I have a 54 year old daughter who has suffered with muscular dystrophpy most of her life. She has been in a nursing facility for 20 years with numerous trips to Frederick Memorial Hospital for various non-serious issues that the nursing facility is unable to handle. She has had a trach (on a vent) for the past 15 years. She has been on and off of a feeding tube during this time but mostly off of it. She just recently went back on it. She has been unable to hear for the year or so. She has difficulty opening her eyes which we have attributed to weakening muscles of the eye. It's also difficult for her to talk. If you try to wake her she can open her eyes slightly. She hasn't been able to speak most of this year. Three weeks ago she went back to the hospital with low BP and a UTI. The doctors state that she is unresponsive and at the end stage of her lifle and want her life support removed. Her current condition is the same as it has been for quite some time and we have tried to explain this to them. So over the weekend to of her childhood friends visited her and I was also there and she was speaking, She told her friends it was so good to see them. She has also spoken other things such as wipe my eyes, scratch my nose, I don't know why my arm hurts, etc. I wrote a note in large bold letters so she could see it easily and I asked her if she wanted to go back to the nursing home and she shook her head yes! The issue we are curretly dealing with is her Advance Directive. IT IS NOT CLEAR AT ALL and is interrupted differently and very difficult to understand by different people (lay people) One section she initialed said she didn't want the vent or nurtirition and another section contridicts it by her stating she does want to be kept alive. This is our delima now. Trying to find out how to keep her alive. I have type up a few words asking her if she wants to keep living and will show it to her. If she says no I will respect that but it she says yes the hospital is telling us that it's not binding. She still have her mind which is still as sharp as ever. So my prayer is that through some miracle she could hear enough to tell the doctors to reverse their decision. If they do that the nursing facility will take her back, They won't take her back now because they clain she is not under their care now. She is under the care of the hospital doctors. All we want is her to be back at the facility. We have an eithics committee this afternoon and I'm praying it goes well with at least some hope. I cannot be at peace if I am forced to remove her from life support when she is cognitive, speaking some and acknowledges us being there and smiling at us, responding to our touch, etc. Please pray for a miracle. Thank you.