Posted on 04/06/2005 5:03:58 AM PDT by johnny7
I spent much of last Thursday trying to sort out my feelings about the death of Terri Schiavo. Had I been her mother I would have done my utmost to preserve my daughter's life, just as Mary Schindler did. I would have fought the doctors and the courts and Terri's husband, Michael. I would have railed and screamed and prayed. To watch your precious daughter die by starvation is far more painful than accepting your own mortality: this is a child you have nurtured and played with and shepherded through the turbulence of teenhood and dressed in a wedding gown.
Had I been her husband, Michael, I would have found it equally painful to watch my beautiful wife descend into a form of torpor and to remain in this state for 15 years. Michael has been vilified for starting a relationship with another woman and having children with her. But for the first years of Terri's hospitalization he did his utmost to seek special therapies for her; he bought her comfortable, stylish clothing so she would look her best; he enrolled in nursing school so he could understand the complexities of her medical care. I can't judge him for entering another relationship. He was a young man; he wanted children. Why he didn't divorce Terri, I don't know. Clearly he still felt responsible for her.
The reasons for Terri's death, however, go beyond the removal of a feeding tube and family and court battles. They go beyond medical ethics and religion. Terri suffered from an eating disorder that led to dangerously low potassium levels that led to cardiac arrest. Her brain was not fed with enough oxygen and this led to severe damage to her cerebral cortex, the seat of reason and emotion. She lapsed into a vegetative state. Her brain could make her heart beat but it couldn't make her sensible to her surroundings. Terri had been an overweight teenager, at one point weighing 250 pounds. Didn't her loving parents worry when they saw their daughter shrink to 110 pounds? Didn't her husband notice she ate very little and purged after meals? Did her family or her friends question her extreme eating habits?
It is likely Terri was complimented by how terrific she looked and this would have encouraged her to continue to deprive her body of food. It is true the bloated features in her high school class picture had been transformed; the bulimia had allowed her to become a delicate beauty. She resembled the young Elizabeth Taylor. Her weight loss was validated, at a horrible cost. Terri Schiavo's case, like that of singer Karen Carpenter who died of anorexia, is an excruciating reminder to parents to be vigilant about their children's eating habits -- even if those children are young adults and tell us to mind our own business. We need to persist in helping them. According to the National Eating Disorders Association, "anorexia and bulimia affect nearly 10 million women and 1 million men (primarily teens and young adults)." That is a huge number of our children.
If Terri's parents or her husband or her family doctor had stopped for a moment and wondered about her swanlike transformation, maybe she never would have suffered that cardiac arrest and lapsed into catatonia. But our society admires thinness -- the Rubenesque Marilyn Monroe likely would be considered too plump these days -- and so some of our children, in the quest to look attractive, may starve themselves. Even to their death. That is what Terri Schiavo's story has communicated so clearly.
Now it is 250, huh?
Might try People Magazine....pictures this week from high school
So people whp suffer from bulemia are evil? Interesting.
Terri's coworker stated in her affidavit that michael was furious with terri for getting an 80 dollar hairdue, and that terri was going to pretend to be asleep when michael got home that night to avoid his anger, after refusing to spend night with coworker.
Terri's coworker also stated that michael the controller would check terri's car odometer to make sure she had not gone anywhere he did not know about.
This is, of course, the friend of Terri's who was planning to divorce her husband and move into an apt wiht Terri as they both wanted to get out of unhappy marriages.
People do not usually come forward with information unless it is upon their hearts...many were afraid of michael and his anger.
michael was under a psychiatrists care at the time of terri's collapse...and this psychiatrist WARNED the Schindler's to call 911 immediately if michael showed a further sign of violence because he had the potential to cause harm. These were the words of a psychiatrist ! (Michael had begun to get physical with Terri's sister while living with the shindlers after terri's collapse....Suzanne did not like the way he was treating her parents and he exploded at her...Mr. Schindler got inbetween them...then called the psychiatrist treating michael because he was worried...
So........does it not stand to reason, in a kind of OJ kind of way, (remember...the homocide police were called by the paramedics when they discovered terri...and the only prescription meds they found were for michael....FOUR anti-depressents..etc....prozac was one of the four prescriptions whose name I remember) that michael, the CONTROLLER of ALL, the LAPDOG of all that is HURTFUL and SELFISH.....DROVE TERRI TO DESPARATE MEASURES...including an eating disorder (if she had one)...this has been known to happen!
Oh PEOPLE..oh okay I did not know it was from such a credible source..LOL
Eh, ya pig. Ya fat pig. Fatty fat fatso. Eatin again? Bet ya ate good at your parents last night, di'ntcha. Betcha' ate real good. How much ya weigh this morning pig? HOW MUCH! You're lucky I married you, nobody else would have, hell for the life of me I can't remember why I did. piggy, piggy, piggy.
Oh, I bet he noticed all right.
Their atty's should have informed them huh?
...affiniants didn't have actual knowledge of that report, although counsel in argument conceded that the report was available, and was in the possession of Respondants' (The Schendliers) several attourneys over time.
http://abstractappeal.com/schiavo/trialctorder11-02-scan.pdf
Imagine that.
What idiotic contention. Her "loving" husband, according to friends, threatened to leave her if she gained weight. If she even had bulimia, he is the one the put the pressure on her to look a certain way.
Now there's a nifty argument! Thanks for a laugh :-)
I read it. It is indefinite as to the meaning of "over time."
The court's order does not refute the assertion that "the Schindlers didn't learn that the bone scan existed until 2002."
You could not be MORE CORRECT!!! And, I thank you very much for posting this other info - as these things I had not yet come across. Good ammunition for further threads, articles, etc. Thank you, my FReeper FRiend! JK
Unforgivable liberal media making excuses for Michael. It is looking very unbelievable.
"Oh PEOPLE..oh okay I did not know it was from such a credible source.."
Any less credible than the gossip floating on FR?
"The court's order does not refute the assertion that "the Schindlers didn't learn that the bone scan existed until 2002."
Yeah, the atty's did't tell them until they looked for another reason to go to court. The parents probably didn't even consider such because of other info. they received contrary to the bone scan report. You know, x-rays that don't show fracture. ;-)
The writer has an axe to grind. I haven't seen pictures of Terri at her heaviest, so I can't judge. Her later pics show her to be a petite, healthy looking girl.
Here's your assignment: post side by side pics of Karen Carpenter and Terri. She could have had an eating disorder, but that doesn't have anything to do with the bone scan findings.
Tell the Media to report the REAL Schiavo polls!
http://capwiz.com/sicminc/issues/alert/?alertid=7351686&type=ME
My account, etc. of Terri Schindler's Funeral Mass:
http://tekgnosis.typepad.com
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