(CNN) -- Time seemed to slow as Marjan Ghassemi saw her 17-year-old son, Bobby, lying in a hospital bed after a car crash.

He had a thick band of gauze wrapped around his head and a tangle of tubes protruding from his body. A hole was cut into his windpipe, and the hollow-sounding hiss of machines helping him breathe filled the room.
At that point, there was no telling whether he would live or die, but Marjan was determined not to cry.
"From day one, when we got there, I didn't want him to know we were crying, that we were upset," she said. "I wanted all positive energy in the room.
"I went in his ear and said ... 'You fight your way and come back to us.' "
It was March 2010. Bobby Ghassemi had been driving fast along a winding road in Virginia when his car barreled off the road. By the time paramedics arrived, he was in a coma and barely alive.
"For all intents and purposes, he was dead on the scene," said Dr. Michael Lewis, a physician who later advised the family. "I'm looking at the reports, and they report a Glasgow Coma Score of 3. A brick or a piece of wood has a Glasgow Coma Score of 3. It's dead."
Ghassemi was airlifted to a hospital. For the first three days, it was touch and go.
Ghassemi's brain was so engorged, doctors needed to relieve the pressure by taking out a portion of his skull. He also had what is called diffuse axonal injury: bleeding that suffused nearly every part of his brain.
"His doctor said to me, 'Listen, he has survived. It is a miracle that he lived, that he made it,' " Marjan Ghassemi said. " 'If he comes out of the coma ... I don't know if he's going to be a vegetable for the rest of his life or whether he'll remember anybody.' "
Ten days later, as Bobby lay comatose but stable, his father, Peter Ghassemi, was sick of waiting and desperate for an intervention. After a series of phone calls to friends, he ended up speaking with Lewis, an Army colonel and doctor.
After some discussion, Lewis proposed something that Peter Ghassemi had never heard about for traumatic brain injuries: fish oil.
At that point, Peter Ghassemi was open to anything.
"Every minute passing was hurting my son ... because they weren't really doing anything to help him besides keeping him alive and stabilizing all of his vital signs," he said. "If there was a chance to improve, I wanted it to be done right then."

'He was really in dire straits'

'He was really in dire straits'
Fish oil -- which is composed of omega-3 essential fatty acids, also found in the brain -- had been used only once before to treat a brain injury as devastating as Ghassemi's. That was in 2006, in the case of Randal McCloy, the sole survivor of a mine disaster in West Virginia.
McCloy, 26, was trapped in a mine for 41 hours while the air around him and 12 other miners filled with noxious methane and carbon monoxide. By the time he was pulled from underground, he had had a heart attack, was in liver and kidney failure and had a collapsed lung, according to his doctors.
His brain was also riddled with damage from the carbon monoxide and methane.
McCloy's prognosis was not very different from Ghassemi's. According to his neurosurgeon at the time, Dr. Julian Bailes, restoring McCloy's normal brain function was truly a long shot.
"Randy was really on death's doorstep," said Bailes, now co-director of NorthShore Neurological Institute in Evanston, Illinois. "He was really in dire straits."
Like with Ghassemi, once McCloy was stabilized, there was little doctors could do to stem the tide of inflammation and cell death occurring in his brain.
But Bailes and other doctors on McCloy's team resisted the "wait and see" course common in these types of cases and began an unorthodox treatment regimen, including hyperbaric oxygen treatments and high doses of fish oil.
"The concept was then trying to rebuild his brain with what it was made from when he was an embryo in his mother's womb," Bailes said

 Fish Oil Helped Save Our Son  Extract  from CNN   2012-10-19  Part-1

    魚油救了我們的兒子 翻譯節錄自CNN   2012-10-19    Part-1

車禍的發生情形,以腦部受創案例最為嚴重!同時也往往讓醫生束手無策?!

(CNN) 當馬莉珍-賈斯密看到她17歲的兒子鲍比-賈斯密因為車禍躺在病床上時,總覺得時間過的特別漫長?鲍比-賈斯密的頭上不但包紮了厚重的砂布團,就連呼吸道也被氣切接管,以便於使用機器來協助呼吸作用的進行!而事實上在當時,根本也沒有任何人會知道鲍比-賈斯密能否撐的下去?!不過身為母親的馬莉珍-賈斯密卻當下決定要強忍住眼淚,化悲傷為力量,同時盡最大的力量,以讓她的兒子時時處於正面的恢復力量環境之中!馬莉珍-賈斯密堅毅的附耳告訴她的兒子鲍比-賈斯密:你要勇敢的奮戰下去去,並且平安的回到父母的身邊(鲍比-賈斯密因為駕車失事,以至於腦部功能受到重創,而根據鲍比-賈斯密主治醫師-麥可-路易士的說法,鲍比-賈斯密等於是當場就已經是死亡了!因為鲍比-賈斯密的腦部指數只有達到數字3,而一塊磚頭的指數,搞不好也剛好會有數字3的水準!)且另外根據麥可-路易士醫師的現場病情分析報告也指出,鲍比-賈斯密的腦部由於受到致命性的撞擊,腦部神經組織亦已受到廣泛性的損害!同時腦部還無獨有偶的繼續在大範圍的流血!如果最後還能夠奇蹟式的給勉強救回來,已是老天保佑!實在不需要再有什麼非份之想?!只是鲍比-賈斯密的母親馬莉珍-賈斯密並不是如此的保守消極?!馬莉珍-賈斯密擔心萬一鲍比-賈斯密醒來後,不記得任何人,或甚至於成為了植物人,又該如何是好?為了讓鲍比-賈斯密的持續昏迷的狀態有些進展,鲍比-賈斯密的父親-彼得-賈斯密再也按捺不住,彼得-賈斯密開始與鲍比-賈斯密的主治醫師-麥可-路易士展開直接的對策討論;經過一連串的真誠意見交換,彼得-賈斯密做夢也沒有想到,鲍比-賈斯密的主治醫師-麥可-路易士竟然會鄭重提議使用魚油來拯救自己兒子的嚴重腦部創傷?!而不是任何的先進複雜醫療治療方式?然而對於急於要掌握任何可以立刻改善自己兒子情況的彼得-賈斯密而言(心中百感交集),魚油又有什麼不能去嘗試的?!總比坐著等著情況惡化要強的多吧!?

人類的腦脂肪組織雖然主導了本身進化的原動力,但卻異常的脆弱不堪和容易受到傷害!

至於為什麼鲍比-賈斯密的主治醫師-麥可-路易士會建議使用魚油來治療鲍比-賈斯密的腦部重創?主要的理由是因為參考一個發生在2006年的維吉尼亞州礦工案例:雷恩-麥克羅當時26歲,被困在四周充斥著甲皖及一氧化氮的礦坑有46個小時之久,當雷恩-麥克羅被拖出礦坑之後,他被診斷出心臟受損,肝臟和腎臟功能衰竭,同時腦部壞死組織充滿著甲皖及一氧化氮的有毒氣體!而按照雷恩-麥克羅當時的神經外科主治醫師-茱莉安-貝理絲(現在為伊利諾州北岸腦神經醫學中心主任醫師)之說法,雷恩-麥克羅與鲍比-賈斯密的二者情形極為相似,都是站在死亡的門口!即使給僥倖的搶救回來,對於接踵而至的腦部細胞持續發炎與應接壞死(Fat Necrosis),卻是一籌莫展!不過為了要搶救年輕的雷恩-麥克羅腦部功能,神經外科主治醫師-茱莉安-貝理絲以及雷恩-麥克羅的醫療團隊決定放手一搏(不再讓他坐著等死)!神經外科主治醫師-茱莉安-貝理絲以及雷恩-麥克羅的醫療團隊大膽採用了非正統的醫療方法,劍及履及的使用高壓氧和高單位的魚油來醫治雷恩-麥克羅!希望能夠藉由提供腦部組織重建所需要的基礎重要養份物資(這種重要的基礎養份物資,打從在懷孕母親的子宮,就已經存在良久),來儘可能恢復雷恩-麥克羅的重要腦神經功能!

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