I suppose so. I tend to believe those who say her condition is irreversible and she is in a PVS based on what I know about anoxic brain injury, the fact that she hasn’t improved in fifteen years, and the facts that I’ve heard from both sides in following the case over several years. I just haven’t seen convincing evidence that she isn’t in a PVS, and plenty that she is.
Those videos are probably the one thing that has kept this case going for so long. However, people in a PVS can appear to be interacting, smiling, or laughing, but these things are not consistent or reproducible. I actually looked at the videos the other way–if this is the most interaction she is capable of after fifteen years, she’s in pretty bad shape.
Again, all of this is beside the point. She is in a state in which it would be a reasonable choice not to be kept alive artificially. I don’t see how anyone could argue that. Her husband has the right (and the responsibility, IMO) to make that choice, and that is spelled out very clearly in Florida law. This should never have been an issue.
Damn, that sounds like grounds for a slander suit right there. Besides, I believe her heart attack happened because she was anorexic. What did he do-hide all the food from her?
There aren’t enough :rolleyes: s in the world for these people.
I was actually brain damaged in an automobile accident in 1995. I was in a coma for four days and delusional for a month after I woke up. My recovery has been complete but it has been to say the least HELLISH. I was unable to walk without assistance or able to meet my own personal hygiene needs for about one year (I really wish I had been more pleasant every time I had had to ask my wife to wipe my ass). I required constant attention and was unable to exist as an individual for three years. Many times I wished that I had passed the point of no return before they found me in the ditch that morning. I have been informed that my idea of a prominent tattoo DNR on my chest would not work, in SC EMT’s are required to do CPR until a doctor declares (so I am told). I literally woke up in July 1995 to learn that the month of June had happened in my absence, I think that losing a decade and a half would be unbearable in the extreme.
According to her husband, those tapes have been heavily edited. So while you may see Terri’s eyes follow the balloon, you don’t see the other 42 times they waved a balloon in her face and she stared at the wall.
He was in a coma for four days. His diagnosis and prognosis were entirely different from Terry Schiavo’s. From his story as told, there is absolutely no reason anyone in the hospital would have thought he was a hopeless case. Terry Schiavo has been in a coma for fifteen years. Her diagnosis (at least in part via CAT scan) indicates that most of her cerebrum is GONE. Non-existent. Her prognosis is zilch. There’s a significant difference between her case and hlanelee’s.
I don’t think ANYONE is trying to foment some “all-coma-sufferers-need-to-be-euthanized” doctrine here. Comas come in many different flavors and prognoses. It’s not like this woman just ended up in the hospital last weekend and everyone’s clamoring to kill her. She’s been there for FIFTEEN YEARS! The majority medical opinion is that she’s never going to recover because she has no brain. Right now, all that the life support is actually accomplishing is making Mr. & Mrs. Schindler feel better and preventing Michael Schiavo from getting any emotional closure whatsoever.
Has Terri had no hope of recovery since the beginning? I think I read somewhere the court battle has only been going on for seven years, and she’s been in a coma for 15.
Most people who recover from comas do so within 3-4 days. Persistent vegetative states are generally considered to be permanent after three months.
Terri probably hasn’t had any real hope for recovery from the beginning, but it isn’t easy to know that until you’ve given it time. Her CT scan findings clinch it now, but those developed over several years, as the dead brain cells were reabsorbed. The damage was done, but the dead cells themselves would have still been there.
And just to be clear, Terri is NOT in a coma. A persistent vegetative state is an entirely different animal.
I have a living will now. At the time Mrs.lanelee ordered life support removed after 4 days. As she put it, "I put you in God’s hands, you would live or you would die, but you would not be a potted plant. People don’t generally carry living wills on their person. I was found in the ditch, given CPR to the nearest ER, and put on a respirator before anyone knew. As I said, my recovery time was HELLISH at best. For much of the past decade, I wish I had died by the side of the road. But I lived, I got better, I study engineering, I am a better man now!!! I buried Mrs.lanelee last June.
The thing about the videos is that there’s five or ten minutes of them. Out of fifteen years of being taped, and Og knows how many hours of footage, they’ve only got a few minutes to show how alert and reactive she is. That simply doesn’t add up. If she was as responsive as they claim, there would be hours and hours of footage of her responding to stuff. And if her family had hours and hours of footage like that, they would release an entire tape, not just a few snippets here and there and a few carefully-chosen stills. It’s a case of, as you say, her appearing to be reacting to people. Appearances and reality, however, are often not the same thing. You can present any particular slice of reality to appear any old way you want, really.
I can point at a busted watch at exactly the time it stopped and say, “See, it’s still keeping perfect time!” Doesn’t mean my watch works. I can take a picture of my cat when she’s rolling on her back like she wants a tummy rub to show just how sweet and cuddlesome she is, provided I don’t show the pictures of her biting you when you rub her tummy or her hissing and swatting at people. The rolling and tummy-baring don’t mean she’s not a pissy antisocial little creature. I can eat five eggs and eight waffles with all the trimmings along with a half-gallon of ice cream for breakfast, then declare at dinner that I’ve stayed on my diet, because I haven’t had anything to eat since breakfast. Doesn’t mean I haven’t eaten far more calories in that one meal than I should have had all day.
And Terri Shiavo’s parents can take a few minutes where she coincidentally moves or vocalizes at the same time something else happens and say, “See, she knows we’re here! She’s trying to talk to us!” Doesn’t mean their daughter is responsive.
I guess my question now is really - what is a pvs? How is it different from a coma or just being severely brain damaged? Let me know if you think I should take this to GQ.
A patient in a coma is unaware of the environment and unarousable. Someone in a PVS is similarly unaware, but is arousable and has normal sleep-wake cycles. The best description I’ve heard is “wakefulness without awareness”.
These criteria are used to define PVS:
(This is from UpToDate, a subscription health professional resource, so no link.)
There’s a lot of wiggle room in that definition. There’s also the issue that, like all such definitions in medicine, its major purpose is to carefully define patients for studies, so even if she did not technically meet these criteria for a PVS, it doesn’t mean that her prognosis is any better.
Her parents claim that Michael withheld therapy at the beginning that could have saved her. Is this possible? You mention the brain cells were absorbed as time went on. So after three months that would have been it? Then why wait another seven years before seeking to pull her feeding tube?
I don’t understand the parents’ motivation. If they truly are that delusional, then I feel very sorry for them. But I wonder if there’s not something else going on.
I have had a Living Will since I was in the 10th grade, and Pennsylvania did not even recognize the validity of them at that point. Nevertheless, a teacher taught us that the legislation being considered gave weight to past documentation.
Every few years, I have a new one drawn up. Having said that, my last one does NOT include full healthcare proxy and is likely not in line with new NY State protocols. Off to the attorney I go.
My wife finds it ironic that she “killed herself” by starving herself to death, and now won’t be allowed to die by starvation.
I, personally, don’t give a shit. Millions have died in the last 15 years that deserve more media attention than this one “incident”. I think I’ve been to about 5 funerals for family members since Terri went perma-frost.
