Posted on 03/26/2005 11:11:05 AM PST by Sola Veritas
Rick and Tamie Hollis think they know how Terri Schiavo's parents feel.
Their son, Dustin Hollis, now 22, suffered brain damage in a 2003 motorcycle accident in Oklahoma City. Unresponsive for months, fed through a tube in his side, he was not expected to improve, and his parents were repeatedly told to face the facts.
"Against the advice of all of the doctors and medical experts, we brought him home," Rick Hollis said Friday. "The doctors said he was in a semi-comatose state. They said we would probably kill him."
Instead, he has made gradual progress, and his improvement and memory of events around him has convinced the Hollis family to speak out — like thousands of others — in support of Schiavo's parents and their desperate bid to save their daughter.
"From watching the footage on the news, Terri is tracking with her eyes," Tamie Hollis said. "She's smiling. She knows what's going on around her."
Schiavo, who has not been given food or water for a week, has been in a persistent vegetative state since suffering a cardiac arrest in 1990.
Friday, a U.S. District Court judge denied a request by Schiavo's parents to have her feeding tube reinserted, marking the second such denial this week. The family has filed an appeal.
"Watching all of this, it scares me to death that something will happen to me and my wife and someone else will decide to remove my son's tube," Rick Hollis said. "I've cried tears about this."
In 2003, Dustin Hollis wrecked his motorcycle while driving eastbound on NW 39 Expressway. One of his tires blew out, sending him careening into the wall of the Lake Overholser bridge. He was hurled nearly 200 feet over the bridge wall.
He was rushed to a hospital. Within 30 minutes, his parents said, they were told he would die.
Two days later, that news was repeated — and again, on his seventh day in the intensive care unit.
"Three times in a week," Rick Hollis said, "they told us our son would die."
He didn't. And now he's doing things few suspected he would ever do again: thumb-wrestling, giving high-fives, changing television channels with a remote and even speaking, though his vocabulary is limited.
"I will always believe he'll come all the way back," his mother said.
A plan is needed
Using an "advance directive for health care" and a hospital's ethics committee, meanwhile, are crucial sources in making the best decisions about care for a patient believed to be in a vegetative state or possible end-of-life medical condition, two Oklahoma City physicians said Friday.
Oklahomans as young as 20 should have an advance directive for future health care, said Dr. Mable Tan, assistant professor for the University of Oklahoma Department of Geriatrics in Oklahoma City.
Age 18 would even be better, said Dr. Diane Gasbarra, end-of-life director at Mercy Health Center in Oklahoma City.
An advance directive spells out exactly what a patient wants or doesn't want if faced with a possible end-of-life decision. It can be used to withhold or withdraw all forms of life-sustaining treatment, including food and water.
It is effective only when two doctors certify in writing that an individual is either terminally ill and death is expected within six months, or a patient is persistently unconscious.
When a possible end-of-life dispute or disagreement arises over a patient who doesn't have an advance directive, a hospital ethics committee, which normally includes a chaplain and social worker, should be used.
If loved ones disagree with a doctor's evaluation, Tan said, they can request a new attending physician or a transfer of the patient to another medical center.
A copy of an advance directive should be taken by a patient if treated at a hospital. It is only operational when you are unable to make your own decisions and two doctors certify it applies. An advance directive can be revoked by an individual at any time.
All of that is small comfort to Rick and Tamie Hollis, who say their experience proves what is happening to Schiavo is wrong. If their son could come back, they say, then so could she.
"I don't care what anyone says, she's aware," Rick Hollis said of the Florida woman. "She's not a vegetable. She's not in a vegetative state. And we are starving her to death."
With "doctors" like these, who needs enemies?
bump
Thanks for posting this hopeful and remarkable story.
A word to Rick and Tamie Hollis: never, ever move to Florida.
Good post.
I have a disabled (autistic) son and I always worry about what will happen to him after I am gone. Thank God he can feed himself.
Just needed repeating.
Euthanasia is a common practice in the US, and has been for some time.
This gem of an article got lost in the weekend flood of stories, but perhaps Ohioan can ping everyone on the list to it. Last night our local Channel 9 featured this man, even showed how he had learned to print his name--hardly "brain dead" as many would like to have called him. If you go to the link, you can see the video of the segment for yourselves.
Their last quote, "If their son could come back, they say, then so could she. " will haunt me forever. I can only wish it could haunt the judges and the Schiavo family as well.
Terri ping! If anyone would like to be added to or removed from my Terri ping list, please let me know by FReepmail!
It seemed to me that they wanted to make sure they had the right to pull out the tubes if they didn't want to care for you anymore. I wanted to say "Terry Schiavo" to her, but kept quiet.
At least for the one I have, you can specify that you want to be kept alive.
The Lord alone knows Michael Schiavo's heart and motivations and He will judge accordingly.
The Lord will be glorified in this matter, although we don't see the entire picture at this point in time.
that's the one I would want. But what can you do if your legal guardian tells the doctor to manipulate the facts so they can pull the plug? If your money has run out and your insurance company won't pay? If your relatives want what little money you have left?
Nearly half of patients considered to be in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) may in fact be aware of what is going on around them and capable of communicating. A study carried out on 40 presumed PVS patients by the Royal Hospital for Neurodisability in London has found that 17 of them were misdiagnosed. Two thirds of those wrongly diagnosed were thought to be in a PVS because their eyes did not follow movement or failed to blink when threatened, but in fact this was simply because they were blind. All those studied had very limited movement, and so communication was difficult. Dr Keith Andrews, director of medical and research services at the hospital, warned that PVS patients "may spend a lifetime trapped in a damaged body, with poor quality of life"......
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Prediction of recovery from post-traumatic vegetative state with cerebral magnetic-resonance imaging
Lancet - Volume 351, Number 9118 13 June 1998
The diagnosis of a PVS can have a major influence on decision making concerning the level of care or services provided and may prompt an application to be made to the courts for a directive on withdrawal of tube feeding. Unfortunately, misdiagnosis of VS is not uncommon.(5) A report by Andrews and colleagues in 1996 (6) provided evidence that up to 43% of patients were wrongly diagnosed as being in a VS. In addition, recovery from VS is not unlikely; half of the patients in post-traumatic VS may recover within 1 year of the injury. (7) Therefore, the first step in VS management requires correct clinical diagnosis. Moreover, ancillary diagnostic tests, in conjunction with a clinical assessment may provide important information for confirming a diagnosis of VS, and may also be helpful in predicting the potential recovery.
(5) Childs NL, Mercer WN, Childs H. Accuracy of diagnosis of persistent vegetative state. Neurology 1993; 43: 1465-67.
(6) Andrews K, Murphy L, Munday R, Littlewood C. Misdiagnosis of the vegetative state: retrospective study in a rehabilitation unit. BMJ 1996; 313: 13-16.
(7) The Multi-Society Task Force on PVS. Medical aspects of the persistent vegetative state (second of two parts). N Engl J Med 1994; 330: 1572-79.
That's why we need to change some laws. Maybe on the federal level, so that it's nationwide. If a person wants to be kept on life support, under no circumstances should a person be "put down" because of hearsay, or because a hospital deems them unworthy of life. No one, save the Almighty, has the right to decide who is worthy of living and who is not. One wonders if some of these network pontificators might take a different view of what happened to Terri, if they were the ones being written off.
I know it's been posted before, but it's really worth repeating.
I really hope people click on the link and view the video. It will break your heart, when you realize that Terri in all probability could have done the same. Bear in mind, this fellow has had a lot of help from his family, but it's been a relatively short time--imagine what he might be doing in, let's say, 15 years. And I can't help but imagine what Terri might be saying, doing, thinking, had she been given the same opportunity as this fellow.
She could only have gotten better, been able to talk better, and tell us what happened the night of her collapse and how she got so many broken bones, including the one in the middle of her thigh.....great blunt force had to be used for that to happen.
I don't have time at this moment to see the video about which you refer, but I definitely will later. Thanks.
Not as rare as collapsing with a broken back, broken femur, broken ribs, broken ankles, broken knees and a head injury all caused by drinking too much iced tea, but rare.
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