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."
bump
February 25, 1990
Terri Schiavo suffers cardiac arrest, taken to Humana Hospital where she remains in a coma for weeks, comes out into a vegetative state. There, she is given (PEG) tube to provide nutrition and hydration.
May 12, 1990
Terri Schiavo is discharged from the hospital and taken to the College Park skilled care and rehabilitation facility.
June 18, 1990
Court appoints Michael Schiavo as guardian; Terri Schiavo’s parents do not object.
June 30, 1990
Terri Schiavo is transferred to Bayfront Hospital for further rehabilitation efforts.
September 1990
Terri Schiavo’s family brings her home, but three weeks later they return her to the College Park facility because the family is “overwhelmed by Terri’s care needs.”
November 1990
Michael Schiavo takes Terri Schiavo to California for experimental “brain stimulator” treatment, an experimental “thalamic stimulator implant” in her brain.
January 1991
The Schiavos return to Florida; Terri Schiavo is moved to the Mediplex Rehabilitation Center in Brandon where she receives 24-hour care.
July 19, 1991
Terri Schiavo is transferred to Sable Palms skilled care facility where she receives continuing neurological testing, and regular and aggressive speech/occupational therapy through 1994.
May 1992
Terri Schiavo’s parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, and Michael Schiavo stop living together.
August 1992
Terri Schiavo is awarded $250,000 in an out-of-court medical malpractice settlement with one of her physicians.
November 1992
The jury in the medical malpractice trial against another of Terri’s physicians awards more than one million dollars for not diagnosing her apparent bulimia. In the end, after subtracting 70% due to Terri's own responsibility, attorneys’ fees and other expenses,
Michael Schiavo received about $300,000 and
about $750,000 was put in a trust fund specifically for Terri Schiavo’s medical care.
February 14, 1993
Michael Schiavo and the Schindlers have a falling-out over the course of therapy for Terri Schiavo; Michael Schiavo claims that the Schindlers demand that he share the malpractice money with them.
July 29, 1993
Schindlers attempt to remove Michael Schiavo as Terri Schiavo’s guardian; the court later dismisses the suit.
March 1, 1994
First guardian ad litem, John H. Pecarek, submits his report. He states that Michael Schiavo has acted appropriately and attentively toward Terri Schiavo.
May 1998
Michael Schiavo petitions the court to authorize the removal of Terri Schiavo’s PEG tube; the Schindlers oppose, saying that Terri would want to remain alive. The court appoints Richard Pearse, Esq., to serve as the second guardian ad litem for Terri Schiavo.
December 20, 1998
The second guardian ad litem, Richard Pearse, Esq., issues his report in which he concluding that Terri Schiavo is in a persistent vegetative state with no chance of improvement and that Michael Schiavo’s decision-making may be influenced by the potential to inherit the remainder of Terri Schiavo’s estate.
January 24, 2000
The trial begins; Pinellas-Pasco County Circuit Court Judge George Greer presides.
February 11, 2000
Judge Greer rules that Terri Schiavo would have chosen to have the PEG tube removed, and therefore he orders it removed, which, according to doctors, will cause her death in approximately 7 to 14 days.
...and so it all began.
Don't you think she would feel like being active when the one guy that can save her life is there trying to do just that?
You sound experienced with these types of patients and I love your tag line!!
I've looked these things up.He might say what level of care she receives beyound just the basic no frills care but hospice still has to act within some medical ethical guildlines. If they just did whatever he said then maybe whe would be dead already.
"We all must be delusional, including Terri's family and a number of visitors she's had over the years and Attorney Barbara Weller."
You all are. Bigtime.
"Ever see that Steven Hawking guy? He can't talk or walk or hardly even move."
Yeah, but he's got a brain that works, and a brilliant one too. With a brain (cerebral cortex, the cognizant part of the brain) you still think and function; without one you don't.
Sounds like she was sedated when he came to visit.
And....does anyone remember the insulin vials found on
the floor and under her bed. She isn't diabetic.
Michael is a nurse - right? Is it possible he can
acquire whatever he needs?
Don't mean to point fingers, I just want the whole truth -
good, bad or indifferent!
Then you might want to read the article again. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
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.
You didn't read the article did you?
No I'm not medical. I've just spent time with people like this, however, in a ministering context. Being labeled learning disabled myself, I went to school with some who had severe problems.
Michael worked as a restaurant manager when she collapsed. Didn't become a nurse until years later.
Please read the report before you bash the author.
I did read the article. I must have missed the part where they mentioned he was an MD.
Read his actual report.
I believe that some forms of insulin *are* available without a prescription. So he possibly could have acquired some forms of insulin easily enough.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.