Posted on 03/18/2005 10:22:14 PM PST by nickcarraway
TAMPA, Fla. - (KRT) - Two dark scenarios haunt Jay Wolfson even now, a year and a half after his brief appointment to be a neutral arbiter, a guardian, an unbiased observer, the one man asked by the state of Florida to stand in Terri Schiavo's shoes.
One is that the severely brain-damaged woman is in a terrible lightless place, aware of nothing but a yawning, endless hopelessness.
The other is that even though he never elicited a response from her, despite all the pleading and cajoling he did at her bedside, that he might have missed some subtle, nearly invisible signs that she was somewhere in there, aware.
"Imagine not having hope and being aware that's all you had was no hope. The horror. It's like not being, but knowing that you're not," said Wolfson recently in his Tampa-area office. "That's one thing. The other is, what if she's knocking on a door somewhere and I was walking through all the wrong corridors and I missed it. What if?"
Wolfson was appointed by a Florida court in the fall of 2003 to be Schiavo's guardian ad litem, or guardian at law, to deduce Schiavo's best interests and represent neither her husband nor her parents but Terri Schiavo herself.
This makes Wolfson one of the very few people to have spent extended time with Schiavo and gauged her level of awareness without having a vested interest at stake.
In the end, after long hours at Schiavo's bedside and after poring over 30,000 pages of legal documents, Wolfson concluded that Schiavo was indeed in a permanent vegetative state.
It wasn't the conclusion he'd hoped to make.
"You want to weigh in on life as opposed to death," Wolfson said. "You want some way to elicit a response."
Wolfson was appointed Schiavo's guardian after the Florida Legislature passed "Terri's Law" in 2003, a move that allowed doctors to reinsert her feeding tube, despite a judge's ruling that it should be removed. The law has since been struck down as unconstitutional.
Wolfson, who has a law degree and a PhD and is a distinguished service professor of public health and medicine at the University of South Florida, was asked to decide whether Schiavo's feeding tube should be removed and whether more tests should be done to assess her ability to swallow.
He scoured 13 years' worth of legal documents and extensively interviewed Schiavo's husband, Michael, and her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler. His time with Schiavo was spent trying to determine whether she was aware of and interactive with the world.
At first, walking into Schiavo's room, he was struck by her presence, even though he knew in advance that she drifted between wakefulness and sleep.
"She's a person, like you or I, and the first disconcerting part is that she's awake," said Wolfson.
When awake, Schiavo's eyes rolled about the room. She made random noises that sounded like groaning or the start of a laugh or cry.
But court documents said Schiavo's cerebral cortex, where reason and emotions are housed, had degenerated to fluid. So Wolfson set about trying to determine whether Schiavo's noises and jerks were merely reflexive or if they indicated something more.
He played Elton John CDs for her, and Bach and Mozart and music from the late 1980s, when she was in her 20s, prior to her collapse. He held her hands, squeezing them, and stroked her hair and face.
He put his face close to hers and tried to make eye contact, pleading desperately, trying to will her into giving him any kind of sign.
"I would beg her, `Please, Terri, help me,'" he said. "You want to believe there's some connection. You hope she's going to sit up and bed and say, `Hey, I'm really here, but don't tell anybody.' Or, `I'm really here, tell everybody!'"
But Schiavo never made eye contact. When Wolfson visited her when her parents were there, she never made eye contact with them either, he said. And for all of Wolfson's pleadings and coaxing, he never got what he most wanted: a sign.
"I felt like there was something distinctive about whoever Terri is," said Wolfson. "But I was not clear that it was there, inside the vessel."
Wolfson was dismayed to learn Friday that Barbara Weller, an attorney for the Schindlers, claimed that Schiavo tried to speak. "Terri does not speak," he said. "To claim otherwise reduces her to a fiction."
One thing Wolfson never doubted was that for all their intense, mutual antagonism, both Michael Schiavo and Terri's parents love and adore her.
She was cared for incredibly well, Wolfson said. Her hair was always combed, and after 15 years of being incapacitated, she never developed a bedsore. In fact, Wolfson said until about seven years ago, Michael Schiavo had Terry's makeup and hair done regularly, and her clothes changed every day - to the point that hospice staff protested that he was being overly demanding about her care.
Also, Wolfson concluded, Schiavo would never have tolerated the enormous, "omnipresent" acrimony between her husband and parents.
In the 38-page report he wrote afterwards, Wolfson said the best decision for Schiavo could be made only if both sides agreed to fresh, independent medical testing. If the new testing showed she couldn't swallow on her own and that Schiavo had no hope for improvement, then the feeding tube should be pulled.
Both parties were on the verge of agreeing to these new conditions, Wolfson said, but once the Florida Supreme Court struck down Terri's Law his efforts were moot.
Wolfson still refuses to give his personal opinion on whether Terri's feeding tube should or should not have been pulled.
But he will say, as a parent of three sons, that after doing everything one can, sometimes the time comes to let go.
"When it evolves beyond that person into issues that are other people's issues or are broader issues, it becomes less objectifiable," said Wolfson. "It's hard to be objective anyway. This is the kind of thing you don't wish on anybody."
Yeah, what a lie that is. She has a standing order of pain medication for menstrual cramps! How can a "brain dead" person have menstrual cramps?
The broken bones at different stages of healing warranted an investigation long ago. In addition, Michael kept those x-rays secret from the Schindlers for 12 years, from 1991 to 2003. THAT makes them highly suspect.
There is no MRI which makes those who say Terri's brain turned to liquid a bunch of liars.Her big spending husband refuses to allow her to have an MRI even though most doctors say it is needed to find out the extent of her brain damage.
I'd ask you again to read the documents I showed you, but after the last time, I know you wont. You don't want to know facts that get in the way of your conspiracy theory.
What kills me is that it's so unnecessary - and worse. There are good reasons not to pull Terri's tube. Focusing on this other nonsense just muddies the water and kills credibility of those whew spew such misinformation.
Some do it innocently, but others say the lies are worthy lies - "anything for Terri". And gullible people soak it up.
I would like to see Terri's blood tests before the accident.
Terri had only lost 65 pounds, not the 100 you suggest. She did so over a few years, which is not extreme.
Life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias can occur when the serum potassium is very low (< 2 meq/L), or when the serum potassium is relatively low (2 - 3 meq/L) in patients with underlying heart disease, or when the patient is digoxin-toxic....and there are no indications that Terri had underlying heart disease. This really should not have happened.
The very fact that her 26 year old body had "collapsed" from supposed diet abuse, yet there have been no signs of that damaged in the last 15 years...is very suspect. After what she has been through, and is still alive, her will to live is very evident. If her heart and other organs had been so weakened to cause cardic failure, she would have surely died in the two previous starvation attempts.
Mikie left her face down in the carpet, even though he did know CPR...that caused the damage to Terri's brain. If he did not cause this with abuse, he certainly caused this with neglect. He called his brother in law before he called the ambulance. He did not even move her.
Mike does not love her, or have her best interests in mind. Nothing about Terri would lead anyone to believe that she would wish her parents to be put through this hell. If Mike really loved her, he would be kind to the family she loved so much, out of respect for his wife. That is what love is.
Chris Reeve never wanted to stay alive without the use of his body either. His mother tried to unplug him, because she thought that is what he would want. Yet, he didn't! Chris changed his mind. And over the last 10 years of his life, he also changed the minds of hundreds of other accident victims.
The Red Zone can you get this to someone to ping this out?
I don't have my ping list.
CALL THE WHITE HOUSE SWITCHBOARD:
Switchboard: 202-456-1414 -- live person
Call and find out when they are going to send in the federal marshals to rescue Terri Schiavo (a congressional witness) who is being right now being subjected to the threat of death.
Ask that the President also get Atty. General Gonzales involved.
Spread this. Post to your locales if you are from another state. Please do this! Post it to others who aren't on freep as well.
I'm sorry, Lainde, I missed your ping.
You ask, " if she felt so strongly about this, WHY were her family members unaware of her feelings. That doesn't pass the smell test."
My only answer would be that her parents were so strongly against removing life-support, they didn't even think it was right to remove the ventilator from Karen Ann Quinlan. We know Terri knew that, by her mother's testimony.
I wouldn't have told them, either. : / It would have just caused unnecessary angst.
I wish she had written her wishes out, though 15 years ago, it was very rare for anyone to do so.
It could very well have been that she had been sedated before Wolfson's visits, especially if they were scheduled in advance. A member of the staff could have 'honored the request' in order to make sure they didn't lose their job. It is my understanding that Michaels's attorney is part owner of this hospice. I'd call that suspicious to the say the least, and very likely a conflict of interest.
I'm a doctorate level biochemist, which means I can and do understand the technology completely. The hype is that they are a source of bountiful energy. They aren't. In order to get the hydrogen to put into them, more energy has to be used to break the covalent bonds attaching the hydrogen to other atoms than is ever possible to regain by reforming those bonds (which is how the fuel cell releases energy). It's not that they don't work, it's that they are not a source of energy. Anyway, this is all rather off-topic.
The very court document you sourced, stated she had lost 65 pounds a few years before the collapse.
Anyway, that does not matter.
Some of the blood work suggests bulimia.
Yet some does not. The timing of the collapse, causes a bit of doubt to the bulimic scenerio. Mikie says that he heard a "thump" at 6 am. Usually a call will come for a patient who has expired in the night, and have been found in the morning. Most bulimics/anorexics in this condition have already been in treatment for their disease, and have already had a history of medical problems before a collapse of this type. And the heart damage is evident forever.
Also, a bulimic almost always has other OCD habits. Terri does not seem to have that history.
A history of low potassium will cause brittle hair and nails and evident dry skin. These were not the case in Terri's history.
What did your friend's husband say about the blood pressure? It was very low. Did your friend's husband talk to the doctors to find out if it was high before the collapse? Low Potassium causes High Blood Pressure.
The other blood work, and the history does not seem to correspond to the eating disorder diagnoses either.
I do not pretend to know more than a doctor, but I am an EMT and have seen many things---but never this type of brain damage in a heart failure from Anorexia. The Anorexic/bulimics who I have witnessed were very skeletal. They either are not resusitated, or they are revived. No brain damage. They usually have a history of diet pills too. Terri did not.
I have seen brain damage from diabetics who collapse, though. It was the first thing I thought had happened. Especially with a blood sugar that high.
This is a dramatic event on a healthy girl. There is no evidence of a cardiac arrest on Terri's serial Ekgs or in her blood work. The heart arrhythmias seem to be secondary to the brain hypoxia. What caused the hypoxia? What caused the neck injury? What caused the blindness in her eye? The damage to her knee, femur and back?
The EMT's on the scene felt the situation was fishy, so they called the cops. They witnessed Mikies demeanor and his lack of assistance to Terri--and thought something was wrong.
Indeed, it is "off-topic", so I won't go into detail. I would just point out that the "hype" around fuel cells is not that they are a boundless energy source, rather that they are a "clean" energy source. And, indeed they are. But, I'm just a Chemical Engineer that sells them.
I must say..... I have found Free Republic to be very dissapointing in this whole debate about Terri Schiavo. I can't recall any issue where I've seen so much dis-information. I guess the truth is here, in places. But, you have to read through TONS of mis-quotes, half-truths, and ignorant rants to get to it.
This case is so complex, and so full of conflicting information, it is virtually impossible to know what the "right" answer is. So much depends on what lies in the hearts of the people involved. Only God can truly know. After reading, I don't find Michael to be the Satan that I'd been led to believe. I don't fault him for moving on with his life. I would want my wife to have done the same. However, what I just don't understand is... If her parents want to continue care, what's it to him? Let them. Let go and move on with your life. But, he appears hell-bent to see this through. THAT, I simply don't understand.
On the occasions when appeals courts consider facts, they are required to view all evidence favoring the trial court's judgement in the best possible light, and all evidence opposing it in the worst possible light. That they would uphold a trial court's findings under such circumstances should not be surprising.
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