Where were Schiavo's loved ones as eating disorder led to downfall? [Parents killed her]

Chicago Sun-Times ^ | April 6, 2005 | BY S. JENNIFER HUNTER

[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.

[xzins]

I don't think 110 pounds for a 5'4" or shorter woman is too little. Does anyone know her height?

I also agree that if she was purging herself that it was the husband who was living intimately close to her and not the parents.

This is another hit piece justification of murdering the woman by the MSM.

[somerville]

I've interviewed many people who had loved ones who were bulimic. It often takes years and years for them to catch on to the bulimic behavior.

[ladyjane]

Blame that victim! Make her responsible for her own murder. She asked for it! Her parents too! /s

[verity]

This will be good for a 200 post pissing contest.

[T'wit]

>> She was boliemic,

Rubbish. Even Michael Schiavo denied that she was bulimic. Now what's your theory? And please account for her broken ribs, broken ankles, broken knees, a broken back, a broken femur and major head trauma.

[somerville]

Most relatives of bulimics don't catch on to the bulimic behavior for years. Bulimics can be pretty crafty about hiding their disorder. I do believe she had some kind of eating disorder.

I do find it ironic that she was starved to death, however.

[somerville]

I saw Michael on television saying she was bulimic.

[MamaTexan]

Amendment I guarantees the ignorant the right to reveal themselves to the rest of us. I like that a lot.

LOL!

I like it too, but I still sometime wish they were required to have 'STUPID' tattooed on their foreheads...

At least the we would be able to see them coming! :)

[Diogenesis]

Interviewing seems somewhat hearsay when its about other people.

FReepers look to the pictures and data, themselves.

" 9. Between September 1939 and April 1945 the defendants Karl Brandt, Blome, Brack, and Hoven unlawfully, willfully, and knowingly committed war crimes, as defined by Article II of Control Council Law No. 10, in that they were principals in, accessories to, ordered, abetted, took a consenting part in, and were connected with plans and enterprises involving the execution of the so-called "euthanasia" program of the German Reich in the course of which the defendants herein murdered hundreds of thousands of human beings, including nationals of German-occupied countries. This program involved the systematic and secret execution of the aged, insane, incurably ill, of deformed children, and other persons, by gas, lethal injections, and diverse other means in nursing homes, hospitals, and asylums. Such persons were regarded as "useless eaters" and a burden to the German war machine. The relatives of these victims were informed that they died from natural causes, such as heart failure. German doctors involved in the "euthanasia" program were also sent to Eastern occupied countries to assist in the mass extermination of Jews."

[ Count 2, section 9, of the indictment in "the Doctor's Trial" at the Nuremberg war crimes trial;
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum ]

---

HEALTHFUL DRINKS WITH WARM MEALS EATEN SINCE THE ORDER-TO-MURDER-AN-INVALID BY JUDGE GREER
BEFORE HIS GREER'S and THE JUDICIAL SYSTEM'S Latest VICTIM WAS MURDERED
Scumbag Torturer and Murderer-At-Will, The Imperial Pinellas County Judgenfuhrer Greer ..... 60
............................................................................................ Terri Shiavo 0
............................................................................................ Lee Malvo 55
...................................................................................... Scott Peterson 54

[pollywog]

I think we owe this author a few emails , phone calls, etc, to set her straight!! This is just a bunch of bull!!!!!!

[Diogenesis]

Well, you should (but likely will not if you are a disruptor) compare THAT to what he
said in two depositions under oath.

MICHAEL SCHIAVO'S lies and contradictory testimony in easy to read format

[somerville]

I interviewed the bulimics as well. All admitted to the behavior. So it's not hearsay. Believe me, I know this subject inside and out.

[SilentServiceCPOWife]

I guess my husband isn't typical then because he noticed it rather quickly.

[Saundra Duffy]

I think they're feeling a little guilty . . . wonder why?

[T'wit]

>> Every report I have seen put her weight in high school at perhaps 150

She weighed 425 and played Left Tackle for the Green Bay Packers. Unfortunately, she developed an allergy to cheese and could not maintain her weight. Soon her weight had fallen so precipitously that she lost her job, then she lost all those cute rolls of blubber, and finally she weighed in at 110. For some reason she did not have all her extra skin left over from her obese period, but hey, don't mess with good theories.

[somerville]

Your husband sounds like a good guy. And a sharp guy.

I am wondering if Michael was just so into himself that he didn't notice her behavior. That, or the fact that he worked nights and she worked days and they hardly saw each other in the last year before she collapsed.

[dfwgator]

Oh, it will be up to 275 before summer, I am sure.

She'll end up even being heavier than Michael Moore before it's all over.

[Bahbah]

LOL.

[T'wit]

Michael originally denied it. There's no telling what he will say now, as his stories are disproven, one after another. He also maintains that the alleged eating disorder was caused by Terri drinking 10-15 glasses of iced tea per day. That will cut off her oxygen and break her bones, won't it.

[SilentServiceCPOWife]

Well, my husband is in the military, so he worked a lot of crazy hours and was frequently away from home. But he is very perceptive and sensitive. (Don't tell him I said that. :-]) And I doubt that Michael was.