IANND, but I don’t think the two cases are similar enough to compare. The woman who started to speak already had brain activity and could respond to questions by blinking. The reports I’ve seen about Terri say that she is completely unresponsive and brain dead. Her parents claim she’s not, but her medical reports (that I’ve seen on television) say there’s no sentient activity.
What kind of a selfish jerk do you have to be to keep your own daughter alive, even going so far get a dispensation from the Vatican, when she’s got a miniscule chance of coming out of her coma, and an infintesimal chance of having any of quality of life if she does, somehow, awaken?
This isn’t the pit, so I’ll stop here.
Desperate move by desperate people. It’s been 15 years, how many times has it been up and doen the Florida court system, and they’re just bringing this up now? :dubious:
If they truly had the best interests of their daughter in mind, they would let this whole saga end peacefully, with whatever shred of dignity is left, instead of dragging it across every front page and evening news they can find. I don’t think that Terri wanted her death to make headlines and divide her family for 15 years, either.
Parents shouldn’t have to bury their children, and my heart goes out to them. But what they’re doing is just appalling. They’ve destroyed her legeacy a long time ago. She will no longer be known as a loving wife and daughter; rather she will always be a judicial test case, whored out by her parents. That is truly the most unfortunate part.
I’m not DoctorJ or Qadgop, but I can offer my 5 cents. I don’t know everything about Terri’s case, but I can say without reservation that there are myriad ways for a human body to be alive without any vestige of the soul that once occupied it, and no hope of recovery at all. From what I’ve read and can gather, Terri will never improve.
This case has made me sad from the very beginning. I tend, as many of us must, to imagine what I would feel if my own loved ones were in that position. And as doctors, I think sometimes we struggle with what to say when talking to families when we think, deep down or overtly, that their loved one is beyond recovery. How do you bridge the gap from healer to…counselor, for lack of a better word, and start talking about end-of-life issues when you know the family will never accept that? How do you help them understand there is more to life than just being alive?
This case has become so muddled with media attention and the law and fighting between her husband and parents that it’s hard to tell what anyone is after anymore.
If it was me–for mercy’s sake let me go.
Good lord! I just googled “schiavo” trying to find the cite I read about her brain basically being physically destroyed and ended up in the Schiavo blogiverse…it’s DISGUSTING!
Michael Schiavo has been in the middle of this nightmare for 14 years, trying to finally give his wife her eternal rest rather than having her suspended in this medical limbo for the rest of her “natural” life, and it seems like the majority of the idiots with blogs are painting him as some sort of creepy murderer, fingers itching at the opportunity to finally starve her to death. The right-to-lifers are NASTY, seriously.
Okay, think about this. Divorcing her so he can marry the woman he fell in love with during the 14 years his wife was a human-shaped lump on a hospital bed would a) make him look like even more of a creep, and b) not help Terri at all. She’ll still be forced to be some kind of religious puppet forced to dance (or not, as this case may be) to her family’s utter inability to face reality. There IS NO MONEY LEFT! He’s not doing it for the money. And now, it looks like ol’ JEB is joining forces with the delusional Schindlers to paint Michael Schiavo as an abuser who caused his wife’s accident in the first place. If this isn’t something they’ve just come up with to get the court to grant another stay, why the hell did it take 14 years for it to be brought before the court?!
This situation sucks mightily. I think I need to go prepare a living will right now…
Ivylass, I believe the way Dr.J put it to me during our discussions when this first started hitting the national headlines was, “Oh, yeah, she’s toast.” (Or maybe it was “She’s fucked.” I don’t really recall, and it doesn’t seem to make much difference either way, really.)
My understanding of the situation is that therapy will not benefit Terry Shiavo because she’s not able to actually participate in therapy. The woman cannot even tell there’s food in her mouth and swallow when you try to feed her; if she could, she wouldn’t have a feeding tube and we wouldn’t be having this discussion. The very fact that the feeding tube is in place pretty much scotches the parents’ arguments about her being truly responsive and able to recover with therapy–if she was responsive enough to be able to attempt communication with her parents, she’d be able to at least reflexively swallow when you put stuff in her mouth. These much-vaunted videos of her watching a balloon or smiling when her mother touches her are a few minutes out of Og knows how many hours of footage. Sure, she seems responsive in those few minutes of tape, but my broken watch seems accurate twice a day. The lights are still flickering on occasionally, but there sure as hell ain’t anybody home in there.
Somebody eventually has to make a decision one way or the other. I think this should’ve happened ages ago. Older SDMB discussions of this topic (all in GD, I think) have me convinced that Terri Schiavo as anybody would define her is gone.
They’ve been alleging he abused her for a long time, with no evidence that I’m aware of. Doctors say her condition was caused by anorexia, and I think they’re on solid enough ground that reporters have been willing to write the same.
I have also been aware of the Terri Schaivo case for years. I personally would not like to live the way she has been living. I don’t understand how the parents say she’d be bettter with therapy. Why hasn’t this therapy taken place in the past 14 years?
I also have another piece of information I’d like to throw out and ask your opinions. I have been referred to a Psychologist to work on stress reduction techniques. I saw him one tme and he seemed like a very nice person.
What concerns me is I googled his name. I found an affidavit dated August of 2003. Now according to his affidavit Terri is not as bad off as the news reports. Am I allowed to post a link to this affidavit? It raises some interesting facts observed by a professional. Quite honestly, it’s bugging me and I don’t know if he presented this point of view for the money or if what he saw is truly true.
I have an appointment to see this man on Monday and I am now not sure if his opinion on this matter has any bearing on his ability to help me.
Even if she can’t feel hunger, it seems more than a bit cruel that they’re waiting out a death by starvation instead of giving her a lethal overdose, which would end her life painlessly for sure and would not drag out the death over weeks, as her caretakers watch her body go into decline. How do they know for sure she can’t feel hunger anyway, if she can’t communicate?
continuity error, it is probably as CrazyCatLady said: there are levels of brain function, and if she doesn’t have brain function A, then she cannot have brain function B. It’s just not possible neurologically.
What gets me is that her parents have doctors saying that Terri will improve with therapy. Who are these doctors? Is it just a difference of opinion, or do they have their own agenda?
I listen to talk radio, and by and large, the hosts believe (with the exception of Neal Boortz) that disconnecting her feeding tube is murder. Yet all the courts have ruled in Michael’s favor, but her parents keep throwing up delaying tactics. What are the courts hearing that we’re not? And what’s the parents’ angle? Are they really that delusional? Have they hated Michael since he started dating their daughter?
Michael claimed that upon winning the malpractice suit, her father asked him how much he (the father) would be getting. Michael said all the money is gone for Terri’s care.
This post from my LiveJournal talks about how this is just as much about marriage as it is about the right to die.
I can’t believe that it’s being delayed now because of a DCF investigation. Why, exactly, hasn’t that investigation happened in the last fifteen years? This takes it to a new level; up until now, I have thought of her parents as well-meaning but misguided. If these claims turn out to be without merit, I’d love to see the book thrown at them, in civil court if not criminal.
I’ve seen scans of Terri’s CT scan; there just isn’t much cerebral cortex there. Hypoxic brain injuries like hers are not the sort of thing that improves with therapy; they might be able to augment some reflexes, like getting her to swallow food placed in her mouth, but I really doubt that. If she hasn’t improved any in the last fifteen years, there isn’t any reason to think she is going to improve in the next fifteen.
Like I say in the LJ post, the degree of function she might possibly return to is really beside the point. It would be a perfectly reasonable decision to not want to be kept alive artificially in Terri’s condition, even if there were a minimal chance of a return to minimal function (which, I stress, I do not believe exists here). Not only is that reasonable, but I’m betting that about 95% of those reading this would make that very decision. So the issue is not about how likely she is to recover but whether her husband has the right to choose between reasonable medical options for her.
A living will is not a bad idea for anyone. Keep in mind, though, that it does not bind anyone to a particular course of treatment; it only serves to make your wishes on the matter clear. A health care power of attorney (which goes by different names in different states) explicitly declares who is to make decisions for you in the event that you cannot; I have generally considered this to be a better option than just a living will, but seeing the extent to which Florida has gone to take that right away from Michael Schiavo, I’m not so sure anymore. In any event, the best thing you can do is talk about the issue with your family, very explicitly. Schiavo’s case makes a good lead-in for doing so.
So who are the doctors the Schindlers have, who are claiming Terri can recover?
She’s not in a coma. She’s not a vegetable. She reacts to people that enter her room.
Her husband has deprived her of therapy, social interaction… he’s been trying to have her murdered for years.
Monsters.
Cite, please?
And not the Schindler’s website. That’s hardly objective.
This quote from terrisfight.org says a lot to me (bolding mine):
Why should we care about anyone’s opinion but a neurologist’s on whether or not she is in a PVS? That’s what they do. I might be able to examine someone and come to my own conclusion about whether or not she is in a PVS, but since I am not an expert in that area, I would sure as hell not testify on the matter.
My guess is that they have found some docs who are using fine cuts or subjective points in the definition of a PVS to declare that Terri is not in one.
As for the therapy, like I said above, at best they might be able to augment some reflex responses like swallowing food placed in her mouth (though she’d still probably require the feeding tube to prevent aspiration). I can’t imagine what progress anyone else thinks can be made, and I’m guessing those judgements are coming from some docs who either share the parent’s philosophical views or just want to see their names in the paper. Sadly, there’s money to be made in being a doctor who is willing to ignore reality.
Okay, playing devil’s advocate here…couldn’t the same be said of the doctors who are saying Terri is a turnip and pulling her feeding tube will do nothing more than allow her body to join her soul?
I’m confused. I’ve seen video of the woman and she appears (very strongly) to be smiling and reacting to people. It looks like she’s quite aware of her environment. What exactly defines PVS? Does it just mean not able to talk and take care of yourself?
As I understand it, Terry Schaivo’s cerebral cortex has long since been replaced by cerebrospinal fluid and there is nothing left of this poor woman’s brain other than her medula oblongata (the old brain that regulates things like respiration and cardiac rhythm). She, at least as she was known to family and friends, has been dead for a very long time, and there is no longer any sense in keeping her body alive as it now lacks the pieces that made Terry be Terry. It’s a horrible situation, one which no parent or husband or wife or child ever wants to face, but one in which the only humane choice (as I see it) is to allow Terry’s body to go where her mind has, and to mourn her.
She will not get better. She is not a woman in a coma. She is a body without the part of the brain that makes human beings people. This isn’t something that can be cured by any amount of medical science, and their reaches a point in which doctors, who all are supposed to abide by the Hippocratic Oath must ‘First, do no harm.’
It’s time to let go. As hard as that will be for Terry Schaivo’s parents, they must accept that they lost their daughter more than a decade ago. It’s time they gave her a final resting place instead of this limbo hell that’s been happening. She’s not in a coma. She will not wake up. She is gone.
PVS is a very disconcerting condition, since it appears that the person may be reacting and aware when they’re not. My cousin has been in PVS for several years. (His brain lost oxygen during an operation on his esophagus.) I only recently was able to visit him for the first time since he went into this condition, at the nursing home where he is cared for. It was quite shocking to see him twitching, blinking his eyes, moving his mouth, etc. But there is apparently no real conciousness left there at all.