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The lungs you were born with are not necessary to sustain your life:
In what is believed to be the first procedure of its kind in the world, doctors in Canada have saved a young mother's life by resorting to a radical solution – they removed her lungs for six days while she waited for a transplant. In April, Melissa Benoit arrived at a Toronto hospital with a severe lung infection. Doctors soon realised that Benoit, who had been born with cystic fibrosis, had just hours to live, leading them to consider the unprecedented approach.
[...] In mid-April, a team of 13 began a nine-hour surgery to remove Benoit's lungs. Filled with mucous, each lung was swollen and as hard as a football, said Keshavjee. "Technically, it was difficult to get them out of her chest." Hours later, her condition began to dramatically improve. "And literally within minutes – it was probably around 20 minutes after having taken those infected lungs out – her blood pressure normalised, and they could remove all the blood-pressure-supporting drugs and just leave her on the pumps that were providing the circulation," Keshavjee told the Canadian Press.
A small artificial lung was connected to Benoit's heart, while other devices oxygenated and circulated her blood. As they waited for replacement lungs to become available, doctors wondered how long she could be supported like this. "We didn't know if we'd get [them] in one day or one month," said Keshavjee. Six days later a pair of donor lungs became available and Benoit underwent a successful lung transplant.
Also at BBC.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 01 2017, @06:34PM
6 days on a Cardiopulmonary Bypass machine [wikipedia.org]... I wonder if you could do this with a patient that is conscious and fully awake...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 01 2017, @06:43PM
Talk to any surgeon who does things like this for a living, and he'll tell you that he cannot allow himself to think about undergoing such things.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 01 2017, @07:00PM
Entertaining thoughts like that takes an iron constitution.
(Score: 4, Touché) by bob_super on Wednesday February 01 2017, @06:50PM
Not in the US.
They'd unplug themselves to avoid seeing the hospital bill.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 01 2017, @09:22PM
Not if the newly proposed Supreme Court nominee has anything to say about it (the unplugging, that is).
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday February 01 2017, @10:15PM
And then what's next? Bring back official slavery, so rich people can get new toys as they use their insurance to save your family from eternal debt?