Michael Schiavo's side of the story [sicko' barf-ola ALERT]

MSNBC ^ | 3/27/06 | Matt Lauer

[XR7]

CLEARWATER, FLA. - Michael Schiavo...has decided to tell his side of the story...

Schiavo invited us to his home in Clearwater, Florida to talk...It’s all in his new book “Terri the Truth.”

Matt Lauer: I guess you could’ve written a book to honor Terri. After reading it, it’s not really the book you wrote. This is a book that in some ways settles some scores, doesn’t it?

Michael Schiavo: Oh yes, it does.

Lauer: You did think about writing that honoring Terri book?

Michael Schiavo: Oh yes, many times. This book does honor Terri in a way. It sets her free. It tells the truth...

Lauer: You were her first date.

Schiavo: Uh-huh.

Lauer: You were her first kiss.

Schiavo: Uh-huh.....

But the medical examiner was skeptical...and could not conclusively determine just what caused her collapse 16 years ago.

Lauer (at Terri Schiavo’s grave site): How often do you come to her grave?

Schiavo: I try to get out here at least two or three times a month. I drive by a lot though.

On this day, approaching the one year anniversary of Terri's death, someone had left a crucifix by her grave, a grave marked with three dates: her birth date, the date of her collapse, and her death, with a final note from Michael: "I kept my promise."

Lauer: Why was it so important to put that in there?

Schiavo: It was from me to her — it had nothing to do with anybody else. It was very important for me.

Lauer: Do you ever come here Michael and wonder how she feels about this promise, so many years afterwards? Do you think it was it as important to her as it was to you?

Schiavo: Definitely, definitely. She's up there praising me right now… and saying thank you.

[Ohioan from Florida]

So he suggested that specialists decide if another swallowing test was feasible and would be valuble. Anyone know what happened with this?

Yes. The judge who was in charge of that portion of the case, I believe it was David Demers, threw out that suggestion, because the GAL was appointed by Jeb after Terri's Law passed. He deemed it unnecessary. The same way Greer deemed any current brain scans of Terri before withdrawing the feeding tube. Unnecessary. Great jurisprudence right there.

[Ohioan from Florida]

OK, I'm just now catching up on posts. Sorry to get back to you so late. I appreciate your being cordial.

If therapy for the first few years didn't help her - and my reading indicates it didn't - then I have to sadly conclude it would be unlikely to make a difference afterwards. If I missed documented improvement in the GAL report, or another credible source of medical information, please point me toward that information.

I apologize that I am working off a different computer than I was a year and more ago, and my files are on that hard drive, and that old pc is pretty much useless. However the documentation you are looking for is probably around on the 'net somewhere. They used to be on file at www.terrisfight.org, but I don't know if they still are.

First, almost everything that I've seen from Terri's medical records, (which are few on the 'net) do indicate that Terri was making progress with the different therapies. The nurse and therapist notes on the sides of her charts from Mediplex indicate that she was communicating with them. Michael had a diary, too, that was presented as evidence during the malpractice trial of Terri's making progress, and responding. Now if he was lying, then he was frauding the court. If he wasn't lying, then he has even more evil in him for stopping her therapy.

OK, I just checked with Terri's fight and the docs are no longer there. Somebody here will be able to help us find them, though. I remember that it was on some forms while she was at Mediplex in Bradenton. I think they were in pdf format. Bear with me. I will find them eventually.

[Ohioan from Florida]

Michael was supposed to have the stimulator implant removed at Shands in Gainesville, because it was not advised to have it stay in Terri forever. There were risks that apparently outweighed the benefits by keeping it in. I would guess that was in part due to the experimental nature of the stimulator. I do not know the details, but I do know that Michael was supposed to get Terri to Gainesville to complete the rehab that went with the stimulator. He got the money, but Terri was never taken to Shands. Proof of that is that the implant remained in her head even until her death. Why would Michael beg for money to help take care of Terri and within months refuse to give her the recommended care? I can think of only one reason, and it is not honorable.

I do not know specifically what a PET scan would do, but it was brought up long ago. I got the impression that it was not refused because it was contra-indicated the way a regular MRI would be because of the implant, IOW, it was refused for some other reason. I got the impression that it was because it would cost more money. IIRC, that was prompted by Felos, and so Judge Greer did not order for those tests (PET) to be performed.

I'm sorry I'm not providing you with any links yet. I will do what I can to find the info for you. It is quite late here, and maybe if I'm quiet for just a few minutes I can catch a quick nap before I need to be back up in another hour. Good night (or morning) for now.

[napscoordinator]

Yes it was a very bad feeble attept at humor. I don't do it well...

[napscoordinator]

Again bad humor.

[hodaka]

Kind of splitting hairs on the living arrangement? Overall they were living together, am I right? That was the point I was making. Just remember people are taken off life support daily. I just hated how this turned into a media circus pushed by the likes of Sean Hannity and Randall Terry. I also thought it was pretty low how the Shiendlers kind of hinted at the idea that Michael somehow tried to kill their daughter but failed. Don't you think if their was any evidence of this the police would have done something about that. And just the other day on his show, Monday morning detective Sean Hannity was hinting at the idea that Michael was guilty of some sort of crime.

[Freedom Dignity n Honor]

What about when her lung secretions were excessively thick and her blood thick, possibly even clotting, during her dehydration?

She wasn't getting much oxygen or oxygenated blood for who knows how long those last few days or hours of her dehydration.

[XR7]

Shiendlers kind of hinted at the idea that Michael somehow tried to kill their daughter but failed. Don't you think if their was any evidence of this the police would have done something about that.

Not necessarily.
They are fond of saying, "Sorry. But this is a civil case."

[veronica]

He's looks all puffed up like a blowfish, a la Al Gore.

[retMD]

Please tell me why Michael did not go take Terri right up to Shands Hospital...

I don't consider myself an expert on his actions and motivations. Equally, I don't see him (or the Schindlers) as demon or angel, just human, obviously flawed, as we all are.

I don't really understand why people seem to need to either defend his every action or to paint him as a murderer if they want to discuss the situation at all.

[retMD]

But is food, water, or air ordinary care or extraordinary care? I consider them to be ordinary care, no matter the delivery.

That's what makes this situation so difficult, so many interpretations are possible.

From a medical point of view, ventilators to deliver air are definitely considered extraordinary care. Most consider IVs and feeding tubes in that category as well, but I suspect some disagree. It's difficult to decide - if an IV giving fluids isn't extraordinary, for the long term if you have to put a catheter into the large central vein, is that extraordinary? A century ago all this would have been moot, as the technology didn't exist, and people in this situation would have died.

[retMD]

What about when her lung secretions were excessively thick and her blood thick, possibly even clotting, during her dehydration?

She wasn't getting much oxygen or oxygenated blood for who knows how long those last few days or hours of her dehydration.

I'm not sure what your point is here. If it's that some are convinced that the pathologist was out to lunch and couldn't tell the difference between cells that died a week ago and parts of the brain that were atrophied or replaced by other types of cells long ago, please learn more about this.

[retMD]

Sadly, I suspect that Dr. Cheshire's hopes for her got the better of objective medical judgement.

Is that what you call it when a doctor doesn't perform the necessary medical tests to determine his patient's faculties?

In his defense, Terri Schiavo wouldn't be considered his patient. I don't think Cheshire was supposed to examine her, and he did acknowledge he hadn't in the report he wrote.

[Freedom Dignity n Honor]

Umm, no. I'm pointing out that even if the pathology report stated that her optic nerves were damaged or had died, it didn't state when the damage occured. Just that at the time of autopsy those nerves were damaged or dead.

Just like the pathology report can only report on what the brain looked like during the autopsy not before death, not before dehydration.

We do have reliable evidence to be able to surmise what dehydration does to a body, brain, the eyes, tongue, mouth, etc., though.

We know that dehydration can cause alot of damage to a body. I think it's abundantly clear that some of the damage that was reported at autopsy can be directly connected to the dehydration.

[retMD]

...even if the pathology report stated that her optic nerves were damaged or had died, it didn't state when the damage occured.

Please read the report. It isn't so much her optic nerves, but the "higher function" part of the brain that processes images. Without this, it's like a telescope that no one is looking through. Also, it takes time for a tissue to atrophy, and time for one type of cells to be replaced other types. As an analogy, for someone who died recently, you don't even have to be a pathologist to tell the difference between a years-old scar on the skin and a cut that's about a week old.

We know that dehydration can cause alot of damage to a body. I think it's abundantly clear that some of the damage that was reported at autopsy can be directly connected to the dehydration.

Please provide links to credible medical sources to back this up. Otherwise, I'm out of this conversation

[Freedom Dignity n Honor]

Again, the pathologist didn't address when the damage had occurred.

We were talking about the optic nerves, not a higher function part of her brain.

I'm not going to do your work for you. You're allegedly a doctor, you should know what dehydration does to a body or have the resources to look it up. There were links on the Terri threads.

I'm glad you're out of this conversation, you don't seem to belong in it.

[Freedom Dignity n Honor]

Let me say one thing though:

From what you've mentioned, it seems that this case is very different from your husband's. Your husband was dying. You could have hooked him up to every machine in the world and they still wouldn't have kept him alive.

[freedumb2003]

I am sorry, but everything you list is based on conjecture.

Greep acted within his legal discretionary scope. Your post is long (and long on guesswork), but let me just focus on what I think your central point is:

>Is it really not obvious? Greer didn't want to have the hearings. He couldn't just declare that he'd never hold them, since the parents had the legal right to demand them.

What legal right? Once you grow up and get married, your parents lose pretty much all standing. They retain a sort of "interested party" status which courts entertain (such as filing Victim Impact Statements, etc.). But the rebutttable presumption mountain is very high.

Greer decided to let adults make adult decisions and live with them. He had no legal obligation to entetain being circus-master in what was clearly going to be a 99% emotional, 1% legal issue.

[Ohioan from Florida]

Kind of splitting hairs on the living arrangement? Overall they were living together, am I right? That was the point I was making.

I'm glad you clarified, and I apologize for getting bent out of shape on the point of the living arrangement. However, I was making the point about Michael living with them, because in the past (about a year ago when the Terri threads were very heated) your same argument had been used by other posters on Terri threads to suggest that Michael was the one who had taken the Schindlers in, and that simply wasn't the case. I do apologize for my misinterpretation of your point.

Just remember people are taken off life support daily.

Oh, I remember and that is one reason why I am so concerned about the issue of food and water being considered "extraordinary care" or "heroic measures". That's how the issue of removal of life support got started within each state's legislature. Those are the terms that we began using back in the good old days. Now, it appears, the laws are no longer in place to protect the weak and vulnerable from those who would like to do them harm. Now pretty much anyone can say, "Oh, I heard him once say he wouldn't want to live like that", and then food and water are withheld. I am completely opposed to that.

I just hated how this turned into a media circus pushed by the likes of Sean Hannity and Randall Terry.

While I am not a Randall Terry fan, IMHO, he was doing what his conscience was telling him to do. The media circus? I hate the media circus of our everyday lives. The MSM is completely out of control, but in their minds, their business is all about ratings. They're whores for the most part. Also, to play devil's advocate with you, I want you to consider that perhaps the media was pushed first by the likes of George Felos, Michael's lawyer. The media parroted pretty much everything he said without ever offering the opposing side of the argument, or even real truth. An example would be the poor reporting that Terri was in a coma for 15 years or that she had a heart attack. Neither was true, but both were widely reported. That's what I mean about the media and journalism today. There just isn't investigative reporting going on much these days, it's pretty much cut and paste journalism. What bunk!

That said, I'm glad that somebody with the recognition factor of Sean Hannity finally decided to look closely at what was going on. Don't worry about Hannity getting all his talking points across. His sidekick, Alan Colmes, takes good care of the liberal, socialist point of view.

I also thought it was pretty low how the Shiendlers kind of hinted at the idea that Michael somehow tried to kill their daughter but failed. Don't you think if their was any evidence of this the police would have done something about that. And just the other day on his show, Monday morning detective Sean Hannity was hinting at the idea that Michael was guilty of some sort of crime.

If I didn't know as much about Terri's case as I do, I might agree with you, but honestly, there was never a good investigation done at the outset. I'm sorry that I must disagree with you or anyone else who thinks that the police did a thorough investigation. They never interviewed Bobby Schindler about Terri's collapse (who was at the scene when the paramedics arrived). Why not? Shouldn't the police interview people who were there in the apartment at the time that Terri was collapsed and being worked on? Wouldn't that be normal procedure? Wouldn't it be in the police report? If they had talked with Bobby, they would have discovered some startling things that were in direct contrast to the statements Michael had made about not having any fights or any marital discord between them.

The case was sent to homicide because something wasn't right, but no investigation happened beyond the 2 hours and 20 minutes in the early morning of 2/25/90. What happened to that report? Did it get stuck at the bottom of the "in" pile and then when it was discovered, it was an embarrassment to the department? Is that the reason why, according to calls made to the St. Petersburg Police Department, it was found that Terri's file is an unsolved, uninvestigated, open, cold-case file in the Homicide Division? I think somebody's got some 'splaining to do!

The Schindlers have good reason to question what really happened that night. Michael, while under oath, has testified to several different things that happened. Which version is true? Why didn't Michael do CPR on Terri? He had been trained in CPR as a condition of his employment with McDonald's. If Michael had nothing to hide, then why wasn't he more forthright with the Schindlers? Why did he have his lawyer, Daniel Grieco, meet with them at the hospital while Terri was being worked on, and discuss letting Michael have all the say in how to treat Terri? Why did Michael phone a lawyer to begin with? Was the form he had them sign one that gave Michael complete approval of him alone as her guardian, of both her person and her assets? Is that why they were never informed of a guardianship hearing in June, 1990? This was their daughter, for Pete's sake.

If Michael was really on the good terms with them as he and they have both asserted, then why did Michael not inform them of the developments in Terri's care? He was living with them!! I can just hear Michael say, "Oh, sorry, Mom & Dad! It completely slipped my mind to tell you that the reason I wasn't here taking care of Terri with you was because I was standing in front of a judge getting complete control of Terri's guardianship. I didn't think you'd care to know about that. What's the big deal anyway? Did you want to come?" Get real! I think it is perfectly honest for the Schindlers to feel that Michael has been hiding something from them.

Michael has insisted that he called 911 right away, but that's untrue. He didn't call 911 until after he spoke to his FIL, who insisted that Michael call 911. Michael has stated that he phoned Bobby to come over, but that's not true, either, Bobby was alerted by Terri's dad. Michael has told lies over and over. It is natural for the Schindlers to be suspicious of him, because he hasn't been forthright with them for a long, long time.

[Ohioan from Florida]

My point in bringing up Shands was to show that Michael's statements in the press about giving Terri the best care and rehab for such a long time and that nothing worked was BS. He didn't take her to Shands even after he got the money to afford the type of care she would get there. Shands has a great rehab center. It was recommended by the doctor who implanted the stimulator in Terri's brain.

The reason there was no follow-up is clear. Michael was not genuine that he wanted Terri to get better. He was not telling us the truth on TV when he said that he had tried for so long and that nothing had worked. He gave up as soon as the money was in the bank. Don't you wonder how Terri might have recovered if he had just followed through on what he told the malpractice jury? She very well might not have improved much, but it's very possible she would have. She wasn't hopeless. Her earlier therapies had been working. There was a lot to be hopeful about. Michael abandoned Terri's rehab, and that is, without a doubt, one of the major reasons she did not make progress. Surely you know how crucial rehab is to a recovering patient.