Fight over woman's feeding tube leaves husband's life in limbo (Terri Schiavo)

Salt Lake Tribune ^ | Nov. 1, 2003 | Abby Goodnough , NYT

[FairOpinion]

CLEARWATER, Fla. -- Michael Schiavo is 6 feet 6 inches, with a scrub-brush mustache and a gold chain bearing the crosses his parents wore. He is a nurse who works the graveyard shift, often pulling into his driveway as his neighbors walk their dogs in the moist Florida dawn. He has a meticulously kept yard, a screened-in pool where his friends sometimes gather, a golden retriever, a girlfriend and a year-old daughter.

"My brother is a normal guy who this tragedy happened to," said Brian Schiavo, one of the four brothers with whom Schiavo shared an unremarkable childhood in Levittown, Pa., near Philadelphia.

But because of the tragedy of Schiavo's wife, Terri, 39, who suffered brain damage when she collapsed one night 13 years ago, Michael Schiavo is also at the center of one of the most debated court cases in the nation. He wants to remove her feeding tube, paving the way for her death against the wishes of her parents and supporters who have rallied to their cause.

For this, Schiavo, 40, has been depicted as a heartless fiend.

As the case has gained prominence in recent months, Schiavo has all but refused to tell his side of the story publicly or answer the charges that his in-laws, and people who have never met him, keep leveling. Through his brother Brian and his lawyer, George Felos, he declined to be interviewed for this article.

But as the latest round in the legal battle over Terri Schiavo's fate begins, her husband's friends and relatives are speaking out. They describe a man driven from his home by death threats, who avoids going out in public but for work and court dates. He will not divorce his wife, marry his new love and get on with life, they say, because of his determination to carry out his wife's wish not to live in a vegetative state.

"He's got ethics and values that most people don't have, much less the strength to adhere to them," said Russ Hyden, a friend who said Michael Schiavo supported him through his wife's death from cancer.

Schiavo was two years out of high school when he met Theresa Marie Schindler in 1982, at Bucks County Community College in Pennsylvania. She had been overweight and frumpy until her senior year of high school, when she started dieting, and Schiavo was her first boyfriend, her family said.

The couple married in 1984, and two years later, decided to move to St. Petersburg, Fla., into a condominium that Terri Schiavo's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, owned.

When they were not working -- he as a restaurant manager, she as a clerk at Prudential -- they hung out by the pool at their apartment complex or in St. Pete Beach, thick with bars and dance clubs.

While Michael Schiavo's family describes those early years of the marriage as carefree, the Schindlers -- who moved to Florida around the time their daughter did -- say they became dark. Michael Schiavo was a penny pincher who kept track of the mileage on his wife's car and yelled at her for spending money on haircuts, they said.

The Schindlers say that on Feb. 25, 1990, Terri Schiavo told her brother that she and Schiavo had had a violent argument -- a claim Michael Schiavo denies. Michael Schiavo says his wife was asleep when he arrived home from work. In a rare interview on "Larry King Live," he said he awoke at 4:30 a.m. and heard a thud. It was his wife, whom he found on the floor, he said.

By the time paramedics arrived, Schiavo's heart had not pumped for perhaps 10 minutes, doctors found. The prevailing theory is that she had an undiagnosed potassium deficiency, possibly from extreme weight loss or even, her husband has said, bulimia. She had gone from more than 200 pounds in high school to 110 pounds.

The brain damage Schiavo suffered left her able to breathe on her own but not to ingest food or drink. Doctors have said she is in a persistent vegetative state, meaning her eyes are open, but her brain is incapable of emotion, memory or thought.

Brian Schiavo said his brother was determined to rehabilitate his wife.

Michael Schiavo flew his wife to California for treatment, sleeping on a cot beside her bed for a month. He began studying nursing, to take better care of her. He and his wife lived with the Schindlers for a while, and he filed a malpractice suit against Terri Schiavo's doctors for failing to diagnose her health problems. In November 1992, the Schiavos won $1 million in damages: $700,000 for her care, the rest for him.

When the check arrived, the war began. Both sides say that on Valentine's Day, 1993, Michael Schiavo and his father-in-law had an ugly fight in the nursing home where Terri Schiavo was then living. The Schindlers say the fight was about what kind of treatment the money would go toward, with them advocating rigorous therapy and Schiavo wanting only basic care. But Schiavo said it was because Schindler wanted a cut of the settlement.

Schiavo's belief that his wife would recover had evaporated by 1997, his supporters say, when he lost his mother to cancer. But the other side points out that as early as 1993, soon after he won the malpractice money, Michael Schiavo did not want to treat an infection his wife had developed and that he had stopped her rehabilitation even earlier.

Only after his mother's death did Schiavo tell his in-laws that on several occasions, his wife had said she would not want to be kept alive artificially. The timing of the revelation -- after he won the malpractice money and after he began seeing Jodi Centonze, with whom he would eventually have a child -- made the Schindlers deeply suspicious.

For a long time, the Schindlers accused Schiavo of wanting his wife dead so he could spend her settlement money. But Michael Schiavo's lawyer said all but $60,000 has been spent on medical care and legal fees, and that his client would not see a penny of what remains.

Brian Schiavo said his brother felt betrayed by everyone from the Schindlers to the news media to Gov. Jeb Bush, who used a law rushed through the Legislature recently to order Schiavo's feeding tube reinserted. Schiavo has sued to have the law ruled unconstitutional.

[LADYAK]

I thought that it was part of your brain that keeps you breathing on your own....??? If that is the case then there is some form of her brain functioning.

[Saundra Duffy]

For this, Schiavo, 40, has been depicted as a heartless fiend.

Exactly.

[carenot]

Why can't any of you at least SEE another side. YES, the tragedy happened to him too. You would be more credible if you offered up arguments that weren't 100% emotion driven.

I am credible. I read his side.
I watched him on Larry King Live.

He will not allow CNN cameras in her room. He will not take a lie detector test.

He said yes he had one little girl with his new honey but negleted to say she was fixin to pop another. She did a day or so later.

Then he negleted to say that he had put his house and other stuff in the other woman's name. The woman he has been living with, that he says they have no plans to marry.

Just DANG!

[sweetliberty]

"a nurse who works the graveyard shift"

How appropriate.

"Schiavo has all but refused to tell his side of the story publicly or answer the charges that his in-laws, and people who have never met him, keep leveling"

Perhaps because he knows there is nothing he can say that couldn't later be used against him. It is foolish to try and defend the indefensible.

"He's got ethics and values that most people don't have, much less the strength to adhere to them,"

Thank God most people don't have his "ethics."

"Doctors have said she is in a persistent vegetative state, meaning her eyes are open, but her brain is incapable of emotion, memory or thought."

"(SOME)Doctors have said she is in a persistent vegetative state, meaning her eyes are open, but her brain is incapable of emotion, memory or thought."

I am just not able to believe that, at any level, based on what I have seen.

.

"Brian Schiavo said his brother felt betrayed by everyone from the Schindlers to the news media to Gov. Jeb Bush, who used a law rushed through the Legislature recently to order Schiavo's feeding tube reinserted."

Yeah, Michael is the victim here.

[Saundra Duffy]

Michael Schiavo feels betrayed. Ha! It's all about HIM. This is an interesting article.

[LADYAK]

So she does have function of her brainstem:

The Brainstem controls the most important functions of the body needed to keep you alive. It controls your breathing, the pumping of your heart, and other important functions. Injury or damage to this part of the brain can be very harmful, because you would not be able to breathe and your heart would not beat.

[Saundra Duffy]

He will not allow CNN cameras in her room. He will not take a lie detector test.

Bingo!

[tessalu]

No matter how you try to dress up this attempted murder of Terri Schiavo, Michael Schiavo is still guilty of attmepted murder. Oh, yes, just in case you did not know, all murderers want their victims dead, and he is no different.

[sweetliberty]

"Here's yet another example of liberal media championing the possible second attempt at murder of his wife by Michael Shiavo"

Possible 4th, don't you mean, if, in fact, he was responsible for the "injury" in the first place? Even if not, he is still working on the 3rd. Her feeding tube has already been removed twice now. Now he is trying to have the law overturned that is protecting her Constitutional right to life on the grounds, of all things, that it is unconstitutional! If that happens, then he will be free to make another effort to kill her, all nice and proper and legal, of course.

[Saundra Duffy]

If I'm not mistaken, the actor Christopher Reeves needs help with his breathing since his horse-riding accident. I don't recall his loving wife hiring lawyers and raising hell about how his life should be terminated. You know, remove all the mechanical gizmos and let him die. For God's sake, I wish Michael Schiavo would be held accountable for his despicable actions.

[ClancyJ]

Yes, poor pitiful guy. This case does not pass the smell test.

It is just not realistic to believe that this man is willing to fight court cases for 14 years to be able to let his wife die based on her casually saying she would not want to live in such a state.

With a live-in and two children - he is not "still" in love with Terri after only a 3-year marriage in which there was talk from Terri to a friend of divorce.

His actions are not realistic. A normal husband who has moved on to another family would be willing to allow the parents to treat her condition and take over the responsibility - especially since they absolutely beg him to allow it. Any normal man would feel pity for the in-laws wanting their daughter to live.

How many divorced men who have remarried and have two children would spend all the effort to fight law cases to allow an ex-wife's life to be extinguished? Wouldn't their interests be atuned to the new family, making a living? Why would they be obsessed with an ex-wife's status - unless there was a reason he could not afford to have her live.

Why would he be willing to take actions resulting in death threats and public outrage just to extinguish a life? Why the strong need for the death of Terri?

Wouldn't the average person listen to the other side and work out a compromise?

On top of this - we have all the denial of medical reports and information on her condition to the parents, denial of visits.

IMHO - there is an over-riding strong need for him to see Terri dead. A need strong enough that he has fought legal cases for years, gone to ultimate lengths to prevent information on her condition and exerted undue sole responsibility for her condition.

Why? It is not because she casually mentioned she did not want to live in such a condition. A 25-year old is never that firm about such things at that time in their life - they are too focused on living.

[pickyourpoison]

I seem to remember from another thread that the house is not in MS's name but in the girlfriends name.

I noticed in the article that they mention the crosses he wears around his neck but mentioned nothing about his melting TS ring and making a ring for himself.

[sweetliberty]

"He comes across as a smarmy, egotistical little snot."

Maybe that's because that is what he is. Just a hunch.

[carenot]

Things like this that are said years later are truly not reliable.

Yes, like when he said that she said she didn't want to be on life support.

Since when is feeding a sick or disabled person life support?

He remembered she said that after he won the money.

[Hildy]

What is wrong with melting a wedding ring and making another ring out of it to wear for always??? He believes she's dead.

[ClancyJ]

Yes, our views sure change as we age.

My mother had always said much the same - she did not want to live that old and be in that condition, etc., etc. Yet, a few years ago, in trying to help her fill out the nursing home Living Will, I asked if she would want resusitation should something happen. Her reply? "Of course, wouldn't anyone?"

I've come to learn that it is too hard to judge the life quality of others, except those in extreme pain.

Why? Because God gave us the ability to adapt. The cripple adapts to being a cripple and ceases to enjoy running, etc. because he can't and those actions are not comfortable any longer. We come to want activities that we enjoy and this enjoyment changes as our abilities change.

Therefore, possibly the retarded person is happy even though they can do none of the things we feel cause happiness. The aged are content in their memories, their food, their comforts - not in traveling, not in working.

Best to leave end of life judgement to God who does understand all.

[sweetliberty]

"I don't think he spent all that money on her care."

No, he didn't. He paid it to the smarmy lawyer who is trying to get her killed....with the court's blessing of course. Judge Greer thought it was just fine for him to spend the money awarded specifically for Terri's rehabilitation on fees to the agent of death, while Medicaid pays the hospice bill. And seeing how she is not now, nor has she ever been terminal, she shouldn't have ever been accepted to hospice to begin with, but thanks to the good ol' boy network in Pinellas Country, laws are merely inconveniences to be stepped around.

[sweetliberty]

"You would be more credible if you offered up arguments that weren't 100% emotion driven."

Okay, the simple version: it is WRONG to KILL a person, no matter who you are or for what reason. Starvation and dehydration is killing. Food is NOT medical treatment. We can't starve and dehydrate animals nor criminals on death row because it is considered cruel. Why should it be acceptable to starve a disabled person who is neither dying and who has committed no crime?

[Chocolate Rose]

Hello All! This is my first post.

pickyourpoison, check November 1993
Michael Schiavo Deposition, Guardianship Hearing.

Here is a quote about the rings. This really chapped me!!

Q. What did you do with your wife's jewelry?
A. My wife's jewelry?

Q. Yeah.
A. Um, I think I took her engagement ring and her...what do they call it...diamond wedding band and made a ring for myself.

[tessalu]

I wonder what percentage of people in the USA would like to be starved to death and denied even a drink of water in their last days upon this earth?

I pray that no one ever try to do this to me when I am helpless.