She had an eating disorder (some suggest bulimia but that isn't a documented fact). The eating disorder caused a severe Potassium imbalance, which caused cardiac arrest. Her husband, Michael, woke up to the sound of her hitting the floor after suffering cardiac arrest. He immediately called 911, but in the time it took EMS to get to their house and start CPR, she had suffered oxygen depletion in her brain long enough to cause permanent loss of brain function. She was given CPR enroute to the hospital, slipped into a coma, was intubated, ventilated, and trached, but the damage had been done. Her condition, "a persistant vegetative state", allows her to swallow saliva, but not food or drink. Instead she will aspirate food and drink into her lungs. This is why she has a feeding tube. Her condition won't even allow her to recognize that someone is feeding her and that she should swallow. For more information on this, see.
littledearbear you show your commpassion and empathy truly i think you deserve all things good that you draw to yourself may peace be in your heart always!
Yes she is. The fact that her eyes move has nothing to do with being aware of her surroundings. It's just reflexive. She is braindead with no hope of recovery. She died 15 years ago, they've just been feeding an "empty" body. The fact that her husband says this is what she would've wanted is more important than your vague sense that she might be afraid. Are those people braindead with no hope of recovery? No. What about her husband who has to fight through government red tape just to carry out his wife's wishes? You say person. I say biogruel-to-diarrhea converter. Potato, potahto.
This isn't a decision anyone can and should make but her husband. It doesn't matter what you would do in the situation, what you think HE should do in the situtaion, or what you would want done if you were Terri. None of that matters in what is Terri and her family's situation. This isn't a decision for the general population or politicians to make. It isn't about right and wrong. When a person is forced with making this decision when a family member has been in a coma for over a decade, there is no universal right or wrong decision. It is a personal decision, medical decision, and specifically her husbands decision. A decision that only those closest to her should be involved in. And there is no right or wrong answer. What is wrong is plastering this poor comatose woman all over the TV, showing her looking all pathetic and sick. I would be PISSED if my family ever did that to me (if I had the capacity to be pissed, that is). This is not something the general population should be getting into. We have larger sociological problems to attack. Genocides, oppression, disease, curruption, human suffering on a larger scale than a family trying to make a decision about the life of a comatose woman. It sickens me that this is even on the news, let alone plastered ALL OVER the news.
Thanks a lot, MSNBC. MSNBC just sent Chris Jansing over to Europe to find out what they thought about the Schiavo case. Jansing spoke only with U.S. citizens who happened to be in Italy. What a great way to get to know what Europeans are thinking. I suspect that they also had reasons for going to only Italy and not other places, such as Great Britain, and mentioning the Pope during the story. Jansing said she spoke with a few people on the street and they were all for reinserting the feeding tube, Thanks again, mainstream media in the U.S., for giving us such an unbiased and perspicacious view of international opinion.
Things are starting to get out of hand now. http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/03/25/arrest.schiavo/index.html "Meanwhile, FBI agents have arrested a North Carolina man on suspicion of soliciting offers over the internet to kill Michael Schiavo and Greer. Richard Alan Meywes of Fairview is accused of offering $250,000 for the killing of Schiavo and another $50,000 for the "the elimination of the judge who ruled against Terry." Meywes was arrested without incident at his home around 5 p.m. Friday on charges of solicitation of murder and transmission of a threatening communication via interstate commerce, authorities said. If convicted, Meywes could face up to 15 years in prison and up to $500,000 in fines. He is expected to make an initial court appearance Monday in U.S. District Court in Asheville, North Carolina. (Full story) Greer has been under 24-hour protection by two U.S. marshals due to increased threats against his life by those unhappy with his handling of the Schiavo case. On Thursday, police arrested an Illinois man they said robbed a gun store in Seminole, Florida, as part of an attempt to "rescue Terri Schiavo." Michael W. Mitchell, 20, faces charges of attempted armed robbery, aggravated assault and criminal mischief, said Marianne Pasha, spokeswoman for the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office."
DeLay's experience: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-delay27mar27,0,7102439,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines .
What a hypocrite. Tom DeLay is a disgrace to our government. I like Michael Schiavo's description of him: "a slithering little snake."
Letting her suffer like that for the past 15 years was inhumaine. No one wants to see a fmaily member die but using machines to keep someone alive for so long is just nasty.
She is NOT "Brain dead." She is NOT "Comatose." She is NOT worthless. She was NOT on "life support." PLENTLY of people are on feeding tubes, it is NOT "life support" and it is not "artificial." It is no more artificial than a baby being given a bottle or a breast. A feeding tube is for feeding someone who is BRAIN DAMAGED, or paralyzed or unable to swallow normally. A feeding tube should NEVER be a death sentence. People in these states should not simply be allowed to die of dehydration. She may well be conscious. She does have responses, not just reflexes. But I work in the Medical Field, and of late, I have found it nearly impossible to discuss this issue with people who are deluded or uneducated about medical terminology or relative states of consciousness. You have to understand medical procedures, as well as understand the difference between brain damaged, minimally consciious, persistant vegetative states, coma and brain dead to be able to argue this issue properly. And most of the arguments I have seen, on this thread and others are done by people who DON'T understand not only the difference, but the SIGNIFICANCE to needing to know what these terms mean in order to make an intellegent discussion about this situation.
Maggie: I truly respect what you have to say, and I don't remember a single instance where we fundamentally disagreed. Your stance on this has caused me to seriously rethink my position, but I must disagree. I, too, am in the medical field. I have seen Terry Shaivo's brain scans. The only part of her brain that still has any significant activity is her brain stem. She has no physical capability for feelings or emotions or thought. She has been reduced to only basic functions required for survival, except for eating and drinking. If she had the ability to wake up and be concious whatsoever, she would certaintly do so after 10 days of no food & water. I DO think that dying of dehydration is a slow, prolonged, and even cruel process. For that matter, so is keeping someone alive for over a decade. I don't believe for a second that she can comprehend suffering, though. Terry Shaivo is a human being. She deserves to die peacefully (without pictures of her all over the news!). The real tragedy, in my opinion, is that we cannot help hasten her death, and allow her to die more peacefully and with dignity. If I were Terry Shaivo, and I could speak three more words, they would definately be "CALL DR. KEVORKIAN!" The goals of medical treatment should always be, in my opinion, cure what you can, but ALWAYS treat suffering. Even if Terry Shaivo does not have the capacity to suffer, her friends and family, and now, the entire country, can and does. What purpose are we serving by keeping her alive in a chronic vegetative state, and/or by allowing her to die by dehydration?
Not being able to eat, drink, speak or move to any degree. For 15 years? In what sense is that alive? Thats marginally less alive than my computer, shes been stuck like that for almost as long as i've been alive. I can't only imagine the torture thats going on in her head, if she has any conscious thought it must be like being put in a straight jacket and nailed to a wall for 15 years. Clearly the damage is too great for modern medicine. I dont know if theres a god, but I do know that we should take all the pipes and cables out of her and let her and god sort it out one way or another.
LOL! Huck - I wouldn't have expected anything else! A very entertaining article, but it is really beside the point in this case. I did say "Call Dr Kevorkian," but I what I should have said is "Please allow me to die peacefully by overdosing me with narcotic medications". My first statement, however, seemed to have a better effect. I don't know where I stand on euthanasia in general. It is a very difficult topic, and it is not the topic at hand, but if I were her parents, I would want her to die peacefully. As a parent, I am not sure if I could agree to euthanasia, though. . . If it were me, GIVE ME TONS OF MORPHINE & LET ME DIE!!!
To my knowledge, she is able to eat very slowly. She is mainly hooked up to a feeding tube for the convenience of the hospice staff. (She is not hooked up to any other pipes or cables!) She could also be moved around in a wheelchair, but I believe her so-called "husband" has confined her to her room. This brief commentary is poignant: http://www.nationalreview.com/smithw/smith200503290755.asp and the linked debate is very revealing, too: http://www.courttv.com/talk/chat_transcripts/2005/0324schiavo-debate.html
"To my knowledge, she is able to eat very slowly. She is mainly hooked up to a feeding tube for the convenience of the hospice staff. (She is not hooked up to any other pipes or cables!) She could also be moved around in a wheelchair, but I believe her so-called "husband" has confined her to her room." I don't know if she should live or not..supposedly in her living will she said she wouldn't want to live like this...but starving her and dehydrating her? We don't even do that to fucking child molesters in America!!!!! Hell we don't even kill child molesters, we set them free to do it again..but I digress...the point is you wouldn't be able to starve to death someone who raped your daughter...why would we do it to an innocent woman???? I'm appalled that nobody even seems to want to address this issue! (not ya'll, but what have you heard about THAT in the news? jack shit?) Do you know what a hangover feels like? Well that's how it is if you die from no water...a hangover that gets worse and worse. Didn't Maggie say she would be hooked up to more if she was truly brain dead? Well if she's not totally brain dead then she can feel herself starving and dehydrating!! And if there's no way to know for sure then we should assume she can feel it (scientific research won't convince me, not everyone is a textbook case, plus doctors don't know everything)...where's everyone's human campassion? I think that if death is really what she wanted, and it's time, then they should give her a lethal injection...I mean lets at least TRY to treat her as good as a common criminal!
She had no living will. She allegedly told her husband back in the 1980s that she wouldn't want artifical life support, which was commonly understood then to refer to machines, not mere food and water.
