Posted on 03/14/2006 11:28:51 AM PST by KevinNuPac
Terri's Day challenges the nation to unify
Kevin Fobbs
March 13, 2006
Terri's Day — A Celebration of the Culture of Life honoring Terri Schiavo with a day of remembrance challenges each and every one of us to stop for a moment and ask ourselves a question, do we respect ourselves, our families, our lives?
And if we are faced with the question of the possible certainty of death, does anyone truly know, or even have the faintest clue about, our wishes? That is the greatest good, the greatest legacy that Terri Schiavo's death and an annual "Terri's Day" can bring to our lives and to the celebration of the Culture of Life.
On March 18th, we as a nation will begin to grieve again, to reach into our hearts and feel with our collective national spirit what the Schindler family felt last year at this time as each moment since Terri was disconnected from the feeding lifeline, the moments crept by like hours and hours like days.
All of us have felt in some way that pain — even if it were only in the privacy of our loved one's home, hospital room, hospice or perhaps talking with an attorney and doctor attempting to make sense out of some fleeting comments made in a conversation perhaps voiced ten, twelve or even two decades earlier — not necessarily an expression of her true feeling about an end-of-life decision but merely an incidental musing in a long-forgotten side conversation.
For at least one million Americans, and quite possibly a whole lot more, this is an opportunity to voice an opinion through a pledge supporting a resolution in each state called "Terri's Day — A Celebration of the Culture of Life." Each and every person who cares that your family, your spouse, your mother, your father, your sister or brother understands with clarity what you wish the end of life for you to be, with dignity and certainty should sign the online pledge at www.kevinfobbs.com and take the additional step to sign a Living Will — or as they call it at www.terrisfight.org, the Will to Live.
Some have asked why Americans should care about an annual Terri's Day. It is quite simple, we tend to keep turning the page on the Culture of Life because we feel it does not affect us. We tend to believe that seemingly universal belief that those who are handicapped, those who are not quite living a "perfect" life or by contemporary notion "ideal" then those lives are possibly disposable, marginal, not relevant, and part of the Culture of Death which embraces a "disposable society."
But life and our values for the Culture of Life are not disposable. Think about the young people today who would rather hurt themselves or even take their own lives rather than feel "imperfect" or the elderly person whose family is told by an insensitive health care professional while the stricken person struggles to cling to life, "she would be better off in another place," — just let her die, disconnect her from life, because her quality of life is not up to "contemporary standards. "
Why does celebrating the Culture of Life in Michigan become so essential for all of us in America? It is important for several reasons. Dr. Jack Kervorkian, also known as "Doctor Death" helped launch first in Michigan and then the nation the notion of the death culture. Secondly, and equally as important, at the May 12 event — just two days before Mother's Day — there will also be a "Mary's Moms" celebration of those women and mothers who have met challenges in standing up for some aspect of the Culture of Life.
This past weekend I sat at my cousin's funeral — or going home celebration, which more accurately describes it — thinking about the dearly departed and how she packed so much caring for others into her life even as she struggled with illness and advancing age. She was a wonderful woman who had lived through many, many challenges in her life, but in her 73 years she had met these challenges with dignity and had conveyed to her family when would be the right time to allow her to pass away.
Her daughter, who is a minister, spoke to the packed church about the times when, with all of her pain and then a stroke, the doctors had informed them that perhaps it was better to let her go. Yet that was three years ago that that occurred, and if the family had listened to the doctors and refused to see how she fought back and not only recovered but went back to volunteering at the church to feed and clothe the homeless. The medical professionals didn't care about an elderly lady who was on dialysis, but the family did and they knew better. Patricia lived three more years — years her extensive extended family considered "a gift from God."
So isn't part of the lesson of Terri's legacy and Terri's Day for families and loved ones to have a meaningful conversation with their family and to have the written document on hand as well that conveys the wishes clearly and concisely? You betcha.
As I sat in the church I thought of all of the families across the nation and the world who were sitting at their loved one's bedsides — or even standing outside of a hospital emergency room — overwhelmed with emotion, torn by what may be days of conflicting anguished decisions. I thought again of how out of death we may have the certainty of life. Terri's death reminded the nation that yes a state can and will starve you to death, and your family may be rendered helpless as you watch your loved one's precious life forces drain slowly away.
By signing the online pledge at www.kevinfobbs.com or going to www.terrisfight.org, you can learn about how to encourage your state legislature to establish March 31st as an official Terri's Day. Hold a Culture of Life Home Party or meet-and-greet to sign pledges, share ideas and support The Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation as well as Culture of Life activities and events in your community or around the nation. Between now and March 31st you can make a dramatic difference for yourself, your family and for the nation. Stand up for the Culture of Life because one person, one life, one family can and does make a difference in America. Make the difference and be the difference today. America...The countdown for the Culture of Life has begun.
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Kevin Fobbs is President of National Urban Policy Action Council (NuPac), a non-partisan civic and citizen-action organization that focuses on taking the politics out of policy to secure urban America's future one neighborhood, one city, and one person at a time. View NuPac on the web at www.nupac.info. Kevin Fobbs is a regular contributing columnist for the Detroit News. He is also the daily host of The Kevin Fobbs Show on News Talk WDTK - 1400 AM in Detroit. Listen to The Kevin Fobbs Show online at www.wdtkam.com daily 2-3 p.m., and call in toll-free nationwide to make your opinion count at 800-923-WDTK(9385) © Copyright 2006 by Kevin Fobbs http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/fobbs/060313
CLEARWATER, FLA---Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has been asked to review a determination by the Florida Department of Health that no probable cause exists regarding a complaint filed against licensed health care provider Michael Schiavo for alleged false sworn statements.
EXCLUSIVE - DOH Says Falsified Schiavo Degree Doesn’t Constitute Probable Cause
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Terri after the attack and before bioethicking.
Rodgers and Hammerstein, Oklahoma --"Kansas City"
Under Kentucky law, living will directives are specifically authorized for anyone 18 years of age or older who has the mental capacity to make the decision to execute a living will. A living will can give directions for one or more of four different areas; to direct the withholding or withdrawing of life prolonging treatment, to direct the withholding or withdrawal of artificially provided nutrition and hydration, to designate one or more adults as a surrogate or substitute to make health care decisions on behalf of the person writing the living will, and to direct the giving of all or any part of the adult's body for research or transplant purposes.
How living wills work in Kentucky
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Floridian officials still just want the name Schiavo to just go away. They think if they stick their collective heads in the sand long enough that we will forget. Thank God June just keeps pushing onward. Michael Schiavo is a liar and deceiver of the highest order. It's completely natural to him to do so. For Michael, truth is a dirty word.
Any living will directive to withhold or withdraw life-prolonging treatment or nutrition and hydration only applies if a person has a terminal condition. A terminal condition is defined as a condition caused by injury, disease or illness which to a reasonable degree of medical probability, as determined solely by the patient's attending physician and one other physician, is incurable and irreversible and will result in death within a relatively short time, and were the application of life prolonging treatment would serve only to artificially prolong the dying process.
If these lawmakers think that they would have protected Terri in their state, I submit that with the right judge, Felos would have made mincemeat out of this.
Wow. I'll bet the judge laughed out loud and threw Schiavo's petition out in ten seconds.
If only the judge had...
Please don't faint. I'm going to argue with you -- a little.
Michael was not always this way, and he's still not a really good liar. He used to blurt the truth now and then, such as telling Trudy Capone, with feeling, that they were young and never discussed "end of life" plans, or telling Larry King that it was his idea, not Terri's, that she wanted to die. Such blurts have been a good source of information.
Along comes the Serpent -- George Felos. Now there is your professional liar, polished and practiced. He has obviously planted the lies and coached Michael in lying. He even boasts about deceiving the press, getting them to plead his case to the public in his own twisted words. When Michael stumbles, George steps in and covers it up with lies.
I read the autopsy report and related supporting documentation, which stated that Terri was unable to take in solid food or liquid by mouth. Anything given by mouth would have been taken into the lungs by aspiration and hastened Terri's death.
Why would anyone want to give her water by mouth if the result would be aspiration?
Well, if that's arguing then you are pretty mild about it! ;-)
"people are dying before their time"
I know that's the truth...my brother passed away at a hospice on March,4. He was sent there to get his meds regulated and 3 days later he was dead. He was so doped up it was unbelievable. I believe that if an autopsy had been done they'd find that he died of a drug overdose.
A friend called me after he died and told me the same thing happened to her husband at the same hospice.
Her husband went there to supposedly regulate his meds..3 days later he was dead.
They put on her husbands death certificate that he died of cancer and he didn't even have cancer. When she asked them to change it, they refused to do it.
I'd think that there'd be some way to appeal to get that changed. What if this hospice was into the whole Medicaid fraud like Suncoast, and used falsiified death certificates to get money? I would encourage your friend to press on. We've seen way too many scandals to let another one go. It could be just the tip of an iceberg.
Here's a video of one of her nurses describing various aspects of her care, and lack of care. It includes a brief description of Terri consuming food orally. Carla Iyer interview on Fox News
I read it too (page 34, in plain English), and it does not say either that was "unable to take in... liquid by mouth" or that "anything given by mouth would have been taken into the lungs." It simply argues that feeding by mouth was risky.
Yup, it would have been risky. But death by dehydration is riskier.
One should note that in the instance, Dr. Thogmartin's opinions are wholly based on past medical records, not on autopsy findings; nor are they without controversy. Other medical professionals who had actually worked with Terri -- hands-on experience that Dr. Thogmartin lacked -- argued that she should receive further swallowing tests and therapy. It is not disputed that Terri could and did swallow her saliva. That's "taking liquid by mouth." Several nurses did feed Terri fruit juice, ice cream, jell-o and pudding; she loved it and swallowed without any difficulties. They also gave her ice chips in washcloths to keep her mouth moist, and reported that she could swallow the water safely.
>> Why would anyone want to give her water by mouth if the result would be aspiration?
To keep her alive, maybe? Or at least to relieve her agony? "'IF' the result would be aspiration" -- so what? Everybody aspirates now and then.
Their 15 minutes is up.
I am quite sure the Schindlers would rather have no more spotlight if they felt that this wouldn't happen to anyone else. They would much rather have their anonymity and Terri alive.
It is inconceivable that any judge would be so dumb as to overlook all the baloney.
Terri after the attack and before bioethicking.
"appeal to get that changed"
Her husband died over about year ago. He had lung cancer several years ago and they told her that it was an underlying factor so they were allowed to use it. She probably would have reported it at the time but [like me]
wouldn't know who or where to report it.
They both died in a Florida hospice. After my brothers death I got a letter from the hospice asking me to donate. The letter was signed by Ron Schonwetter. I looked up his name and he's connected to the Tampa hospice and that USF bunch....palliative sedation sounds innocent enough but it's not, it's horrible.
Yes, Shonwetter, if I recall, was involved, said Terri would not suffer. Lots of spiders there when the rock gets lifted.
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