About Terri Schiavo: Shut Up

Let me start by saying that I'm not affiliated with Blogs for Terri or any of the other fine blogs that have done so much work on Terri Schiavo's behalf, and the opinions expressed in this post are my own. I want to make that clear because I'm not sure they would appreciate my lack of decorum.

Having said that, let me say this to the people who don't have the facts about Terri Schiavo's condition and history, but still feel compelled to open their mouths and say that they think she should die; please shut up.

Sorry, but I'm disgusted with people who shoot their mouths off based on lies, distortions, half-truths and disinformation.

Comments

[BrewFan]

Thanks for the great post John. Its obvious a lot of work went into it. Its for a good cause so keep up the fight. One of the more mind boggling aspects of this all is that NOBODY would let their dog die of dehydration but there are those who think this is an acceptable outcome for Terri.

[Man of Substance]

I usually read your blog for the cutting-edge humor. It's nice to see you are as articulate and passionate about serious things as well.
Well done.

[greg]

You rock, man. This is great, great stuff. I'm sure glad we're on the same side.

[Romeocat]

Hey, John, thanks fot the return TB! I agree with MoS; I usually read your hilarious stuff, but this, as I said at CatHouse Chat, is superb writing. I like the way you take it point by point, don't get bogged down or preachy, and still express your frustration with "those who are so blind that they will not see."

Yay! [hands clapping]

Best,
R'cat

[fretless]

John,

I enjoy your blog very much. But this post in particular demonstrates that you don't just have a good sense of humor -- you have good sense.

Keep up the excellent work.

Tim

[Paul Deignan]

Thanks for the link.

I agree that people should get the facts and try to put their emotions aside while analyzing these facts. It is remarkable that here we have a situation where the government is actually ordering the starvation death of an innocent citizen.

This is a watershed event both in terms of our aging populations, our democracy, and judiciary.

Lets see what is the problem and how to fix it.

[D. Carter]

Great summary of the relevant issues. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Michael Schiavo is trying to silence a witness. And Greer is the sorriest excuse for a judge I've ever seen.

[Crystal Clear]

hmmph.... I think I qualify as one of those Bloggers for Terri who is doing a lot of hard work and I personally greatly appreciate this great summary and for you having the courage to write what I also feel...I Thank YOU

[DeputyHeadmistress]

Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you.
Our family has a profoundly retarded daughter, and you know what? Those same people who want to kill Terri because they would not want to live like her also wouldn't want to live like our daughter. Nobody has asked those self-absorbed, sanctimonious sorts to live like our daughter or like Terri. We're only asking that they not torture to death those who do.

[Dave at Garfield Ridge]

Horrible issue, but outstanding post.

[The Therapist]

I have no idea if my satrical takes on Terri have helped at all, but I do tend to believe satire requires some degree of information in the collective consciousness in order to be effective. But I have have done what I can withing th context of my own blog.

I'm liable to ring in with a serious editorial myself.

And no, I don't think my blog can move mountains, just in case anybody thinks I might be investing what I do with preposterous spiritual gravity. . .

-T

[Zelda]

Hey John,
Great post. I totally agree with you on this. You know that the parents think Michael Schiavo strangled her. So far, I have written all my elected representatives, Governor Bush, and called the White House comment line. If you have any more suggestions, I'm all ears.

Thanks.

[David]

As a fellow conscientious blogger and conversant, I really appreciate your research. As a fellow valuer (not that that is a word) of life, I share your unspeakably great aggravation and turmoil at all the dubious practices of Mr. Schiavo and his lawyer, and the failure of any major media outlet, even Fox News, to significantly question the honesty of these two. The situation is certainly a tragedy, at this moment, at least. Ciao.

[Lucy Stern]

I have been studying this case also and came up with the same conclusions. My own daughter has been duped by the media constantly saying that she had a chemical imbalance and that she told her husband that she did not want to live like this. She won't even study the facts. I am grateful that I have studied the facts. I believe that Michael Schiavo is trying his best to pull the wool over our eyes. I can't wait for all this to come out in the open. Thanks for the article.

[Bill]

I believe you are mistaken on several points.

1. The 4 minutes of video posted online were edited to deliberately misrepresent the entirety of the video:

http://www.sptimes.com/2003/11/10/Tampabay/Schiavo_tapes__snippe.shtml

"For nearly an hour, her parents and the doctor tell her to open her eyes, close her eyes, look this way, look that way - with little apparent response."

also see

http://news.tbo.com/news/MGBQ67CTI6E.html

"Less widely known are four hours of images, taped in summer 2002, of Schiavo's inert stare from her hospice bed."

Did you watch all 4 1/2 hours of videotape?

Most of the affidavits posted on terrisfight.org rely on only those 4 minutes of video for their opinion.

3. The bone scan.

Walker was clear in deposition, here:
http://www.hospicepatients.org/dr-walker-t-schiavo-bone-scan-deposition.txt
that the alleged injuries could easily have been caused by the paramedics and the physical therapy in the year between her collapse and the bone scan.

That is what Dr. Carnahan, her treating physician, who actually ordered the scan thought, per his affidavit.

Walker never bothered to personally examine Terri.

2. Even http://www.terrisfight.org acknowledged that less then $50,000 remains in trust:
http://www.terrisfight.org/myths.html

What's the source for your claim that the husband will receive $1.6 million on her death?

3. The report of Jay Wolfson, guardian ad litem, December 2003, here:

http://abstractappeal.com/schiavo/WolfsonReport.pdf

is clear Terri received "aggressive" therapy through 1994.

He notes she failed at least 3 "gold standard" modified barium swallow tests during that time.

What's your source for the claim that she can now swallow?

4. The bedsore was only after she temporarily moved to assisted living when the Hospice was being renovated.

It is remarkable that she went 13 years without one, and is a testimony to the care provided by her husband, as Wolfson and Pearse (an earlier GAL, in his report) noted.

Please read Wolfson's report, and see this link for the legal issues involved:
http://abstractappeal.com/schiavo/infopage.html

Here's the CT scan, so you can see how blurry it is:
http://miami.edu/ethics/schiavo/CT%20scan.png

No need for an MRI (actually, you're really referring to an fMRI) to see the extent of the damage.

There's no known way to repair damage that severe.

[John from WuzzaDem]

Bill,

Let's cut to the chase.

First of all, when I first heard about this case a few years ago, I was incensed that Terri's 'meddling parents' couldn't accept the fact that their daughter was braindead, and were interfering with her wishes. I only changed my mind after a lot of reading.

The articles you reference have one quote from a doctor who watched the video - he never examined Terri. The balance is commentary from reporters and a "pop culture" critic.

The Wolfson Report you cite does say:

The hearings and testimony before the trial court leading to the decision to discontinue artificial life support included admitted hearsay from Theresa’s brother-in-law (Michael Schiavo’s brother) and his wife (Michael’s Schiavo’s sister-in-law) along with testimony from Michael.

Which is, in my view, one of the problems. All of the testimony regarding Terri's alleged wish to be taken off of life support (which she is *not* on) comes from Michael and two members of his family. Here's what Terri allegedly said (according to Michael, from his 2004 Larry King appearance):

KING: How old was she [Terri] when this happened?

SCHIAVO: Twenty-five.

KING: A 25-year-old said that to you, if I die, if I'm in this state -- most 25-year-olds wouldn't think of something like that.

SCHIAVO: It was a comment from watching certain programs. She said -- we were watching some programs, and she said, I don't want to -- I don't want anything artificial like that. I don't want any tubes. Don't let me live like that. I don't want to be a burden to anybody.

No one knows if that conversation really took place (Michael failed to mention it until eight years after Terri's collapse), but even if it did, 'tubes' sounds like a respirator to me. It sounds like machines keeping my vital organs working artificially. It doesn't sound like a feeding tube.

What do you say to a family member who says they "Don't want to be a burden"? I don't know you, but I'm willing to bet you tell them they're not a burden. That statement, as alleged by Michael Schiavo, does not sound like someone's wish to be starved to death should they have the misfortune to suffer a brain injury. At the very least, I think there's considerable room for doubt.

But back to the Wolfson Report. It goes on to say:

Actions by the Schindlers to remove Michael as Guardian and to block the petition to remove artificial life support took on a frenetic quality at this juncture.

Sounds like the author's losing a little objectivity, especially when we then read:

It had taken Michael more than three years to accommodate this reality and he was beginning to accept the idea of allowing Theresa to die naturally rather than remain in the non-cognitive, vegetative state.

Is it just me, or did all pretense of objectivity just go flying out the window there? Did the author crawl into Michael's brain?

You say there's "no need for an MRI" - are you a physician? What are your qualifications for interpreting the CT scan results? I'm assuming you've read the NRO article, in which esteemed neurologists express their concern over the possibility that Terri Schiavo has been misdiagnosed. Or the report from the Royal Hospital for Neurodisability in London. In their study, they found that 17 of the 40 patients they examined had been misdiagnosed as being PVS, when in fact they were not.

Their study concluded that, where PVS is concerened:

Accurate diagnosis is possible but requires the skills of a multidisciplinary team experienced in the management of people with complex disabilities.

So I don't know how you can determine that Terri is beyond help based on a "blurry CT scan".

But let's address the issue of whether or not Terri can "improve", since that seems to be of such great concern to the kill-Terri crowd. Terri Schiavo is more mobile than Stephen Hawking, so I'm assuming it's her mental capacity that concerns you.

I doubt that anyone voicing the "I wouldn't want to live like that" sentiment has a handicapped relative. There are hundreds of thousands of people in this country alone that need assistance such as feeding, changing diapers, bathing, etc. They're not trying to kill themselves, and for some reason (fortunately) there's no collectively outcry for them to be deprived of food or water.

Terri Schiavo is, as a result of a brain injury, mentally handicapped. There are no machines keeping her alive. If you don't think it's possible for het to swallow, is that a reason to let her die by starving her? I don't think so.

[Debra]

Well, I'll be the first to admit that it is impossible for me NOT to be emotional about this issue. But I also 100% agree that it is terribly wrong for any of us to decide whether or not Terri Schiavo should live or die, and withold food.

You see, recently my husband was in a drug induced coma while doctors desperately scrambled to bring him out of ARDS. There was reasonable expectation that he too would suffer massive brain injury due to hypoxia. At one point, during an 11 hour neurosurgery, all vital signs were lost on the operating table for nine full minutes. It was only after the surgical team gave up on resuscitating him that his heart started beating again. During the night after the surgery, he also suffered a stroke which mostly blocked the C5 nerve trunk (to the right shoulder and arm and part of the chest muscles)and caused him to plunge into acute respiratory failure.

Doctors and nurses all insisted he couldn't possibly respond at all while he was in this coma. Most insisted he couldn't even hear us or be aware of our presence in the room with him. Indeed, he was completely unable to respond in any normal way. Yet, his blood pressure dropped significantly and staid much better in control while I sat and held his hand for an hour or two. At one point he managed to squeeze my hand back. Of course, they used electrical stimuli to prove he was unresponsive and could not have, but when he eventually woke up he clearly remembered the effort he put forth to do just that and how difficult it had been. He also remembered the nurse shocking him repeatedly afterward to see if he was responsive. He remembers the feeling of panic when he first discovered that he wasn't able to make his body move as he wished, speak, or otherwise communicate. He remembers me explaining why he couldn't move. Additionally he remembers numerous conversations the nurses, doctors, other attendants and therapists, family members, and friends had in the room with him, including several references by medical staff to the "obvious fact" that he would never recover and keeping him alive was cruel and unusual and gossip about the nurses' sex lives. AND He remembers being extremely hungry and thirsty and that this was indeed excruciatingly painful! This is despite the fact that I insisted he be fed while he was in said coma as soon as his stomach could tolerate the tube feeding.

My husband is now back at work. He has regained 85% use of his right arm. He has extremely limited brain damage. All of which should be impossible according to conventional medical knowledge and expectations.

Essentially, my point is this: there is way way way too much even the experts don't know about human consciousness or our brain's capacity to recover from serious injury for us to be playing God and deciding who should have the chance to live or die... and starvation is NOT a humane or peaceful death at all!

Further-- let's not kid ourselves into thinking we are "allowing" Terri to die. We are allowing Terri's husband to decide he doesn't want to bother with taking care of her anymore which will result in her being starved to death. She left no written living will. She made no statements to doctors or hospital staff before or during her treatment. We have nothing but his word this is what she wanted. Her own parents disagree that this is what she would want. We cannot ask her.

Though I am not at all a big Bush fan, on this issue he is exactly right. When the answer is unclear, our laws, our society, should err on the side of life-- NOT the side of the parents' or the husband's convenience, NOT on the side of least pain or discomfort for her or others, NOT on the side of the most likely statistical probability or the least expensive choice, and NOT the popular opinion of the news media--life. period. Nothing we have in this world is more precious.

[God]

kill her. letting her live is playing god. Dr's aren't god !!!

[Toobis]

On the other hand, since we are all waiting for a bloody miracle here and Easter Sunday is approaching, maybe she'll rise from the dead. But until then, the only thing that could possibly help matters along would be to hold a pillow over her head for a few minutes or to more than deeply sedate her. While admittedly cruel, it's far better than starving her to death. In retrospect, that 'diet' of hers; i.e., eating whatever you want as long as you have "two fingers for dessert," the undeniable cause of her problems, seems to have not been such a good idea. A lesson well learned, albeit a bit late, for the "soon to be departed."

[s]

just as a matter of fact, she did receive an MRI. it's a matter of record, featured in court transcripts, and confirmed by parties on both sides of this issue. to say she's never received one is completely FALSE. she has. she's also received numerous CTs and EEGs, as recently as 2002. this is also a matter of record. i'm not taking a stand for either side, just pointing out that it seems a lot of the people who are don't take the time to actually read the docs and find out what exactly IS fact before taking a stand publicly.

[John from WuzzaDem]

S,

Thanks for stopping by on Easter to share. There does seem to be some disagreement on the issue of the MRI, and if you'll see my post "Terri's Medical Record", there is an entry showing an MRI was done, along with notations indicating a much higher level of cognition and responsiveness than that which is generally reported.

I've read as many documents as I can find on this case, maybe you could supply a link to those I've missed.