my ? key is just fine thank you.

so what is she is brain dead-give her an injection and end it now!
If not for her then for her family so they can finally let go.

ETA: a few days ago I hadn't read up on the process of dying by starvation, now I think I will leave that option in my living will and write that is what I want done, after organ-harvesting, in the event of severe head-trauma, brain-damage, etc. [/B][/QUOTE]

Depending on what organs are harvested you won't need to starve to death. It is sad they would not harvest some of her organs so other lives could be saved.

why speed it up for her family? that sounds selfish. This is a natural way to go and she's not feeling anything. Her parents have had 15 years to pretend she's fine, let them have a few days to realize she's not.

ETA: Also- there's the issue that euthanasia, aka assisted suicide, is not legal in Florida. She has to go to either Oregon or The Netherlands.

If you are looking for the natural way she should have died 15 years ago.

Even if she could feel pain prior to her being deprived of food and water, she probably can't feel pain now. Due to her dehydration, she's probably in renal failure, and that means that she's probably dying a painless death.

Why am I not surprise you would somehow link this case back to the homosexuality? :rolleyes: You are exactly the person that I speak of - takes EVERYTHING and spins with your own agenda.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

PhiPsiRuss, I agree that right now, her death is imminent and I pray that she isn't able to feel pain, because contrary to what's been posted, not everyone is a vegetative state is obvilious to pain (know this from personal experience).

Like I said, I find it ironic that if we did this to our own dog or cat (even if they were brain dead) there would be heck to pay.

Then campaign for euthenasia. That's legal for dogs and cats.

but her family won't let go.. hence all of the lawsuits, appeals, and pushing for the governer, the president, and congress to get involved.

This case makes a strong case for having a living will and a durable medical power of attorney! :)

Parents Keep Watch Over Dying Schiavo

Quote from article:

"Weller said Terri cried when her mother hugged her Saturday night. "She knows what's going on. She was trying to vocalize something with Mary."

"The governor should know that Terri still knows who her mother is, and she's extremely distressed," Weller said. "She's not a vegetable who doesn't know what is happening."

Paul O'Donnell, a Roman Catholic Franciscan monk, said the family unsuccessfully urged Michael Schiavo to allow his wife the sacrament of communion during the holiest feast of the Catholic year. She received last rites the day the feeding tube was pulled."

-----

The part about Terri crying when her mom hugged her made me sad, but I wonder if she's done that before. I also wonder if it's true, as I read an article earlier today that mentioned her father had said her tongue & eyes were bleeding, but that had been disputed by Michael Schiavo's attorneys. But I don't see her father making up something like that. I dunno' -- this whole thing is just so emotionally charged.

I think her family really needs the help of counselors and psychiatrists more than it needs the help of lawyers. Saying that's she's talking, knows what's going on, etc. when every shred of medical evidence shows that that is impossible.

Seriously. These people have spent way too long living in a state of denial, and this trial is now just legitimizing their madness. SHE HAS NO CEREBRAL CORTEX LEFT. I understand that her family members are in pain, but they've spent the past fifteen years just pushing reality away, and now they've put themselves in a situation where they're forced to deal with it and it is a hundred times worse than it would have been if they had accepted this inevitability from the start.

It's frustrating because many biological functions (blinking, making noises, , smiling, etc.) can persist even when the person no longer is "there." This can be really frustrating to watch for family members as they reinterpret these things as talking, being conscious -- and I think this is one thing that has had Terri's family hanging on -- but this is not the case. People often project their feelings onto their vegetative family members in situations like these. In Terri's case, with her cerebral cortex gone, there is no possible way that she COULD be still there. Everything is gone except the shell.

I just want this to be over so health care money can start going towards something more productive.

I feel for both sides in this issue but the fact remains that I have to agree with the husband, who would want to "live" like this for the rest of their lives? No one!!!!

This case has made me, at 26, want to get a living will just so my parents know what my requests are. Yes, it is morbid but I certainly don't want to be kept alive by machines when there is no hope for recovery.

I was completely and utterly appalled when congress felt the need to step in. What appalled me even more is that roughly 170 members of the house DIDN'T vote!!!!!! So here this BS law passes and 1/4 of the house didn't vote.

I have to say, thank god, that none of the appeals have come through. Her parents have been living in denial for 15 years, their daughter isn't getting any better.

A citizen in Phoenix made a perfect point in a letter to the AZ republic. It basically stated who was going to "help" Michael once Terri died? Who was going to come to his defense when the state of Florida and her parents try to come after him for "pushing" Terri to die? This person was basically saying that the state owes it to Michael to defend him when he gets sued (and let's face it her parents will probably sue him) since they felt it was their business to stick their noses where they didn't belong. I have to completely agree with this person. (I tried to find the actual letter but the newspaper has already been tossed).








God bless you Terri and may you rest in peace.

Man arrested in alleged Schiavo case murder plot


So this is what our country has come to?

Can either Tom Delay, Dubya, or Jeb donate their brain to Terri? It's not like people would notice any change in them.

The Today show this morning had a story about Tom Delay's family's decision to withhold live saving treatment from his dad after a severe brain injury that would leave in a persistent vegetative state. Tom responded by saying that "it was different".

Dee

200+ million people, and you'll end up with at least one that's embarassingly stupid. It's a numbers game.

uumm, so how is it different??

(and not directed at you Dee!)

His mom made the decision....

or her...

No political mileage out of it.

aahh.. that makes sense.

His defense was that with his father, it was a matter of withholding treatment whereas with Terri, it was withdrawing treatment. Sounds pretty hypocritical to me.

Found a link:
Delay's Dad

The difference between Delay and Schiavo is that fact that the Delay family was in agreement to the withholding of treatment, unlike Schiavo's where the husband (who has moved one and started a new family) claims that Terry would have wanted it versus her family that believes she said otherwise. Not to mention their difference in physical state of beings.

Another difference, from what I understand is that Delay Sr was totally relying on a ventilator to survive, while Schiavo is not. By pulling the ventilator, Delay Sr died within minutes. Schiavo's death takes days.

They didn't take him off the ventilator, according to reports, they just refused kidney dialysis. He died 27 days after his accident. They made that decision based on predictions that he would be in a persistent vegatative state. People do come off of ventilators sometimes. I worked in a group home for closed head injured patients. The longest any of them had been in a coma was 1 year. Some of them were on ventilators for months, but came off of them. Terri has been brain dead for 15 years with no change in her condition. Fifteen years. FIFTEEN years!

Terri's husband didn't exactly go out the next day and start having babies with someone else. He waited until 1998. Look at this time line, the therapies they tried, the treatment they attempted and she showed NO improvement at all:

February 1990… Terri suffers cardiac arrest and a severe loss of oxygen to her brain
May 1990… Terri leaves hospital and is brought to a rehabiliation center for aggressive therapy
July 1990… Terri is brought to the home where her husband and parents live; after a few weeks, she is brought back to the rehabilitation center
November 1990… Terri is taken to California for experimental therapies
January 1991… Terri is returned to Florida and placed at a rehabilitation center in Brandon
July 1991… Terri is transfered to a skilled nursing facility where she receives aggressive physical therapy and speech therapy
May 1992… Michael and the Schindlers stop living together
January 1993… Michael recovers $1 million settlement for medical malpractice claim involving Terri's care; jury had ruled in Michael's favor on allegations Terri's doctors failed to diagnose her bulimia, which led to her heart failure; case settled while on appeal
March 1994… Terri is transferred to a Largo nursing home
May 1998… Michael files petition for court to determine whether Terri's feeding tube should be removed; Michael takes position that Terri would choose to remove the tube; Terri's parents take position that Terri would choose not to remove the tube


Terri will be in a much better place soon. I hope that if I am ever put in that situation with one of my children, I can let them move on to their everlasting life instead of keeping them here in this world. I pray that nobody ever makes me exist in that state, but lets me move on as well.

I filled out that 5 wishes paper and have sent the link to my mom too. I know her wishes, as does my brother, and her brother and sister, but I prefer to have it in writing.

Dee

is it terrible of me to check CNN frequently to see if she's dead yet?

I didn't think you could live this long without water.

Michael must be anticipating a wrongful death suit- there will be an autopsy performed, specifically to exam the brain, I believe

No you aren't the only one. I know that it takes up to 2 weeks for a person to die, but I just KNOW that someone is going to get shot from one of these extreme pro-lifers. This is going to be a mess when that woman dies, it really is.

I saw on MSNBC that all this hoopla is bothering other patients in the hospital, the families of other patients have to show id's, etc. The school next to the hospital had to move the kids to another location, what in the world?:rolleyes:

I'm glad that Michael decided to do the autopsy, everyone was screaming that she was abused and he's doing the autopsy to prove that she wasn't abused and that her brain really wasn't functioning. Like I said before, I don't buy all the stuff against the husband at all.

Her parents are selling the names and address of people who have sent them donations:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/29/po...tml?oref=login

That's really rude! They are donating money to help their daughter.. I doubt they want a lot of solicitations from other groups :rolleyes:

hmmm.....it IS all about the benjamins...

Sort of lend credence to the claim the fall out started when the parents didn't get some of the malpractice settlement money like Michael Schiavo claimed.

I would be so pissed if I donatedc money and then they sold all my information.

That's exactly what someone on another MB I visit said - there are like 70 other patients in that facility in hospice care. Imagine going through that experience with a loved one which is difficult enough, and having to deal with all this media crap on top of it.

They sued the husband before to get a part of his settlement with the insurance agency over Terri.

-Rudey

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/29/na...ackson.html?hp

Jackson Meets With Schiavo's Parents in Florida

Published: March 29, 2005


INELLAS PARK, Fla. (AP) -- The parents of Terri Schiavo met and prayed Tuesday with the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who called her impending death "an injustice."

Joining the conservatives who have rallied to the parents' cause, the liberal Jackson said he would call state senators who opposed legislation that would have reinserted Schiavo's feeding tube and ask them to reconsider.

Read rest at link above.

-Rudey

Wow, for a second I thought it was Michael Jackson. That's all the media needs, combine the 2 top stories of the past couple weeks into one.

Like anyone's going to listen to Jesse Jackson, ha.

I thought the same thing. I was like wow, that Michael sure is trying to get the sympathy from the religious folks now.

-Rudey

It was almost ssad to hear the Schindler spokespeople plead for the tube to be reinserted. I recall a brother or something asking Congress: "Is this about politics or do you really care about this person".

For many involved, it's the former.....

I wonder how many years the legal battle to remove the Pope's feeding tube will last?

Thought this article might interest y'all...
 

This was in today's AZ Republic and to me it made perfect sense so I thought I would share it.

"Ignoring suffering of everyone who isn't Terri Schiavo"

by E.J. Montoni a Republic Columnist

There is a con man's technique that politicians sometimes use to manipulate the public and never has it worked better than with Terri Schiavo.

The scheme involves making a very big deal about the plight of a single person to get us to ignore the plight of hundreds, thousands or even millions of others.

Two-bit hustlers use distraction and diversion techniques to lift your wallets or empty your bank account. Political flimflammers use the tragedy of a single family to distract you from the horror they are inflicting upon your friends and neightbors.

And it works. Dozens of e-mails asking (sometimes demanding) me to take up Schiavo's cause were waiting for me Monday after having spent last week on vacation. The megaphone being used by politicians in Washington D.C., to rant about Schiavo drowns out discussion even in places as far away as Arizona.

And while I heard a lot about Schiavo, I didn't have a single email expressing outrage over Arizona budget proposal calling for cuts in child-abuse prevention programs or subsidies for the working poor.

Or for the plan not to increase the budget for the state's Child Protective Services. Even though such decisions are certain to condemn some Arizona children to death.

And while President Bush and Congress rushed to intervene in the Schiavo case, saying they were acting to preserve life, they were in no hurry to discuss proposed cuts to Medicaid, which helps the poor. And they avoided talking about the tens of millions of Americans with no health insurance and how many of them will die for the lack of it.

And that's just the beginning. The noise surrounding the Schiavo case overwhelms the misery of the many thousands who will suffer under Congress' latest bankruptcies filed, to receive the protection they previously had under the law.

Nor would families like Schiavo's be able to collect large medical malpractice settlements under a president and Congress who are working hard to limit the amount of awards for such lawsuits.

Without the money from litigation to pay for their care how many other Terri Schiavos would be condemned to die?

In Florida, where Gov. Jeb Bush, the president's brother, attempted to override the state courts on behalf of Schiavo's parents, I wonder how many citizens know about Bush's plan to eliminate portions of a program that helps gravely ill working people who are out of insurance money.

When Congress passed special legislation to allow the federal courts to get involved in the Schiavo case, the effort was led by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. It turns out 17 years ago DeLay agreed with family members to not allow doctors to use extraordinary means to extend the life of his father.

With Schiavo, however, DeLay said, "We should investigate every avenue before we take the life from a human being,"

President Bush cut short his vacation to return to Washington and sign the bill because he also felt that every avenue should be explored, even though Schiavo's condition has been unchanged for 15 years.

The purity of their motives might be less in question if they'd said the same thing in March 2003, when diplomats asked the United States to wait 45 more days before invading Iraq. They asked the we explore every avenue before starting a war that would take thousands of lives. The president and his partners in Congress said no.

reach Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com


I can't say I agree with everything he said (ie. the lawsuits, IMPO there should be a cap b/c of the outrageous amounts doctors are paying in malpractice insurance, which raises my insurance premiums). But, IMPO, a lot of what he said makes sense to me. Especially the last paragraph. I wonder how many people who have died in Iraq, might still be alive today if they had just waited like they were asked.

I personally feel that Terri probably would not want to live the way she has the last 15 years. I also feel that her parents are unwilling or unable to accept their daughters condition, but their are probably thousands of other cases just like Terri out there and they aren't in the public media.




Anyways, I thought this column might be of some interest to people.