Posted on 09/16/2006 8:44:44 AM PDT by Jawn33
Perhaps the last word should go to Pat Flores, the mother of George Melendez, the 31-year-old coma patient who reassured his parents that he wasn't in pain after taking Ambien, as zolpidem is known in the US. He was starved of oxygen when his car overturned and he landed face down in a garden pond near his home in Houston, Texas, in 1998. "The doctors said he was clinically dead - one said he was a vegetable," says Pat. "After three weeks he suffered multi-organ failure and they said his body would ultimately succumb. They said he would never regain consciousness."
He survived and four years later, while visiting a clinic, Pat gave him a sleeping pill because his constant moaning was keeping her and her husband, Del, awake in their shared hotel room. "After 10 to 15 minutes I noticed there was no sound and I looked over," she recalls. "Instead of finding him asleep, there he was, wide awake, looking at his surroundings. I said, 'George', and he said, 'What?' We sat up for two hours asking him questions and he answered all of them. His improvements have continued and we talk every day. He has a terrific sense of humour and he carries on running jokes from the day before.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
A casual conversation over 15 years old is now not only equivalent to living will, but is equivalent to begging to be starved to death?
In other words, the rationale changes, but more dead disabled folk is always the object.
I don't know how much clearer I can make this..I've never said anything about DISABLED PEOPLE...I'm talking about people who are clinically dead, who are being kept alive by artificial means.
1. If you are only speaking about the dead, rather than the disabled, why were you speaking out in this thread and the other thread about this issue at all? The people seeing results from the Ambien therapy are decidedly not "clinically dead," yet your reaction to the revelation that they're still "in there" was to complain about the cost of keeping them alive. So explain the contradiction.
2. Clinically dead people don't laugh at Polish jokes:
Something's rotten in Pinellas Park
March 3, 2005
A priest walks into a patient’s room on St. Patrick’s Day and offers to sing “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling,”…in Polish.
Does that sound like a joke to you? It got a laugh out of Terri Schiavo.
Schiavo, as you’ve no doubt heard, is a patient at a hospice in Pinellas Park, Florida, who suffered brain damage after collapsing in 1990 and is the focus of a long court fight between her husband Michael and her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler. Barring a legal win for the Schindlers, her feeding tube will be removed on the 18th. Michael claims she will never recover and would want the tube removed; she’d expressed worry about being a burden or living on a machine. The Schindlers say she’s been denied treatment, has a chance to recover, and would be no burden at all, because they’ll take care of her.
One of the Schindlers’ supporters is Monsignor Thaddeus Malanowski, the Polish priest I mentioned. He filed an affidavit swearing (among other things) that Terri recognizes him, and that one Saint Patrick’s Day he really did walk into her room and offer to sing her an Irish diddy in Polish. Her response was to laugh. That’s a remarkable response from a person who supposedly is operating on little more than a brain stem, a “vegetative” person. Quick, go to the fridge and tell a cucumber a knock-knock joke! OK, did you get a laugh? I didn’t think so.
The problem is, for every piece of evidence like that, there’s one that makes it look like Terri might just be vegetative, and so on in circles. But I submit there are at least two things we know for sure.
First, this case at its core is about whether we will cause a woman to die of starvation. That’s Terri’s most likely fate if her tube is removed, and it’s one of the most horrible deaths any human can endure. It is so drastic that this alone should be reason enough to let her live; nothing so horrible could ever be merciful or dignified, and to be quite frank, feeding isn’t exactly a heroic measure.
Second, Michael Schiavo has been acting so weird he makes Hunter S. Thompson look like Joe Friday. If we believe his court testimony, the timeline goes like this: Some years prior to Terri’s collapse she told him that she would never want to “live on a machine” or be a burden. Yet in 1992, his lawyer told a jury Michael might need enough money to take care of her for another half-century. Michael proclaimed from the witness stand that he would become a nurse and take care of her “for the rest of [his] life.” By 1993, he had stopped rehabilitation (which was showing promising results), had put a “Do not resuscitate” order in her chart, tried to deny her antibiotic treatment for an infection, melted down her wedding ring and euthanized her cats.
In other words, he ignored what she said about being a burden, then swore in court to take on the burden, but decided a few months later it was too much of a burden.
He isn’t doing it for the money that was awarded in the malpractice suits—it’s all been used up in legal fees. Sure he could be a loving husband trying to carry out her wishes, but then why risk her death through sepsis and whack her cats? A woman may die based on the testimony of this one man, and our best hope is that he’s loopy and greatly misunderstood.
This isn’t about turning off a respirator or carrying out a living will, this is about a court deciding that casual, decade-old conversations about life support translate into begging to be starved. If the judicial system can make that leap, are we far from the days when the judges just go ahead and decide our fates for us? Why bother with a living will when you can have some black-robed potentate decide for you?
Some people think Terri is a very special person, but she’s not. She’s just like the rest of us.
That’s the part that scares me the most.
Okay, I'll bite -- You sound pretty set about this, as most of us are one way or the other. I am trying to understand your point of view, which is shared by many people thanks to the pro-Death POV the Media took in covering this situation.
Terri was 26 years old when she collapsed. Don't know how old you are, but would you want to be held accountable for an offhand comment made 20 years ago about an old dying Grandmother? Terri also told one of her friends that it was wrong when Karen Ann Quinlan's parents won court approval to take her off the respirator. That example is far more compelling for the Court because Karen Ann was a young woman like Terri. The Judge threw that testimony out because he didn't think that Quinlan's case occurred in the proper time frame for Terri to even know about her. (Certainly grounds for an appeal there, right?) I am sure whatever Terri said back then, as a staunch Catholic, she wouldn't have wanted to die the way she did when the only "medical intervention" she was receiving was a feeding tube. A similar case is going on over in Jacksonville-- A woman wants to send her badly injured husband to hospice to die - she found a couple of doctors who agreed to sign off on the transfer from the rehab hospital. Meanwhile, all evidence leads to the wife causing her husband's brain damage due to blunt object trauma to the side of his head consistent with a wide flat frying pan. However, the man's busy-body mother is trying to help keep her severely impaired son alive. Go figure! Thanks to Mom's interference, he has recovered enough to demand that the wife be kept away from him.
Could Terri have ever gotten back to "normal"? No, not even close. Does that mean we should start dehydrating all the disabled people in a similar condition who can't feed themselves? Same for old people who can't get the fork to their mouths any more? Happy Hunting Grounds for them all, right? That is what Terri's execution has led us to today under Florida law.
Are you aware that Michael stated very pointedly on the Larry King show - "NO one knows what Terri would have wanted, but this is what we want." He was never called to account for that statement and many of the other conflicting things he said for all the world to hear. He has never submitted to a deposition or any sworn testimony about the circumstances around Terri's collapse and his actions to withhold even the most basic rehabilitative care. Michael ignored all subpoenas for depositions, and the Court (Greer) never did a thing about it.
Bottom line is that Michael was and always will be looking out for Michael, pure and simple. He had the steadfast support of the Hemlock lawyers and the ACLU that were bent on making case law allowing euthanasia for someone who is not brain dead, not terminally ill, and has no objective documentation of that person's desire to live or die in such medical circumstances. Terri never had any lawyers working for her. Judge Greer said she didn't need any - he was looking out for her best interests (this girl is going to die!) Her parents' lawyers had good intentions, but they were no match for the ACLU and Felos. The only comfort in any of this is Michael's inability to hurt Terri any more.
Great post, Sioux-san. This case was not about the right to die, it was about a bizarrely unfit guardian getting his wishes followed, and about a court treating a 15+ year casual conversation as a plea for a slow, painful death.
WOW!! I agree with you 110%.
OK I'll answer you. No chirping crickets here. Probably no one but you forget one thing. He wouldn't have had to do a damn thing but walk away if he would have just turned her over to her parents!
So where is T'wit wrong? Just your obviously biased version of the same thing T'wit stated. That he refused her treatment for a urinary tract infection. By the way, ever had one of those nasty buggers? They hurt like hell. But Terri survived it no thanks to her "husband". You death to Terri people, did it ever occur to you that, had it not been for her husband denying her any tiny pleasure in life for years, Terri might have actually had an enjoyable life? Who are you to dictate what is considered quality of life?
Amazing! Calling a parets love for their daughter a "stench of interest". Just amazing.
I am so sorry. I completely misread your post. I am so upset with the deatholigists, I didn't even notice you said Schaivo instead of Schindler. Again, my humble apologies. I think I need a nap!
Me, too. I refused to back down even though I was talked to like a dog by some in FR. Terri deserved to live, plain and simple.
God bless you both. That is wonderful about your daughter. I believe that if Terri had had the same kind of care your daughter had, she would have drastically improved, too.
You are wrong. They still wanted to care for Terri after the money was long gone.
Lots of people live just fine with a feeding tube. My brother did. He drove a car, went fishing, walked just fine. He communicated by writing notes. He was not bed bound. He breathed through a trach and ate with a tube feeder. Heck, he even put coffee and in his feeder. He had a wonderful sense of humor. We never ever thought of killing him!
That was such a cheap shot. Who knew more about her care , professionals or Michael who wanted her dead? I speak for all healthcare workers when I say this is insulting to them. They know how to care for their patients.
Oh, you have? Gee, I must have missed your answer. What was it again?
According to her "husband" and his family.
Why do you keep going back to that? She did not have a written living will. Only the testimony of people who wanted her dead. Do you think they should at least have had a polygraph test? I do.
Unless, of course, he had something to do with her collapse.
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