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.
Yeah, they will eventually transform her into some sort of 300+ pound behemoth bridezilla who terrorized poor, pure Michael before she fell victim to her own nefarious methods of torment and was eventually consumed by them.
MSM myth is reality for an alarming number of people in this country (even here on FR).
No, bub, but the truth must bother you. Some of us who've been following the case for years, not days, know the truth. The truth is, this article is pure rubbish.
She was attacked -- apparently by Michael whom you support in every single thread.
Truth bother me? Not at all. Let me know if/when you see anything resembling the truth around here. Even her ol' hubby - whose word I imagine you find to be Gospel - testified under oath on more than one occasion - that Terri did not have an eating disorder.
Proof please
Although I expect crickets from the trolls on this one.
How many others have been murdered? How many are being murdered today?
And more people are learning the truth with each passing day.
There is no proof that Terri had an eating disorder. Why do we not see any photos of a heavy Terri anywhere?
You can bet your patute Michael would have gotten them out in public if he could have.
While we are discussing the Schiavo case, yet again. We need to talk about the scumbag, Randall Terry, who ghoulishly exploited the Schindlers to further his own agenda. Randall Terry has a long criminal record in connection with his violent groups, even spending 5 months in Federal prison.
We should also talk about the way that miserable piece of fecal matter, Louis Sheldon (of the TVC) exploited the Schiavo case to further his own fund-raising. Sheldon appears to be running the TVC for the purpos of enriching Louis Sheldon and family, not for a purpose of promoting stronger families.
Speaking of Angels.
It was irresponsible of former Sheriff Everett Rice to hire Michael Schiavo as a male nurse for his jail, without even meeting Michael.
Male nurses have been about 6 times more likely to be killers than female nurses.
Male nurses are disproportionately represented among caretakers who harm patients.... the 146,000 male registered nurses represent 5 to 7 percent of all nurses yet are responsible for more than one-third who have killed patients in the U.S. since 1975.
Good argument.
BWHAHAHAHAHAHA(!)
If Terri was bulimic, I find it odd that Michael had no idea. My husband's ex-wife was bulimic. He was only 25 when he figured it out and made her go for treatment.
A world-renowned forensic pathologist with over 40 years experience as a medical examiner is challenging the official version of early events in the Terri-Schindler Schiavo case, ...Dr. Michael Baden, co-director of the Investigative Unit of New York State Police in Albany and former chief medical examiner for New York City, ruled out potassium imbalance and a heart attack as factors in Terri's mysterious collapse 13 years ago which left her severely incapacitated and unable to speak and pointed to head trauma and bone injuries as a more likely cause.
Baden explained to host Greta van Susteren it was unlikely for a woman of Terri's age at the time to have a potassium imbalance, unless she had certain types of diseases, which she didn't have.
How about that, a new disease! What should we call it? How about, "Not-Strangulation Eating Disorder Collapse in the Middle of the Night Cutting off Oxygen to the Brain and Breaking Most of your Bones Because You Spent $80 on a Haircut and your Husband Was Furious Syndrome."
I'm going to start a foundation to help investigate the causes of this dreadful new syndrome that cuts down so many healthy young women in their sleep.
The 'truth' is something to be obscurred by the MSM... because if known... it would call for their hanging.
I have seen the pictures of her on television and yes she was very overweight. She looked like she was 200 pounds. And I would say this writer has a very valid point. The physical transformation was startling - without a doubt people told her she looked great. Having had an eating disorder myself, I know how addictive and motivating compliments about one's thin appearance can be.
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