COLORADO SPRINGS - For six years, Minnie Smith has kept a vigil at the side of her daughter, Christa Lilly, hoping she will emerge from the coma-like state that has held her prisoner.

Last Sunday morning, when her mother delivered her standard morning greeting, Christa suddenly answered.

"How are you?" Minnie Smith asked.

"Fine," Christa said to her mother's shock and amazement.

For three days, 49-year-old Christa Lilly was awake, alert and conversing in short sentences with her elated daughters and granddaughters and her mother.

Minnie phoned her daughter's neurologist, Dr. Randall Bjork, who asked her to bring Christa to his office.

"It was astonishing to witness this," Bjork said Wednesday. "I've been in this business 25 years. I've seen it only once before."

"Her level of understanding was at the verbal level, conceptual level, colors, words. This was a pretty high level, even though disoriented.

"Christa is talking words. They're slurred, yes, but you can understand what she's saying, she exhibits effort, she moves all her extremities, she responds to all commands, it's just astonishing," he said.

It was by far the most meaningful communication Christa Lilly managed since suffering a heart attack and stroke in November 2000.

Although Christa could talk in short sentences, she told Bjork that she didn't remember anything from her unconscious periods. She thought it was 1986 and that Bush was the president, although she didn't say whether she meant George Sr. or George Jr.

At the end of her visit, as Christa sat in her wheelchair in the waiting room, she told Bjork's assistants that she wanted to go to a club, and began simulating dancing in her wheelchair to their delight, he said.

Then, just as suddenly, Tuesday night she lapsed back into a deep sleep, dashing her family's hopes that, this time, she might awaken for good.

Twilight state

"This is not the first time she has come out of a coma," her mother said. "This is about the fifth time, and every time she goes back in she goes into a deep sleep for about two days. Then she comes back, but not like she was when she was talking," said Minnie Smith.

For most of the past six years, Christa seems to live in what Bjork described as a "twilight state" of minimally conscious activity.

Her eyes are open, and she seems awake, her mother says, but she is unable to respond to people and must be fed by means of a feeding tube.

The last time she awakened was June 30, said Minnie. By the afternoon of July 4, she drifted back into her deep sleep for two days.

"It's like after she's awake for those few days, she has no energy. It seems like it drains her body. She has no energy at all," said Minnie.

Bjork theorizes that when Christa wakes up each year she utilizes the portion of her brain that was left undamaged by her heart attack and stroke, using it to exhaustion then lapsing back into sleep.

"She's maxing out with what she has the potential of doing during that three days, but that may deplete her abilities for months until she has a resetting of her circuits," said Bjork.

Power of a mother's love

Bjork is curious to understand just how much Christa is seeing and hearing during her "minimally conscious state," and he hopes to conduct a new MRI brain function test if Minnie agrees.

"If we have her look at a flower and if the visual cortex lights up, then she is seeing the flower. If we have her listen to music and she's hearing it, then Wernicke's Area will light up," he said.

He also hopes that Christa's story could bring other families forward who are struggling with loved ones in similar circumstances.

But Bjork most of all praised Minnie Smith for her ceaseless loving care of Christa.

"Her mother has been an absolute saint in caring for her in loving fashion. This woman has had absolutely wonderful care for six years by the mother, and the daughters have been tag-teaming and taking care of her at home," said Bjork. "This is a tribute to a mother's love for her daughter."

Awakenings

August 2006: 11-year-old Devon Rivers awakes from a coma that had kept him unconscious for two years after collapsing on a gym floor at his Oregon school.

April 2005: Buffalo, N.Y., firefighter Donald Herbert awakes from a 10-year coma caused by a roof that collapsed on him while fighting a fire. He dies in 2006.

June 2003: Terry Wallis of Big Flat, Ark., awakes from a 19-year coma after being paralyzed from a truck accident.

February 1996: Tennessee police officer Gary Dockery awakes from a seven- year coma after being shot in the head while on duty.

fosterd@RockyMountainNews.com or 719-633-4442

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