This gives EVEN MORE credibility to the Nurses' affidavits of Shiavo torture and abuse.
BREAKING: GOTTA SEE THIS:
Posted on 04/02/2005 3:04:50 PM PST by Halls
PINELLAS PARK - The room was quiet Friday. The stuffed animals and family pictures were gone. The air mattress that protected her skin from bedsores is neatly covered with a pink and blue blanket.
Only a few clues marked her passing: a bouquet of flowers, still fresh in their vase. An electric candle, ceramic angel and farewell note left by the staff.
Four boxes of facial tissues were strewn on two chairs.
For the first time in five years Friday, life at Hospice House Woodside went on without Terri Schindler Schiavo.
About 50 patients were fed and bathed. An elderly woman with cancer died just before noon. Workers who helped keep Schiavo alive for so long reined in their emotions and plowed through another day.
"It's been very hard watching a circus outside and be there with her while she was dying," said Susan Agines, a senior nursing supervisor. "I think what finally did it was when the juggler came. To me it was ... awful."
Hospice workers are accustomed to death. Their job is to help families through it. But never has the journey exacted such a toll as this one, said Woodside manager Becky McAllister.
For two weeks, nurses, aides and volunteers had to pass through yelling throngs to get to work. Angry voices accused them of murder.
"Today, we are feeling a mixture of relief, exhaustion and satisfaction that we were able to take care of her as well as we did," McAllister said, "and pride in our staff that we were able to continue in spite of having to run this gantlet."
Losing a patient is never easy, McAllister said. Hospice workers deal with patients and families on intimate levels and tend to get attached.
One patient always walked around with a red mark on his cheek, bragging about his daily kiss from the receptionist. An AIDS patient, after several days of extensive wound treatment, told staff that "no one would ever touch him before that," McAllister said. "He felt loved here."
The bonds with Terri Schiavo also were strong. Her five-year stay was two years longer than any other patient. She originally came in 2000 after Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge George W. Greer ordered her feeding tube removed for the first time. People expected her to die soon, but litigation stretched on and on.
The staff took pride that she never developed a bedsore. With twice as many nursing aides per patient than the average nursing home, Woodside workers were able to turn her every two hours.
"She wasn't able to verbalize," said Agines, the nursing supervisor. "But if she was uncomfortable, because the staff had been with her so long, we knew. If she moved, we knew what it meant. We knew when she should settle down with a different piece of music."
For five years, the staff also made connections with Terri's two families - her birth family and marriage family. Some of the staff had moral reservations about removing her feeding tube, others were fine with it, McAllister said. But they were trained to keep those feelings to themselves and try to support everyone equally.
"I said, "This isn't my battle,"' Agines said. "I'm there as a nurse caring for patient. I am caring for the wife of Michael Schiavo, the daughter of Bob and Mary Schindler and the sister to Suzanne and Bobby."
Agines, McAllister and Hospice of the Florida Suncoast president Mary Labyak said their biggest regret was not helping Michael Schiavo and the Schindler family bury their differences, at least long enough for everyone to be present at her death.
Family members have given conflicting versions of what transpired in Schiavo's last few hours Thursday, and the hospice workers declined to elaborate, citing confidentiality.
About 7,000 people die a year under Hospice of the Florida Suncoast care, mostly at home and in nursing homes, Labyak said. Conflict is common as families decide when to treat infections, when to put in feeding tubes, when to disconnect ventilators, when to sign do-not-resuscitate orders.
Mediating disputes "is a way of life for us," Labyak said.
The Schiavo case is the only one she could remember where disagreements kept family members from a bedside at death.
"What saddened us with Terri was all our hoping for reconciliation," Agines said. "To see a family so torn and divided ... I think that was the hardest."
Labyak said it was too early to assess the financial impact of the publicity and furor. She has seen no significant effect on donations.
"Some people wrote letters and said they were not going to donate anymore because they were against" the removal of Schiavo's feeding tube, Labyak said. "Others sent contributions because they said they were proud of what we were doing."
Woodside, with room for 70 patients, is a small part of Hospice's $90-million-a-year operations. Hospice paid about $40,000 for off-duty Pinellas Park police officers to provide security, in addition to officers assigned there by the Police Department, Labyak said. That money came from a "quality of life" reserve fund that usually fulfills last wishes such as helping one patient fly to Peru to visit her mother.
Lasting impact on potential clients is yet to be discerned.
"If anything, I fear that when people need us, they will think of hospice as those signs, those statements, instead of the compassion and dignity and we will not have people dying well in our community because of something they saw on TV," Labyak said. "That would be the ultimate tragedy."
Dr. Theresa Buck, the staff physician, understands the danger. Her own mother and step-mother refused to believe her assessment of Schiavo's condition because of what they saw on television.
"They said she is talking and asking for things," Buck said. "I had dinner with them Wednesday night and couldn't convince them that's not true. And I'm here every day."
Gulfport resident Delys Cavalaro, 82, loves how hospice workers are treating her. "We smile at each other. It's a bond. We don't see many frowns," said Cavalaro, who has breast cancer.
She has a living will and does not want to be kept alive through a feeding tube. "I want to go peacefully. If God chooses to let us live a little longer, I guess that's good fortune."
But she also feels for Mary Schindler. She never met Michael Schiavo, but wished "he would have given her back to her mother. It would have solved a lot of problems."
Jane Burnham knows Michael Schiavo, who lived at Woodside after his wife's feeding tube was removed March 18. His room was next door to the room where Burnham's mother, Betty, 74, lives as she copes with chronic lung disease.
Jane Burnham and Michael Schiavo talked every day.
The day Terri Schiavo died, Burnham's mother was reeling under an infection and was not eating. As they left the hospice, Michael and his brother Brian stopped to say goodbye.
"With all that going on in his life, he knew I was having a rough day," Burnham said. "He came by and gave me a hug and said I was in his thoughts and prayers. He is the nicest man."
Burnham said protesters often yelled at her during her daily visits to her mother. "They have called us murderers," she said. "They say, "Why are you going to go in there where they kill people?' They have no idea what really goes on in here."
McAllister said she expects a new patient to take over Schiavo's room on Monday. It's in the back of the building and looks out over 9 pine-wooded acres. Sometimes, people hold memorial services out there, and weddings, including one between two patients, McAllister said. Afterward the staff welded their hospital beds together.
What you can't see from Schiavo's room is the front of the hospice, where protesters bore witness for two weeks. On Friday, only a few remained.
Seems to me from this comment that Terri had feeling and emotion and all the nurses at the Hospice where Terri died at knew it!! Guess this means she wasn't PVS afterall!! Cause people with PVS don't feel or have emotion. Also means we know she felt her death of dehydration and starvation!!!
"Dr. Theresa Buck, the staff physician, understands the danger. ... "They said she is talking and asking for things," Buck said. "I had dinner with them Wednesday night and couldn't convince them that's not true. And I'm here every day."
I'll take the doctor's word over that of a nursing supervisor...
The Nurses are who spent time with terri and saw more than a doctor ever saw! I take the word of the nurse!
But wait, I thought everybody was angry that the nurses who came foreward with affadavits weren't being taken seriously. At least be consistant.
To prevent duplication, please do not alter the heading. Thanks.
thanks for fixing it and won't make the mistake again!
For something like this, I'm not so sure. The nurses spend a lot more time with the patients than the doctors do.
That article just emphasizes to me why I could never work in the medical profession. I don't know how they do it - God bless them.
Welcome.
So what?
If she didn't, then kill her?
This case has always been about whether or not it is OK to kill brain-damaged people, if their brain damage is severe enough.
The debate over whether or not Terri Schiavo had "PVS" or not has the killers licking their chops.
She had profound, severe brain damage. It was not going to improve.
What you call it, which degree of severity you apply to it, is of no significance-UNLESS YOU SUBSCRIBE TO THE VIEW THAT ONCE IT IS BAD ENOUGH, HOWEVER DEFINED, THAT KILLING THE PERSON IS OK.
Do you think severely brain damaged humans who do not have feelings should be killed?
Michael supporters say his wonderful care of Terri is the reason she didn't develop a bedsore.
McAllister said she expects a new patient to take over Schiavo's room on Monday. It's in the back of the building and looks out over 9 pine-wooded acres.
Which can be seen if your spouse allows you to see it.
"For something like this, I'm not so sure. The nurses spend a lot more time with the patients than the doctors do."
Observing reflex behavior is one thing. Seeing and knowing that one's cerebral cortex is liquid and the effects that has is another.
I'm NOT in favor of what happened to her, I just still put more faith in the words of someone with more medical training and knowledge than a nurse...
This gives EVEN MORE credibility to the Nurses' affidavits of Shiavo torture and abuse.
BREAKING: GOTTA SEE THIS:
What's with the juggler? Did Felos or CBS send one so they could say it's become a circus? If there really was a "Juggler" it seems suspicious to me.
I'm not at all certain that's a valid choice.
"With all that going on in his life, he knew I was having a rough day," Burnham said. "He came by and gave me a hug and said I was in his thoughts and prayers. He is the nicest man."
As long as he doesn't need to murder you to marry the mother of his illegitimate children.
I don't think anyone with brain damage should be killed! It is God's decision when life ends, not man!
Very telling. Yet, we didn't see a throng of nurses rush out to tell the truth. For not speaking up, they are just as much murderers as hino. No, thanks, I wouldn't want a liar to care for my ailing family member.
The nursing supervisor never said "she was talking and asking for things". Only that she could express discomfort and, because the nurses had been with her so long, be understood.
Exactly!
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