Man I thought I would have a heart attack!! Am I ansy or what!! I saw this thread appear on the front page and immediately( without bothering to check the date!) was hoping that we were seeing our miracle!!..........boo...old post!!
Polly....
Interesting how he is turning down money now. He has definitely been offered $ 1 million dollars and turned it down. He also has reportedly turned down over $10 million dollars in pay-offs to walk away from this. Did you ever think that he is actually following her wishes.
The reason she has been diagnosed as being in a persistant vegetative state is that her EEG (Electroencephalography) which shows brain electrical activity, commonly called brain waves, has shown no activity. She continues have reflexive movements as they do not travel to the brain.
We need to remember that this could be our wife or husband who has told us they wouldn't want to live like this. We would hope that the government would let us follow our spouses wishes. Remember Terri chose this man to be her husband, and as her husband he has the moral and legal responsibility to follow her wishes. You would think that the GOP (Jeb and Florida's senate), when we promote ourselves as representing less government, would not want to get involved in this matter.
As for the religious argument that people have made - do you really think that God needs our help in performing a miracle. If God wants her to get better, don't you think that he has the power to do so.
Lastly, as a physician I can tell you that Terri would not starve to death, per se. She would become dehydrated. There is a big difference as that her kidneys would fail first. As her kidneys failed the toxins that are normally secreted by the kidneys would build up and would make any perception of what was going on impossible. This is called uremia. Not that this is an issue because the EEGs have shown that she will not perceive anything. Her electrolytes would become unbalanced (her potassium would rise) and she would go back into the fatal heart rhythm that led to this state until she did not perfuse her brain for long enough for her respiratory center of her brain to fail, and she would die.
You should also realize that a person who has lived like this for over a decade has multiple long term effects of living like this. She has contracted joints. This can happen no matter how often you stretch someone. She also likely has bedsores, also can happen no matter how much you turn someone. She definitely has muscle atrophy, as can be seen in pictures - also unavoidable if you are not moving and exercising yourself. They say that it takes 3 days to recover from everyday that you are sick, but realistically in 40 years+ she would still not have recovered. You cannot blame her husband for this problems. I have taken care of family members of some very rich people, who have multiple full-time assistants and they still have these problems.
Please stop and think - is she suffering now?