Posted on 01/02/2010 1:38:55 PM PST by wagglebee
Jodie Beckner demonstrated a move at Pilates Plus in La Jolla, where she teaches classes. Six years ago, Beckner suffered a permanent traumatic brain injury after a head-on collision on an icy Vermont road. She graduated from SDSU in December and hopes to go to nursing school. Peggie Peattie / Union-Tribune
Mike Beckner was fixing dinner when he got the phone call parents dread — the one from a doctor trying to break awful news gently.
Earlier that day, Nov. 11, 2003, his daughter, Jodie, had driven up a mountain to catch the first day of snowboarding season at a ski resort when her SUV spun out on a patch of ice and hit another vehicle.
“They were starting to tell me there was a car crash,” recalled Mike Beckner, 60, of Encinitas. “I couldn’t process it. I was in shock. I handed the phone to my wife.”
The Beckners reached the bedside of their comatose daughter the next afternoon, the beginning of a six-year rehabilitation struggle. Jodie Beckner was a top-notch college student and competitive gymnast, swimmer and diver at the time of the crash. Afterward, she fought her way back from an almost infantile state to become a woman as smart, funny and capable — though profoundly changed — as the one who drove up the mountain that day.
In December, Beckner, 24, of Ocean Beach earned her bachelor’s degree in public policy from San Diego State University. She hopes to enter an accelerated nursing program next fall and perhaps use her skills in the Peace Corps one day.
“Jodie has been knocked down so many times over the past few years, but she keeps getting back up,” said her mother, Kathy Beckner.
Today, all Jodie knows of the crash is what she has heard from others: Her car slid across the road into oncoming traffic. Her head slammed into an air bag, and the force rattled her brain, impairing her cognitive and emotional states.
She barely stirred for five days in the hospital and didn’t recognize her family for three weeks. She said her last memory from before the accident is of a camping trip she took a week or two earlier.
The first three years of recovery were filled with intensive physical and occupational therapy, including neurological treatments that ultimately helped to restore the damaged circuitry in her brain.
Mike and Kathy Beckner said their daughter was emotionless and isolationist at first. Once she started a task, such as brushing her hair or working on a word puzzle book, she would keep at it continuously unless someone told her to stop.
“She was like a zombie,” Michael Beckner said.
“You would look at her and look right through her, because there didn’t seem to be anything there.”
But Jodie Beckner soon made astonishing progress. Just six months after the crash, she took a job stocking shelves at a store. In summer 2004, she began college-level classes again.
“At the rehab center, they said she was taking quantum leaps,” Kathy Beckner said.
Jodie Beckner doesn’t remember her decision to apply to SDSU in 2004, though she told her mother about wanting to live near her older sister, Mary Beth, in San Diego. She started fall courses on the campus with a vigor that astonished her parents, who moved from New Jersey to Encinitas in 2007 to keep the family close together.
Beckner juggled a full-time job and a full class load, studying extra to make up for shortcomings in her short-term memory. An SDSU program for students with disabilities helped ensure that classrooms accommodated her needs, such as letting her sit near the front so she could hear better. The car crash had damaged her hearing.
“I’m sure I had” doubts, Jodie Beckner said. “But I’ve never said, ‘I can’t do this.’”
She claims no great spiritual rebirth from her close call, but said it has spurred her desire to help disadvantaged patients.
Kathy Beckner sees her daughter’s turnaround as a purposeful blessing.
“I’ve told her, ‘You have a mission on Earth,’ ” Kathy Beckner said.
“It’s a miracle she has come this far.”
This is ALWAYS possible when a brain injured person is surrounded by those who love them and don't want to kill them.
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>>This is ALWAYS possible when a brain injured person is surrounded by those who love them and don’t want to kill them.<<
Unfortunate that Teri was much farther gone than this and a blessing her legal guardian gave her release.
I don’t seem to recall anyone pulling the plug on her after 2 months.
But maybe you aren’t making any equivalencies and I am reading something into the post here...
Actually, Terri was responding to therapy. Then she was awarded a large sum of money and her estranged, adulterous and likely abusive husband decided he was better off with her dead. No "release" was granted, she was deprived of food and water at gunpoint.
I don’t seem to recall anyone pulling the plug on her after 2 months.
What plug are you referring to.
But maybe you aren’t making any equivalencies and I am reading something into the post here...
No, I'm just not a fan of murdering the disabled.
>>Actually, Terri was responding to therapy.<<
Only in the minds of people who don’t see reality. She was brain dead.
>>Actually, Terri was responding to therapy. Then she was awarded a large sum of money and her estranged, adulterous and likely abusive husband decided he was better off with her dead. No “release” was granted, she was deprived of food and water at gunpoint.<<
No, she was released per her instructions to her husband. I, for one, don’t want the Government intruding on the instructions I might leave behind. Liberals are the only ones who want the Government to intrude on personal and legally binding decisions.
Your aspersions on the husband are mere projections and unproven.
And the parents didn’t get involved until the money was on the line. Some love, eh?
>>What plug are you referring to.<<
The one you imply in your comparison. The article speaks of a 2 month ordeal. The Shaivo case went 6 years.
>>No, I’m just not a fan of murdering the disabled.<<
Nor am I. But if someone asks for release then it is incumbent on the loved one to acquiesce to his/her desires.
Show us the documentation of that. You can't, because it's a lie.
Odd, even those trying to murder her never suggest that she was brain dead. Brain death is a specific medical term, a person who is brain dead is unable to breath on their own, this WAS NOT the case with Terri.
Here is a link to videos which clearly show that she was responsive.
No, she was released per her instructions to her husband. I, for one, don’t want the Government intruding on the instructions I might leave behind.
Where are those instructions? Do you have a copy of them?
And the parents didn’t get involved until the money was on the line. Some love, eh?
You have no idea what you are talking about.
The one you imply in your comparison. The article speaks of a 2 month ordeal. The Shaivo [sic] case went 6 years.
Again, you are wrong.
From the article:
The Beckners reached the bedside of their comatose daughter the next afternoon, the beginning of a six-year rehabilitation struggle.
And Terri's injury was FIFTEEN years before her murder.
It turns out Fr. Rick had been hit by a car and when he came out of his coma had no memory. He had been looking at pictures one day and saw my husband, remembered him and called him with questions to help piece together memories of his past.
Show us the documentation of that. You can't, because that's a couple more lies.
Michael testified in court, and told the press that was covering one of his fund raisers, that Terri was responding to therapy, and that he promised her that he would take care of her for the rest of their lives.
Liberals are the only ones who want the Government to intrude on personal and legally binding decisions.
Liberals are the ones who supported the government order to kill Terri, in opposition to her indisputable publicly demonstrated religious convictions.
Wagglebee hasn't said anything about Terri's estranged husband that hasn't been proven true.
Terri's family was involved with her from the time she was born. They didn't stop being involved with her, except to the extent that her estranged husband succeeded in depriving her of contact with her family and friends. Even so, they continued in their attempts to be as involved with her as they could.
Terri's family spent their own money caring for Terri, until her estranged husband received the money from his fraudulent lawsuit. When Terri's Dad asked him to keep his word and use the money for Terri's rehab, that's when Michael became adversarial.
Nor am I. But if someone asks for release then it is incumbent on the loved one to acquiesce to his/her desires.
That's a straw-man, since Terri never asked to be starved and dehydrated to death.
>>Odd, even those trying to murder her never suggest that she was brain dead. Brain death is a specific medical term, a person who is brain dead is unable to breath on their own, this WAS NOT the case with Terri.<<
There were no higher brain functions. Those videos make my point — she was not thinking any more than a grasshopper who watches movement.
>>Where are those instructions? Do you have a copy of them?<<
For her, they were entrusted to her husband. That is the law. For me, they are written down.
Do you know what Schaivo’s were? Or do you want Big Government to create them from whole cloth? Like you are.
>> Again, you are wrong.
From the article:
The Beckners reached the bedside of their comatose daughter the next afternoon, the beginning of a six-year rehabilitation struggle.
And Terri’s injury was FIFTEEN years before her murder.<<
Thanks for making my point. 15 years is even more than 2 months.
>>Show us the documentation of that. You can’t, because that’s a couple more lies. <<
You can’t prove the converse either. The law was and is on his side, as it should be. Unless Ms. Schaivo told you something herself.
>>Michael testified in court, and told the press that was covering one of his fund raisers, that Terri was responding to therapy, and that he promised her that he would take care of her for the rest of their lives.<<
And he did.
>> Liberals are the ones who supported the government order to kill Terri, in opposition to her indisputable publicly demonstrated religious convictions.
Wagglebee hasn’t said anything about Terri’s estranged husband that hasn’t been proven true.<<
He went for comfort when there was none available from his wife. Not cool, but who are you to stand in judgment? As far as the rest go, it is all simple smearing to share up a political, pro Big Government agenda.
>>Terri’s family was involved with her from the time she was born. They didn’t stop being involved with her, except to the extent that her estranged husband succeeded in depriving her of contact with her family and friends. Even so, they continued in their attempts to be as involved with her as they could.<<
Most of us grow up. Once you are an adult and make adult decisions, your parents no longer have legal standing. It amazed me the court allowed these legal strangers to even get involved.
>>Terri’s family spent their own money caring for Terri, until her estranged husband received the money from his fraudulent lawsuit. When Terri’s Dad asked him to keep his word and use the money for Terri’s rehab, that’s when Michael became adversarial. <<
The parents mixed it up in the courts the moment money came into the picture.
So, now you want to change the definition of brain death to be whatever you think it is?
For her, they were entrusted to her husband. That is the law. For me, they are written down.
Actually, the law was changed AFTER her injury. Terri NEVER could have requested to be starved to death.
Do you know what Schaivo’s were? Or do you want Big Government to create them from whole cloth? Like you are.
No, in the ABSENCE of written wishes I think we should presume that a person wants to live.
Thanks for making my point. 15 years is even more than 2 months.
My point which you obviously missed (perhaps a "higher brain function" issue) was that the woman in the article had the benefit of SIX years of rehabilitation, Terri Schiavo DID NOT.
Sun, do you still have the link to the advertisement for the fund raiser Michael Schiavo held, in which he stated that Terri was responding well to the brain implant, and was showing progress?
It's already been proven. Michael's court testimony was documented.
Your troll-tactic of changing the subject mid-sentence is an old one. Okay, so now you want to make it about the laws that were violated. Or is it about Terri's knowledge of law? Could you try to say something that actually makes sense?
And he did.
He did what? Take care of her for the rest of their lives? The context in which he gave that testimony suggested that he promised to take care of her in the true sense of caring, not in the sense of "I'll take care of that bitch." Killing her was the direct opposite of what he testified he promised to do for her.
He went for comfort when there was none available from his wife. Not cool, but who are you to stand in judgment? As far as the rest go, it is all simple smearing to share up a political, pro Big Government agenda.
What does that have to do with anything we were discussing? Nothing. But trolls must change the subject frequently. So okay, you want to talk about Terri's estranged husband violating more than just his vow not to kill her. You want to introduce his sexual infidelity. But how do his sexual escapades support small government? I don't get the connection you're trying to make there.
Most of us grow up. Once you are an adult and make adult decisions, your parents no longer have legal standing. It amazed me the court allowed these legal strangers to even get involved.
So now you're saying that when she grew up her family should have severed all involvement in her life? That's what you claimed they did in your previous post. Make up your mind. Pick a belief, and defend that belief. Only trolls change their belief midstream to enable them to continue arguing.
The parents mixed it up in the courts the moment money came into the picture.
Mixed what up? Are you now trying to suggest that it's their fault Michael embezzled Terri's rehab money?
Oh really? You were there, were you?
What expertise in the medical field do you have that allows you to make that kind of diagnosis and determination? What was your personal connection to the case?
....and a blessing her legal guardian gave her release.
*gave her "release"?* Is that how you write off murdering someone in one of the most reprehensible ways around? A *blessing* dying of starvation and dehydration?
Would you like to have some one *bless* you that way some time?
Your liberal streak is showing BIG time. THIS is why you're being labeled liberal.
Therein lies the irony of the deathbots' manifesto. They can't meet their own artificial standards to qualify for life. Under their own rules, they'd be starved and dehydrated to death.
>>So, now you want to change the definition of brain death to be whatever you think it is?<<
No, I want it to mean the ability to think.
>>Actually, the law was changed AFTER her injury. Terri NEVER could have requested to be starved to death.<<
The final provisions of a person has always been held with the closest family. There is no legal relationship closer than spouse.
>>No, in the ABSENCE of written wishes I think we should presume that a person wants to live.<<
You can presume all you want. Many of us want to be let go when we are are vegetables. Your presumption and $5 will get you a latte at Starbucks.
>>My point which you obviously missed (perhaps a “higher brain function” issue) was that the woman in the article had the benefit of SIX years of rehabilitation, Terri Schiavo DID NOT.<<
She wasn’t married. Schaivo was.
I agree with you, BykrBayb. She DEFINITELY was not brain dead. You should show the video of Terri laughing with her father, remembering how she teased her mother.
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