I wanted to let you know that I liked and thought especially thorough your lecture on brain death.  Six months ago it wouldn't have sparked any interest in me.

However, in early August my younger brother went into the hospital to have an operation on his knee replacement that he had done in November.  Well he came out of the operating room, had a cardiac arrest, they worked on him for 45 minutes (and this was way beyond what they needed to do).  They put him in a coma to see if he would get better but he didn't.  The doctor asked my sister what would he want to do and he to her to not keep him hooked up to ventilators.   He died about four hours later in a quiet room out of the ICU.  And he waited for my sister to leave to go so he could pass.  Which is ironic is my dad did the same thing.  I went in to check in on him at around midnight and didn't hear anaything (his breathing was loud and labored) so I knew he was gone.  And he wanted all of us to go to bed and we did.  Both my brother and my dad were great men who thought a lot about their family.