Posted on 04/10/2005 6:26:38 PM PDT by schmelvin
Ken: I’m the nephew of Mae Magouirk in LaGrange, Georgia. My family lives in Alabama. They’re from Addiston, Alabama and I live in Birmingham, Alabama and we love my aunt Mae very much and we can’t believe that, uh, she is being withheld substantial nourishment…
Glenn: Ken, tell me this, tell me the situation, uh, be, because your grandma has, your grandma had, or your aunt has a, um, a living will!
Ken: Yeah, she has a living will and the living will is not being obeyed. As a matter of fact her attending physician, Doctor Stadde of LaGrange, Georgia, said in probate court that even though Mae Magourik’s living will says tha, uh, that her nourishment and fluids should only be pulled if she’s comatose or vegetative, that he feels her life is such that it should be pulled regardless.
(snip)
Ken: And those of your listeners that are sitting by, complacent, thinking “oh, poor Terri Schindler-Schiavo.” And I was one of them last week. I said, “Oh it’s terrible, but it’s just a freak, it’s an anomaly. It couldn’t happen to us.”
The next day, it happened to us...
(snip)
Glenn: Let me ask you this Ken, let me ask you this. How did your, um, uh, how did your aunt’s uh, granddaughter get control of the situation?
Ken: How did she what?
Glenn: How did she get control. How did this happ…
Ken: Well I’ll tell you what. First of all she bluffed us. Uh, we went to the hospital in LaGrange when my aunt was first sick and Beth told my uncle, she said, “Uncle Buddy, don’t even start with me. I’ve got the medical durable power of attorney. I’m making the decisions.” And I said, “Beth, you know, we’re right here in front of your grandmother. Even though she’s on morphine, we shouldn’t talk about this. We should go out in the hall.”
We went out in the hall and we explained my mother’s in uh, she’s had a great quality of life for the last two years even though she was in a coma. [Ken's mother was only in a coma for 3 months, she is now living a normal, active life.] We can treat it without surgery. And she said, “Listen,” she said, she started crying, she said, “I’ve been praying about this and, and I’ve been praying to Jesus. Jesus has told me it’s time that grandmother went home to Jesus. She’s got glaucoma. Now she’s got a dissected aorta and her quality of life is just terrible and we just think she should just go to hospice.” And I said, “Beth, hospice is a synonym for death. We’ve got doctors who are ready to take care of her today.”
She goes, “no, I’ve got the medical power of attorney and that’s it.” So we thought our hands were tied, Glenn. A week goes by. Last Thursday my uncle and my mother independently started thinking, “this is wrong.” Since I used to be on Capitol Hill as a senior staff guy in Washington, I know my way around, so they said, “Kenny, get involved see what you can find out, we want to bring May to UAB hospital.” So I call hospice, I say to Frita the hospice nurse. I said, “what are my aunt’s vital stats at. She said, “well today, her blood pressure is 160/88 with a pulse of 84.” I said, “well that’s not so bad.” I said, “my aunt’s going to make it, isn’t she.” She says, “Oh no, your aunt’s not going to make it because we have withheld nourishment per geth…Beth Gaddy since March 28th.” She said, “I’ve been off the past few days. I’m surprised your aunt’s still alive.” I said, “What!”
Next time, I, she says, “call the hospice attorney.” I called Carol Todd, hospice attorney, ug, said “we’re going to be litigious.” She said, “let me check into it. Heard nothing all day, last Thursday, March 31st until 4 in the afternoon. Carol Todd called me up, “Oh my God, we made a mistake.” I said, “What are you talking about, mistake?” She said, “Beth has power of attorney, but it’s only financial, not medical durable power of attorney. And guess what? Your aunt has a living will and it says only should fluids and nourishment be withheld if she’s comatose or vegetative, she’s neither.”
I said, “Guess what, Mother, get on the phone.” Mom got on the phone. She said, “start IV fluids immediately.” They said, “we can do that.” She said, “start a temporary feeding tube just in the nose to give her nourishment and get her electrolytes back up so she can start feeding herself.” They said, “We can’t do that, you’ve gotta come in and sign the papers.” So, uh, Mom stayed here because she’s a little sick. My uncle Buddy, Aunt May’s brother and I went, the three hours from our homes to LaGrange, Georgia from our homes in Alabama. Hospice attorney Carol Todd was to meet us at 10 o’clock. She didn’t show up and the hospice head nurse talked to us, “oh, she needs to die. You know, the life’s over, no quality of life.”
And finally, we listened to this for about an hour and a half, and I said, “This is B.S. We want my aunt out of here now. I have world-class doctor Raed Agel of UAB’s cardiovascular unit arranging life-saver helicopter.” They kept inching us on out, Glenn, until Carol Todd the hospice attorney showed up and gave us a piece of paper. Turns out hospice had told Beth Gaddy the granddaughter that we were coming over, that she no longer had durable power of attorney and she went before the probate judge that morning and got a temporary emergency guardianship.
(snip)
Glenn: Oh, I gotta tell you, you can go to all the law schools, you say everybody on the Supreme Court, everybody on the 11th circuit court, everybody down in Florida, they all passed the bar and I gotta tell you man. Just because you went to school and, and passed the bar and you are an attorney and then you become a judge, doesn’t mean that you have common sense. I’m sick of these judges, man, sick to death of these judges. So let me ask you, did they put, did they, so they didn’t put the feeding tube back in. Was she, did, uh, did, how long has she been without food and water?
Ken: No, but they did have an IV in that we ordered on last Thursday and it was in her Friday, April 1st. But when the hospice person gave us this emergency decree from the probate judge, they took the IV liquids out right in front of us.
(snip)
Glenn: But, how much, how much time does she have?
Ken: That’s why I couldn’t wait on this compromise. It was supposed to be 24 hours from Monday. I waited all the way till Thursday. But how much time does she have? I don’t know. Because she’s 81 and the worst thing about it, you know, it’s bad that she’s not getting adequate nourishment or adequate fluids, but this is a little thing that, that may not mean anything to anybody but me or my aunt. But she, she has glaucoma. She can’t produce tears. She has to take drops to keep her eyes lubricated. She hasn’t had those drops in the last two weeks. She’s blind practically now. Opening her eyes is, is a terrible pain. And they won’t give her the drops.
(snip)
You can read the entire interview here:
http://www.aclearvoice.org/archives/2005/04/transcript_of_g.php
THANKS FOR ALL YOUR HARD WORK!
This news sucks. The "sense of agreement between the parties" is now gone.
I don't know how to do it. Think we should establish another thread that is exclusively action since this latest development is separate and apart from the posted topic on this one? Helps us organize and request chatter kills.
I don't know how to do it. Think we should establish another thread that is exclusively action since this latest development is separate and apart from the posted topic on this one? Helps us organize and request chatter kills.
Apparantly that between-family decision fell apart. That Ken, he sure is playing the world for a bunch of country bumpkins.
Not. But if you guys need this type of locker room emotion to get stimulated, so be it.
Thanks for the ping Fred.
I have been gone 1 1/2 weeks and it seems nothing has changed!
Terri and hospice outrage ping! If anyone would like to be added to or removed from my Terri ping list, please let me know by FReepmail!
PING
Thank you for the ping Fred.
I'm sure these two stories are just the tip of the iceberg.
It is not only hospice doctors and nurses doing this, but personal family doctors who are advising family members to stop nutrition and hydration on elderly relatives.
I know this from personal experience.
Yes, we are all aware that when someone is about to die from organ failure the patient's doctor will do what he can to reduce pain, and doses of morphine administered at the end stage are carefully monitored though ultimately fatal; the patient's doctor treads a fine line between mercy and euthenasia. As the widow of a doctor who treated many elderly people, I was always aware of this, it's a terrible responsibilty for a medical professional but they deal with matters of life and death with compassion. My husband instructed me that should he suffer intractible pain without hope of improvement, no herioc measures should be allowed to keep him alive, but if he was simply non-communicative or not mentally alert, as in alzheimer's disease, he wanted to be nursed and taken care of in a nursing home.
There is something terribly wrong in the US IMO. That a patient's guardian or next of kin is able to literally obtain a sentence of death from a judge by applying for a court order to admit the patient to a hospice where the law of admittance is that the patient MUST NOT be expected to live more than six months, opens the door to nothing less than an expedient method of fast-tracking inheritance.
"Save it: Unbelievable. Hair Raising. Terrifying."
I have saved the link, and yes it is horrific.
It does unveil some of the mystery though.
It is astonishing how the 'death crowd' have advanced their agenda in so little time.
SOROS...MONEY...SOROS...MONEY...EVIL...EVIL...but please forgive me Mr. Soros for using such a passe word as evil, it is not 'the done thing' to use such language in this time and age.
DAMN this scrofulous piece of dung named Soros!
The story continues:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1379016/posts?page=2076
Time to combine efforts on one thread?
LOL!!
actually I did-- I was speaking to you- and acting as if the "other" one wasn't in the room!!
LOL!!
______________________________________________________________
Isn't Fred wonderful? She taught me how to post pics by Freepmail. She is amazingly generous with her time and patience.
PS, Fred.....I know I haven't utilized the skill past the initial success...but I shall!
The Glenn Beck Show is gone from our local station as of this morning. The replacement is that pointless name-dropping dolt Laura Ingraham that was soooo tiresome last time.
"Thank you,"
You are Welcome.
ON the list, if you please!
Please add me to your Mae Magouirk ping list... thanks.
My godmother, my dear dear Auntie Marie Colman Kratt, was dehydrated to death by a crappy sub-standard "nursing" home in Arizona in the 1980s. No one went to jail, "She just wouldn't take any food." Auntie was in dementia from severe Alzheimers, but would eat slowly if fed. It was too much work, I guess.
Sick world.
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