It's symbolic to remove the tube. If it's been in awhile, the hole stays open for weeks...patients pull them out accidentally all the time, and they get clogged and have to be changed monthly.
The REAL question is that if she didn't "want" A TUBE, Why didn't they just start her on a dysphagia rehabilitation program? Most feeding tubes are placed for convenience, because it might take an hour to feed her properly
If she couldn't swallow, she wouldn't swallow saliva either...which is why the average life span on feeding tubes is six months...you die of aspiration pneumonia.So in the elderly with severe strokes or Alzheimer's or parkinson's disease I tell the family it's up to them: The feeding tube won't prolong their life, but they will die more comfortably-- their nutrition is better, so they die fat (well nourished) instead of dying thin with bedsores (bedsores are much more common if malnutrition occurs),...
Most patients I have treated with feeding tubes were for convenience, so they could live at home in retarded kids, or after a stroke. Usually they eat in addition to being tube fed, because they LIKE to eat...the fact that Terri has not had proper rehabilitation speaks loudly that they wanted her dead...and indeed, she was placed in a hospice, which is NOT where one places brain damaged people...
she is in hospice, if you go into hospice means you are not comming out alive.
Hospice is for the soon to be dead.