my coma-dream--my secular version of a near-death experience--to leave me alone because I was trying to get back to sleep. I was experiencing what is known as covert cognition, the subject of my Skeptical Inquirer article "Covert Cognition: My So-Called Near-Death Experience," which appeared in their July/August issue.

But it wasn't a miracle--despite what so many continue to believe--that I recovered so fully. I owe my life not to God, but the miracles of modern medicine, as well as the nature of the watershed-area brain damage I suffered, as I detailed in my article and in this blog.