Long time lurker here, the Jahi McMath case is something I've been occasionally keeping tabs on since the whole thing started.
Here's a declaration from one of the doctors in response to when Winkfield was attempting to get her daughter trach and gastric tubes inserted via court order. The doctor describes Jahi outwardly as being very well cared for and maintained, but goes on to state that internally her condition is deteriorating. This is from the weeks after McMath's death (January 7th, 2014), so it's very liable that certain things have only gotten worse in the following years. Note the fact that even then her intestinal lining was more or less starting to decompose and that she was passing it, which probably later factored into the whole thing about her mother saying she's started her period.
Most of the deterioration is from the lack of a living brain stem ( and a living brain altogether, of course), which sets her case apart from others like Terri Schiavo, who was in a persistent vegetative state for years with a semi-functioning brain stem. Even in Schiavo's case, when she was finally allowed to die, her autopsy showed that there was considerable brain atrophy and that it only weighed half of what an average brain would. So it's not really unrealistic to assume that Jahi's brain is long past the point of any true recovery, that is, if she was actually diagnosed as being in a pvs. It's probably not entirely liquid or anything by this point, though. (
Here's Schiavo's autopsy report btw, it's kind of an interesting read if you're familiar with her case. )
Most notably right now, is that her mother has used only videos and her own testimony in regards to Jahi actually having any form of meaningful movements to support her belief that her daughter is in fact anything but brain dead. The doctor that she has most recently contacted has apparently not seen Jahi in person and has only seen the videos her mother had taken? Without even getting into how easily it could potentially be for her ( or someone else ) to stage the videos or edit them to make it seem like the autonomous spinal reflexes Jahi's body probably does perform are the direct response to Winkfield's words/instructions, it's really strange to me that an actual doctor would accept just selective footage as an indicator that she is in fact not brain dead. Especially when McMath has been evaluated multiple times in the past regarding the reality of her condition.
Speaking of that,
here's a pdf from March this year that includes statements from two doctors who did Jahi's evaluations and declared her brain dead. It goes over all the tests that were performed and what they more or less meant for Jahi's situation. The first doctor's declaration starts on page 14 and the other's on page 35.
All that said, I'm really happy to see a thread about this here with such a well laid out OP! I've usually just been checking the tumblr linked at the bottom of the post every now and then for updates. As for her mother herself, I find the whole thing really sad. It's understandably heartbreaking to lose a child over a surgery that could have been avoided via other means, definitely, but it's also somewhat upsetting to see people hopelessly clinging to the idea that she'll wake up one day. I want to say that it's similar to the whole issue with Gwen too, in that they're both completely delusional about the reality of their children's situation, but at least Claire and Lola are still alive despite their potential lack of sentience.
