Terri's Fight - (Daily Thread/Updates)November 1-2, 2003

There is also a lot of discussion and links dealing with the seeming network of connnections between the girlfriend, Jodi, various insurance business links and possibly Terri's new doctor. In addition, several questions are addressed regarding Michael Schiavo's hiding of assets and tricks that may have been employed to throw off investigative efforts. Some of the FReepers have been doing their homework on the unholy alliances in the case. Let's keep working to connect the dots and expose the results. Also contained in thread 2 is some of Schiavo's litigious history, a bit more information on George Felos and more on Jay Wolfson. Some information on the doctors involved in Terri's case can be found on this thread as well. Since there are so many posts and links to the above mentioned topics, the best thing to do is to browse the thread.

This thread serves as a place for posting all new general information and references, along with links following Terri's case, plus information on cable news and talk radio shows dealing with the issue, court cases and press releases. This is also the place to post contact information, prayers and general discussion.

If you have something that qualifies as BREAKING NEWS or FRONT PAGE NEWS, please post it on a separate thread in that category in order to give it maximum exposure and then post a link to the article/thread here so that it will be included in the next update of links. Also, if you post links to articles from original sources and there is also a thread on FR, please link to the FR thread. Many original links become corrupt over time and we want to be able to access the information at will.

Don't give up

by Jon Sherman

Don't give up.

That's what Margaret Logan of Titusville would tell the parents of Florida's Terri Schiavo.

"If I could talk with Terri's parents in Florida," Margaret said, "I would tell them to never give up and give them all the encouragement and support I could."

Schiavo, who is severely brain damaged, is in the midst of a legal debate over whether her husband has the right to have her feeding tube removed. Her husband claims it was Schiavo's wish to die if she was to ever be in her current condition. Schiavo's parents want their daughter's care to continue, citing reactions from their daughter as hope she can recover. Florida Gov. Jeb Bush used recently passed law to keep Schiavo's husband from removing her feeding tube.

Severely injured in an auto accident more than 20 years ago herself, Margaret and her husband, Doug's, daughter, Virginia, is very much an integral part of her family today. She lives at home in Titusville, exercises, swims, goes to the theater and rides horses. Much of the credit for the progress Virginia has made can be attributed to her parents. Margaret, a retired high school English teacher, said she has devoted oceans of time to Virginia.

There are some major similarities in the cases of Virginia and Schiavo. Both spent long periods of time in comas. In Virginia's case, it was more than a year. Both the Logans and Terri's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, faced legal difficulties with their sons-in-law. Both daughters were the victims of severe brain damage.

In February 1982, Virginia was 29 and married. She and her husband at the time were living in Lordstown, Ohio. On that February night, the car the couple was riding in struck a utility pole. On impact, Virginia was thrown from the car, her head striking the metal door frame.

Doctors told the Logans Virginia had suffered a closed-head injury with frontal lobe damage. But that wasn't the only fight the Logans faced. They had problems with Virginia's husband, as well as the way the Ohio law was written.

"In Ohio," Margaret explained, "everything is controlled by the husband; the woman has no rights in this kind of situation."

This meant if the husband didn't want the Logans to visit Virginia, no permission would be given.

Doctors told the family Virginia would survive the accident, but not leave her coma. Margaret took this as a challenge, facing the problem and learning everything possible about it.

While her daughter lay quietly, Margaret began Virgina's rehabilitation by reading books, the first of which was "Ashes in the Wind." Doug did his bit by reading "Uncle Wiggly."

All the time, Margaret would address Virginia's silent, blank face and say, "If you know who I am, squeeze my hand."

Margaret recalled, "I may have been imagining it, but I would swear I could feel her squeezing my hand. You become so grateful for every moment of growth."

When the two of them were together, Margaret talked all the time.

"A lot of it was babble," she said, "nonsense, but I wanted her to know there was somebody there who loved her."

The breakthrough came when Virginia was in a nursing home. Not expecting anything out of the ordinary, but carrying through with her policy of constant talking, Margaret asked if Virginia would like to be wheeled upstairs to look at the fish in a tank at the doctor's office.

"OK," Virginia replied.

Only this and nothing more.

It made Margaret's day.

"I called everybody we knew that I could think of and had them ask Virginia a question that could be answered with 'OK'."

There were sometimes long gaps between outbursts of speech, but there always was progress. Today, Virginia's speech is perfectly understandable.

In one corner of the Logan home is a cross-lateral machine. This device simulates walking by moving the legs. Virginia spends up to two hours a day on it.

"It makes me tired, but it doesn't hurt," Virginia said. "I get energy from it and it relaxes me. It just makes me feel better."

Margaret commented, "Now, she can talk. Even if she has to go to a nursing home, she'll have an advantage over some of the others because she'll be able to talk and respond. She has a quality of life."

Virginia's sister, Jayne Logan, a nurse, considered the progress Virginia has made and reflected, "This is a perfect example of what a mother's love can accomplish."

http://www.titusvilleherald.com/oldlocalthu.html

2003-04-14 From: Newsday, NY,US
Seeking Right to Death
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/ny-usschi0414.story

Fla. man says wife wouldn't want to live in vegetative state

By Hugo Kugiya
Staff Correspondent

April 14, 2003

St. Petersburg, Fla. -- If he spoke to his wife one last time, Michael Schiavo does not remember. It was a Saturday night, the busiest of the week at the restaurant he managed in Clearwater, Agostino's Ristorante. It was past midnight by the time he closed the restaurant and came home. His wife Terri Schiavo was already asleep.

"I came in the house," he said. "Terri woke up. She heard me. I gave her a kiss goodnight. She gave me a kiss goodnight."

Because they worked opposite schedules, the Schiavos often greeted and parted like this, with a groggy kiss in the late night or early morning.

The temperature was in the 30s, exceptionally cold for Florida, on the night of Feb. 24, 1990. Terri felt the cold easily. She was 26 and, at 5 feet 6 inches, weighed 110 pounds, the trimmest she had ever been. She once weighed 200. She did not lose the weight by exercising, but by adhering to a strict diet. She was very unathletic. Michael said, "She didn't know what sports was."

Michael had become concerned about her weight loss. When they married five years earlier, she weighed about 150 pounds. Now when she took off her clothes, "I could see her bones," Michael said.

He let it cross his mind that she might have an eating disorder. Once after dinner she went into the bathroom, letting the water run the entire time. She told him she was just warming her hands. She was capable of eating large quantities of food, an entire pizza or a giant omelet. She seemed to guzzle iced tea, sometimes a gallon at a time. Her menstrual cycle had become irregular. But Michael said none of this had alarmed him.

She had been to doctors for a benign lump in her breast, a wart on her toe and dizzy spells. She had not become pregnant although she and Michael did not use birth control. But she seemed otherwise healthy. Nothing Michael or Terri knew at the time would have foretold what would happen that night.

In the early morning hours of Feb. 25, 1990, Terri Schiavo collapsed in the hallway outside her bedroom. As Michael remembered it, "I was getting out of bed for some reason and I heard this thud. So I ran out into the hall and I found Terri on the floor." He called 911 and her brother, who lived in the same apartment complex. "I held her in my arms until her brother got there. I rocked her. I didn't know what to do. I was hysterical."

Since that night, Terri has not moved or spoken. Doctors believe she has no cognitive ability -- that she cannot think or feel. Hers is a life of gray, something more than death but less than life. She breathes on her own but needs a gastric feeding tube to drink a slow and steady stream of nutrients similar to baby formula. She is fed all night as she sleeps, from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m.

Within weeks, the Florida Second District Court of Appeal will decide whether she will live or die. Michael, her guardian, wants to remove the feeding tube that keeps her alive because he says it's what she would have wanted. A lower court has already given him permission to do so. Her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, and her siblings want to keep her alive for more treatment and therapy. They do not believe she is in a permanent vegetative state or that she would want to end her life.

In such cases, relatives who want to keep the patient alive "are not thinking so much about the patient, but themselves," said Dr. Larry Schneiderman, ethics consultant to the University of California, San Diego medical school. "They might have their own agenda, or they're so terribly wrapped in grief. It takes an act of humanity to acknowledge that we all die and come to terms with this. Those are the heroic people, the compassionate people. The ones that won't quit are just being unrealistic."

Nonetheless, in the almost 30 years since a court first adjudicated a patient's legal right to die, judges have rarely approved withdrawal of life support over the objections of a patient's immediate family and the absence of a patient's written instructions.

It is unlikely the state or U.S. Supreme Court will take the case should either party appeal again. So the coming decision is expected to end what has become a 10-year legal battle.

"I think about her every day," Michael said. "I see her once or twice a week. It's heartbreaking. ... Terri's made the same sounds and motions for years. Back when I knew nothing about this, and I'm sitting there watching her, I was encouraged because you grasp for anything. Now, it's like visiting a shell of a person."

When paramedics brought Terri into the emergency room of Northside Hospital and Heart Institute in 1990, she appeared to have had a heart attack. Her brain had been deprived of oxygen for at least 10 minutes. Because she was so young, doctors initially suspected a drug overdose. Conversations with her family ruled it out. The cause of her collapse was never fully determined but was eventually linked to severe potassium depletion, which could have been caused by her diet, but could also have been caused by efforts to resuscitate her. When she emerged from a coma weeks later, the damage done to her brain was obvious.

To the casual observer, she seemed then and now to be very much alive, if not coherent. Her eyes are open and at moments alert. She focuses and stares. She reacts to sounds and objects and people. She moans and wails. She appears to take joy in the sight of her mother.

Doctors cannot account for Terri's every movement and reaction, but the medical orthodoxy is clear about its view: She is in a permanent and irreversible vegetative state, incapable of interpreting the world around her.

"If the brain stem is intact," Dr. Schneiderman said, "their eyes can drift, they react to sounds, their arms and hands move if you hurt them. These are spinal cord reflexes. What makes it so tragic is that loved ones are convinced they're reacting to them."

In the days after her collapse, at the urging of a lawyer friend of Michael's, the Schindlers signed a document making Michael Terri's sole legal guardian -- a decision the Schindlers would later regret.

Six months after her collapse, the family moved Terri to her parents' house, where Michael also had begun living. The family took turns caring for her around the clock. The care became too difficult, so they moved her back to a nursing home.

Doctors were not optimistic about Terri's chances for improvement. They recommended an experimental surgery, and in December 1990, electrodes were implanted in Terri's brain to stimulate dormant brain cells. When no improvement was noticed, the family moved her in July 1991 to the Sabal Palms nursing home in Largo, Fla., where she would live for the next three years.

There, Michael was Terri's most constant companion. He kept her clenched hands dry so they would not become infected. To keep her muscles flexible, Michael and nurses moved her joints and put braces on her legs each day. He braced her head to keep it from falling forward. He brushed her teeth with great difficulty because she often bit down on the toothbrush. He suctioned the saliva and toothpaste from her mouth. He applied her makeup. About that time, Michael enrolled in nursing school, saying he wanted to learn how to take care of Terri.

Her parents visited about once a month, said a nurse, Diane Gomes, who cared for Terri at Palm Gardens nursing home in Largo almost every day from 1994 to 1996. But Michael, Gomes remembered, "was there every day," eight hours a day.

In 1992, Michael sued the doctors who cared for Terri before her collapse. He claimed she might have had an eating disorder, and that had the doctors tested her, they would have detected the potassium imbalance. One doctor settled. Another chose to go to trial. At the trial, in November 1992, Michael spoke optimistically. "I see myself hopefully finishing school and taking care of my wife," he said. "I want to bring my wife home."

His lawyers asked for $12 million for Terri's treatment and care, on the presumption that she would live another 51 years, and $4 million to compensate Michael for the loss of his wife. The jury found the doctor only partially responsible. In the end, the trial and the settlement netted Terri about $700,000 and Michael $300,000.

Michael and the Schindlers would soon become adversaries. On Valentine's Day 1993, they argued about the money. Michael said the Schindlers demanded a share of his award. The Schindlers say Michael refused to spend the money on Terri's treatment. In any case, they never spoke to each other again.

After the argument, Michael took away the Schindlers' privileges to view Terri's medical records. He said he did it out of spite and later regretted it. Three years later, he would restore their access. The Schindlers unsuccessfully sued to remove Michael as Terri's guardian.

In the summer of 1993, Terri developed a urinary tract infection. Doctors suggested Michael not treat the infection, and he agreed, he said. It was the first sign that Michael had given up some hope.

He also revealed for the first time to doctors -- and the Schindlers were informed -- that Terri had told him more than once that she would not want to be kept alive artificially, that the two had promised they would never allow each other to live hooked up to a machine.

When her parents objected, Michael ordered the infection treated.

His visits became less frequent, twice, maybe three times a week. He stayed about an hour at a time. He helped wash Terri's hair and get her dressed.

By 1995, Michael was in love with and living with another woman, whom he had been seeing for about two years. They would eventually have a child, even though Michael stayed legally married to Terri.

In 1997, Michael's mother died from cancer. The following year, Michael petitioned the court for permission to stop artificial feeding. In April 2000, after a probate judge approved the removal of the feeding tube, Michael moved Terri to a Woodside hospice. By then, he had finished nursing school and had started working as a respiratory therapist, the legacy of the years he spent caring for Terri.

"Only after his mother's death did Michael gain the emotional strength to end Terri's life," his lawyer George Felos said.

If the Florida appellate court permits Michael to stop feeding his wife, she will probably die within weeks. For patients already close to death, dehydration and starvation can be a relatively pleasant way to die, doctors say.

Terri's eyes will become dry and bloodshot. Her face will become thin. In the final days, her body will begin shutting down. Her heart will beat faster as her blood volume drops from lack of water. Blood pressure will drop and her hands and feet will become cold and mottled. She will no longer urinate and her kidneys will fail as toxins build up in her body. An infection might set in. Before she dies, she might have seizures or fall into a coma. Eventually, for the second time in her life, her heart will stop.

http://www.evelynmartens.ca/en-newsday-030414.html

Fla. Judge: Withdraw Life Support

August 8,2001

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - A judge has again ordered that a comatose woman's feedings be stopped, siding against her parents and in favor of the husband who believes she should be allowed to die.

The ruling by Pinellas Probate Court Judge George Greer instructs Michael Schiavo to tell hospice workers to end his wife's artificial feedings on Aug. 28. Terri Schiavo then would starve to death over a two-week period.

Her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, are seeking to keep their daughter alive and can file an appeal with the Second District Court of Appeal in Lakeland.

Also, both sides will be back in court Thursday for a hearing on the parents' recent lawsuit against Michael Schiavo. The parents will ask a separate judge to make sure that Terri Schiavo is kept alive while the suit is pending.

Tuesday's ruling "came as a shock to us," said George Felos, Michael Schiavo's attorney. "We didn't know an order was being entered. My client was completely take aback."

The Schindlers' attorneys were not immediately available for comment. Mary Schindler said the family has not had a chance to discuss the order and declined comment until later this week.

Terri Schiavo, 37, has been in a coma for more than 11 years after suffering a heart attack. She left no written instructions on her wishes, but her husband maintains she never would have wanted to be kept on life support.

In April, Greer ordered her feedings stopped after a court battle that ended with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy declining to accept the case.

Days later, however, the woman's parents filed the new lawsuit accusing Michael Schiavo of lying about his wife's wishes because he wanted to collect her inheritance and marry another woman.

The appeals court ordered the feeding tube reconnected, pending Greer's reconsideration of the case.

In Tuesday's order, Greer said the Schindlers have shown no new evidence that would change his earlier decision that Terri Schiavo would not have wanted to be kept alive artificially and that she has no chance of recovering basic brain functions.

Copyright 2001 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

http://data.intelihealth.com/pcn/general/00330456.htm

NOTE THE COMMENT FROM FELOS.....

Courts gave Schiavo case a full hearing

By Randy Schultz, Palm Beach Post Editor of the Editorial Page
Sunday, November 2, 2003

If you listen only to Gov. Bush and the Legislature talk about Terri Schiavo, you might think that the courts have rushed to end the life of a helpless woman. If you read what the courts actually have done and said, you understand that the governor and Legislature are wrong.

The story line from Tallahassee is loving parents vs. scheming husband, aided by reckless, uncaring judges. To the rescue come a compassionate, moral governor and Legislature. In reality, the cast and the roles don't line up quite so perfectly.

Pinellas County Circuit Judge George Greer has received most of the criticism because he ruled for Michael Schiavo. Reviewing his decisions, however, has been the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeal, which in June entered the ruling that led last month to the removal of Ms. Schiavo's feeding tube, which led to "Terri's Law," which led to the case being national news.

Chief Judge Chris Altenbernd, who wrote the ruling, is an Eagle Scout with two children. Gov. Bob Martinez, a Republican, named him to the appeals court. Carolyn Fulmer, one of the concurring judges, also has two children. Democrats Bob Graham and Lawton Chiles put on her on the circuit and appeals court, respectively. Judge Thomas E. Stringer has four children. Gov. Graham put him on the county court, Gov. Martinez put him on the circuit court, and Gov. Bush put him on the appeals court.

Parents got chance to prove theory

So this panel can be labeled neither "liberal" nor "conservative." Let's deal, then, with the two counts of the indictment: that the court acted hastily, and that the court is uncaring.

The June ruling was the fourth that the 2nd DCA has issued in the Schiavo case. Each time, the court eventually has upheld Judge Greer's finding that Terri Schiavo did not want to be kept alive artificially, and that the feeding tube can be removed.

In its third ruling, the appeals court noted that "clear and convincing evidence at the time of trial supported a determination that Mrs. Schiavo would have chosen in February 2000 to withdraw the life-prolonging procedures." Yet even then, the court did not dismiss outright the late claim by Terri Schiavo's parents, Mary and Bob Schindler, that therapy could help their daughter.

So the appeals court sent the case back to Judge Greer. The Schindlers, though, had to show that treatment would "significantly" improve Ms. Schiavo's life. The court ordered an examination by five physicians. At Judge Greer's hearing, the Schindlers "presented little testimony." The doctor who caused the appeals court to order the review did not appear. The one who did made a weak case.

'Care and a cautious legal standard'

"It is likely that no guardianship court," the judges said, "has ever received as much high-quality medical evidence in such a proceeding." The appeals court looked at the full-length videotapes of Ms. Schiavo, not the excerpts on TV news programs. The judges examined brain scans. The conclusion: Terri Schiavo is in a permanent vegetative state.

But as Judge Altenbernd noted in June: "Each of us, however, has our own family, our own loved ones, our own children... we understand why a parent who had raised and nurtured a child from conception would hold out hope that some level of cognitive function remained. If Mrs. Schiavo were our own daughter, we could not but hold to such a faith."

So the court sees Terri Schiavo as a person. The court knows the tragedy, of her condition, the family fight, the unpleasant decision. "It is a thankless task," Judge Altenbernd wrote, "and one to be taken with care, objectivity and a cautious legal standard designed to promote the value of life.

"But it is also a necessary function if all people are to be entitled to a personalized decision about life-prolonging procedures independent of the subjective and conflicting assessments of their friends and relatives... the law currently provides no better solution that adequately protects the interests of promoting the value of life."

It should have ended there. The courts have spent years on Terri Schiavo's case and acknowledged the difficulty. The governor and Legislature spent two hours and proclaimed themselves saviors. So who's being reckless and uncaring?

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