Posted on 04/06/2005 5:03:58 AM PDT by johnny7
I spent much of last Thursday trying to sort out my feelings about the death of Terri Schiavo. Had I been her mother I would have done my utmost to preserve my daughter's life, just as Mary Schindler did. I would have fought the doctors and the courts and Terri's husband, Michael. I would have railed and screamed and prayed. To watch your precious daughter die by starvation is far more painful than accepting your own mortality: this is a child you have nurtured and played with and shepherded through the turbulence of teenhood and dressed in a wedding gown.
Had I been her husband, Michael, I would have found it equally painful to watch my beautiful wife descend into a form of torpor and to remain in this state for 15 years. Michael has been vilified for starting a relationship with another woman and having children with her. But for the first years of Terri's hospitalization he did his utmost to seek special therapies for her; he bought her comfortable, stylish clothing so she would look her best; he enrolled in nursing school so he could understand the complexities of her medical care. I can't judge him for entering another relationship. He was a young man; he wanted children. Why he didn't divorce Terri, I don't know. Clearly he still felt responsible for her.
The reasons for Terri's death, however, go beyond the removal of a feeding tube and family and court battles. They go beyond medical ethics and religion. Terri suffered from an eating disorder that led to dangerously low potassium levels that led to cardiac arrest. Her brain was not fed with enough oxygen and this led to severe damage to her cerebral cortex, the seat of reason and emotion. She lapsed into a vegetative state. Her brain could make her heart beat but it couldn't make her sensible to her surroundings. Terri had been an overweight teenager, at one point weighing 250 pounds. Didn't her loving parents worry when they saw their daughter shrink to 110 pounds? Didn't her husband notice she ate very little and purged after meals? Did her family or her friends question her extreme eating habits?
It is likely Terri was complimented by how terrific she looked and this would have encouraged her to continue to deprive her body of food. It is true the bloated features in her high school class picture had been transformed; the bulimia had allowed her to become a delicate beauty. She resembled the young Elizabeth Taylor. Her weight loss was validated, at a horrible cost. Terri Schiavo's case, like that of singer Karen Carpenter who died of anorexia, is an excruciating reminder to parents to be vigilant about their children's eating habits -- even if those children are young adults and tell us to mind our own business. We need to persist in helping them. According to the National Eating Disorders Association, "anorexia and bulimia affect nearly 10 million women and 1 million men (primarily teens and young adults)." That is a huge number of our children.
If Terri's parents or her husband or her family doctor had stopped for a moment and wondered about her swanlike transformation, maybe she never would have suffered that cardiac arrest and lapsed into catatonia. But our society admires thinness -- the Rubenesque Marilyn Monroe likely would be considered too plump these days -- and so some of our children, in the quest to look attractive, may starve themselves. Even to their death. That is what Terri Schiavo's story has communicated so clearly.
Hey... isn't the author doing a little 'channeling' here? Whoa... this hack should hold out for more money. Ain't often you get a psychic-reporter on the staff!
I guess Anorexia, obesity in childhood killed Terri... at least, that's what they're telling themselves now.
Interesting that the "loved one" who should have noticed any eating disorder at that stage of Terri's life was her husband, Mikey!
WOW. Making up stories seems to be the norm these days. Everything in there was pure speculation on the part of the author.
“*****It is likely***** Terri was complimented by"
Sounds like she was guessing one and two referring to what was LIKELY said before she entered the hospital.
Where does the channeling come in?
"I guess Anorexia, obesity in childhood killed Terri... at least, that's what they're telling themselves now."
It killed Carpenter. Doctors have offered their opinion that she may have been bulimic. Is that not plausible?
I wonder if one of these pictures is on the net somewhere. I have a hard time believing this girl ever weighed 250 pounds. I wonder where the writer got that info --- from Michael?
Truth bother you? She was boliemic, and cause her own demise as well. Sorry to tarnish the innocent angel image.
Even Michael Schiavo has stated that his wife did not have an eating disorder.
The Coven of the Immaculate St. Michael the Pure have spoken.
People who are so blatantly ignorant of the facts shouldn't be allowed to write news articles.
Truth doesn't bother me, bub.
I had never seen this 250 pound figure before. I saw 200 pounds written in various articles, I wondered where this extra 50 pounds came from.
By the way, you may want to keep your ignorant questions to yourself.
Oh, it will be up to 275 before summer, I am sure.
Every report I have seen put her weight in high school at perhaps 150. I have never seen this 250 before and, given the level of the rest of the article, I am thinking she is just making it up.
I'm not sure why people can't see through this favorite trick of those who must promote moral relativism and new age sophistry.
And the MSM will portray her as a gigantic woman who battered poor little Michael (rather than vice versa).
Whoa! I didn't read that in the papers! Terri yanked out own feeding tube! Which paper was it in?
Yo, Jennifer - Your article is a thesis built on a steaming pile of crap. First, her HUSBAND, with whom she was living at the time of her "collapse", was her "close relative" that should have noticed any signs of an eating disorder. Second, you need to demonstrate that it is feasible, plausible, and probable that she was anorexic before blaming her "collapse" on that disorder. Third, you don't even catch a whiff of the irony in your assertion that Terri was starved to death because she was anorexic.
Pathetic.
Michael's hired physician, Bambakidis, testified Terri never had heart attack
Ms. Hunter is offending people right and left, big and small, old and young as she attempts to spin.
Bottom line: Terri's parents did not kill her.
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