Posted on 10/25/2003 11:35:53 AM PDT by ambrose
October 23, 2003
Is Terri Schiavo Dead?
Eat, drink, and vegetate
Terri Schiavo has been in a persistent vegetative state since 1990. Her husband wants to withdraw the nutrition and hydration her body has been receiving and allow her body to die. Her mother, father, and sisterand now Florida Governor Jeb Bushwant to continue supplying her body with food and water until... what? She wakes up? Dies of pneumonia?
What is a persistent vegetative state? According to the National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke people in PVS "have lost their thinking abilities and awareness of their surroundings, but retain non-cognitive function and normal sleep patterns. Even though those in a persistent vegetative state lose their higher brain functions, other key functions such as breathing and circulation remain relatively intact. Spontaneous movements may occur, and the eyes may open in response to external stimuli. They may even occasionally grimace, cry, or laugh. Although individuals in a persistent vegetative state may appear somewhat normal, they do not speak and they are unable to respond to commands." People suffering from PVS can generally be distinguished from afflicted but cognitively intact patients who suffer from "locked-in syndrome" by the fact that "locked in" patients can track visual stimuli and use eye blinks for communication.
According to most neurological experts, Terri Schiavo is definitely PVSher eyes do not really track visual stimuli and she cannot communicate using eye blinks. However, Terri Schiavo's parents have posted several short ambiguous video clips online which are meant to show that Ms. Schiavo responds to stimuli. But what they show seems to fit an AMA's report of how PVS patients can respond to environmental cues without being aware. Specifically, the report notes, "Despite an 'alert demeanor', observation and examination repeatedly fail to demonstrate coherent speech, comprehension of the words of examiners or attendants, or any capacity to initiate or make consistently purposeful movements. Movements are largely confined to reflex withdrawals or posturing in response to noxious or other external stimuli. Since neither visual nor auditory signals require cortical integrity to stimulate brief orienting reflexes, some vegetative patients may turn the head or dart the eyes toward a noise or moving objects. However, PVS patients neither fixate upon nor consistently follow moving objects with the eyes, nor do they show other than startle responses to loud stimuli. They blink when air movements stimulate the cornea but not in the presence of visual threats per se."
Ms. Schiavo has been in this state for 13 years. What are her chances of recovering at least some awareness? Minnesota neurologist Ronald Cranford told the Washington Post, "There has never been a documented case of someone recovering after having been in a persistent vegetative state for more than 3 months. However, the journal Brain Injury reported the case, of a 26-year-old woman who, after being diagnosed as suffering from a persistent vegetative state for six months, recovered consciousness and, though severely disabled, is largely cognitively intact. However, it is generally agreed that if a patient doesn't become responsive before six months, his or her prognosis is extremely poor. A report on PVS by the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council finds that "patients in a state of post-coma unresponsiveness may emerge from it to become responsive," that "the probability of emergence becomes progressively less over time," and that "there is general agreement that emergence is less likely in older people, and in the victims of hypoxic brain damage." Terri Schiavo is the way she is because oxygen was cut off to her brain for 14 minutes; in other words, she suffered severe hypoxic brain damage.
So is Terri Schiavo still alive? The odds are way against it. It's time that her long-suffering parents and the grandstanding politicians let her go in peace.
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All expenses paid, per order of the appeals court.
Dr. Webber abandoned the Schindlers, why?
I would have to imagine that she would never have been lying around in a bed for 13 yrs. She would have been long buried and life would have gone on.
Move forward to today, just because medicine can keep the body functioning, now god is not ready to take her. The god squad's next salvo will be god has help us in medical science and this is his will....so, if we go along with this reasoning, I guess the god squads are accepting of cloning a human being...
What are you talking about, they have put her on public display...
Since you neglected to mention it, for record, Dr. Hammesfahr is also on probation by the State of Florida; he was fined, and ordered to do community service.
Of course, since Nobel Prize nominations are kept secret for fifty years, it's difficult to confirm whether Dr. Hammesfahr has been nominated to anything and by whom.
No wonder Judge Greer called him a "self-promoter."
Betcha you're completely right. But that is irrelevant.
Other people with brain damage have the opportunity to be retrained to eat, speak, walk, etc. Terri has had only limited therapy, very early on, in this area.
You see? I had these questions too, so I went looking for the answers instead of believing what I read in the liberal press.
The problem for Mr. S A medical calamity occurs and Mr. S. ends up in a hospice, having gone through almost exactly the events as has Terri Schiavo to date.
Unlike all the other patients, Mr. S. is not terminally ill.
Suddenly this very evening, an electrical fire breaks out in the hospice. It spreads slowly.
The staff believe that they have managed to rescue all the patients, but they have missed a few, Mr. S. among them.
The fire is still not serious, but the smoke is great enough to keep people from returning to the building.
The fire department arrives. They prepare to enter the building, to try and locate the remaining patients, so the staff retire from the scene, except...
Attorney George Felos is there and state that "do not rescusitate orders" stand for all the patients.
Yet a nurse, upon hearing him, and who knows that Mr. S. is in there, yells from farther away, "Mr. S. is in there, and he is not a terminally ill patient, there is no 'DNR' for him!"
Mr. Felos ignores her and tells the firemen that there is now no need to risk their lives. They hesitate.
A flash explodes from a side window of the hall where are the remaining three patients; one of the screams.
The firemen know that scream, the patient is being burned alived.
What should they do?
Obey the judges and "do not rescusitate?"
Or do their duty to preserve life?
there is a difference between brain damaged, and brain dead. Terri is brain dead......nothing to rehabilitate
Last Wednesday, my wife's feeding tube was removed. For over 6 years, I have struggled with the Schindlers in court. On Wednesday, I joined them in grief. I understand what the Schindlers are going through at this time. I feel the same loss.
For years after this happened to Terri, I tried desperately to find a cure for her. I went from one doctor to another. Almost all of them told me there was no possibility she would recover. Any doctor that gave me a glimmer of hope that some new treatment or therapy would work was given free reign with Terri. I would do anything to make her well.
I took Terri to California. I stayed with her while doctors performed an experimental procedure to implant electrodes in her brain to stimulate its function. I spent months working with her - hopeful of a cure. Months later, the doctors told me the electrodes were not working.
I took Terri to Mediplex, in Bradenton, Florida, which is a residential rehabilitation facility that specializes in brain injuries. She spent months there in intensive physical, speech, and occupational therapy and testing.
Finally, the doctors and therapist told me and the Schindlers they could do nothing more for her. I hired a private duty aide 8 hours a day to take Terri on outings to parks and museums trying to stimulate her - looking for any sign of life, any flicker of hope. There was none - ever.
Over the years, I had three swallowing tests performed on Terri in the hope that some of the therapies would allow her to be weaned off the feeding tube. The test all showed no change, and I was advised she could not swallow food. Even now, the nursing home staff says that sometimes Terri gags and chokes on the moisture from the swabs they use to moisten her lips.
The reports you heard from nursing home aides that Terri was responsive years ago are not true. I would give anything if they were. Those aides cared for Terri during the time that I was desperately seeking a cure for her. I was so frustrated that I could not help Terri. I am sure that I was sometimes unkind to the aides - even shouted at them. This was not because I wanted Terri dead, but because I desperately wanted her alive. I blamed myself because I could not bring her back.
It seemed to me, during that time, that the aides never did enough for Terri. Some days they did not put her makeup on. I would storm into the nursing home insisting that they do so. I knew Terri always wanted to look her best. Sometimes, the aides did not get her dressed and sitting up until late in the morning. They did not always get her hair combed. They sometimes failed to give her vitamins and medications on time. At each of those failures, I became enraged and lashed out. I felt so helpless. Each small infraction reminded me how powerless I was to really help Terri. I admit that I yelled at the aides and I am now deeply sorry for that behavior. Much like the Schindlers now, I stubbornly resisted and suggestion that Terri was in a persistent vegetative state and would never get better.
I never wanted Terri to die. I still don't. After more than seven years of desperately searching for a cure for Terri, the death of my own mother helped me realize that I was fooling myself. More important, I was hiding behind my hope, and selfishly ignoring Terri's wishes. I wanted my wife to be with me so much that I denied her true condition.
Terri told me on several occasions before this happened that she would not want to live in her current condition. If we had been older, I am sure she would have signed a living will making it clear that she did not to be kept alive on tubes and machines. She never had the chance.
That left me to carry out her wishes. It has been hard. In fact, it is the hardest thing I have ever done. In the end, I did what I believe Terri would have wanted me to do.
Some people do not agree with the decisions the court made to remove Terri's feeding tube. I struggle to accept it myself. But I know in my heart that it is right, and it is what Terri wants. There is no longer any realistic hope of Terri's recovery. Perhaps there never was, but I had to try - just as the Schindlers have tried. The reality is that Terri left us 13 years ago, and none of us can bring her back.
Terri's parents and family may visit with her as much as they choose in the days to come. I, and my friends and relatives, will be there as well to spend time with Terri, as we all grieve. Please pray for us all.
I'd say this infraction by Hammesfahr was relevant to the Schiavo case. The conman has filled the Schindlers with false hope.
Of which only the first three years (at most) were spent on therapy. He's spending 4 more years looking for a cure and just letting her lay there in the meantime? Fiiiiiiiiiishy.
and i believe everything I see on the internet...btw, I could nominate you for a peace prize, does that mean you are trully nominated?
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