My entry: "You don't say, Mel."
Posted on 02/01/2006 7:29:10 AM PST by Ohioan from Florida
In the court (and courts) of life and death, a little 11-year-old Massachusetts girl named Haleigh Poutre could be the next Terri Schiavo. For those who have not heard the tragic story, Haleigh was beaten nearly to death last September, allegedly by her adoptive mother and stepfather. The beating left her unconscious and barely clinging to life.
Within a week or so of the beating, her doctors had written her off. They apparently told Haleigh's court-appointed guardian, Harry Spence, that she was "virtually brain dead." Even though he had never visited her, Spence quickly went to court seeking permission to remove her respirator and feeding tube. The court agreed, a decision affirmed recently by the supreme court of Massachusetts.
And so, no doubt with the best of intentions, a little girl who had already suffered so much was stripped by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts of even the chance to fight to stay alive. If she didn't stop breathing when the respirator was removed, which doctors expected, she would slowly dehydrate to death.
Close Call
Then came the unexpected:
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
:-)
It wasn't interesting anyway. It was sophomoric, contrasting Bush's acceptance of "collateral damage" war casualties with his opposition to killing embryos for stem cell research.
The M.E. was from Texas. I don't have his start date in Pinellas County. Does Texas ring any bells?
paper, plastic or death today, sir?
I'll vote for the democrat before I'll vote for Crist. Crist is capable of ruining the state of Florida all by himself. He's the special interest candidate for governor.
No man of the people would need donations from California and New York.
Maybe daylight causes them to shrink back into the darkness. Any ideas on what happened to the conference if not the website links? Surely they did not cancel their coven.
Schiavo, Cranford and Greer to Speak at Ethics Conference
8mm
Why, yes, I've heard of it several times! :-)
As for a Thogmartin connection, no. Don't see that we need one. The autopsy was far more damaging to MS than his little army guessed. They couldn't wait to trumpet that Terri's whole brain was gone and that that proved Michael did the right thing.
But the autopsy didn't show any such thing. It showed severe brain damage (which everybody knew) -- i.e., not complete destruction; and that damage was oddly localized to the frontal areas. Some of the networking in the back areas was intact. This was new information and helped account for her ability to function despite the heavy cortical damage. (It is well known that injured brains can rewire or reroute functions in order to restore function.) The findings thus suggested the probable cause of her injury to be loss of carotid arterial blood (which supplies blood to the damaged area of the brain). That reanimates the theory that she was strangled by some means that cut carotid artery flow.
Dr. Thogmartin also shot down the old bulimia nonsense (a preposterous theory to begin with, but it was all they had). He all but ridiculed it -- in proper scientific language, of course.
Maybe you noticed, the trumpeting from Michael's camp followers died out pretty quickly.
They cite snippets from it, such as the M.E.'s view that Terri couldn't swallow safely. That's an inference from records, not an autopsy finding. A perfectly sensible view in textbook terms, too; but not indisputable. Terri did, after all, swallow successfully all the years, and was fed at times. Dr. Hammesfahr was just as sure that she could have been taught to eat and drink by mouth again, and he had the advantage of live observation. Call it a standoff; the matter cannot be proved either way.
Another one they cite is his claim that Terri suffered cortical blindness. IOW, her vision center in the brain was so far gone, she couldn't have had any vision. But she did -- before she was dehydrated. Dr. Hammesfahr, again with first-hand experience, published that she was partially blind but he measured some vision. This discrepancy was probably explained by additional brain damage when Terri was dehydrated.
Incidentally, Dr. Thogmartin made a point of remarking the cortical blindness. He did NOT state that Terri had lost all of her other senses (as certain trolls falsely state based on their own imagined understanding of neurology). Surely he would have, if he thought it to be true. But in fact, he was well aware that she had other senses -- could listen to music, could feel pain (as abundantly recorded in her med files), and so on.
In a word, neither the autopsy report nor its author are anything to worry about, imo.
How the heck can justice be dispensed disinterestedly when the judge, litigant, "expert" witness and g.a.l. are buddies running a traveling carnival?
www.tg2006.com
Sign up for TG will be coming to Pinellas County again in the near future, right into the belly of the beast. (sarcasm tag required these days for the lurkers).
Proverbs 11:1
My entry: "You don't say, Mel."
http://www.northcountrygazette.org/
It sounds like you were at the courthouse in downtown Clearwater. How'd you get in?
I have cared for patients like Terri Schindler, and it is true they somtimes when they are are alone as if someone is in the room. This is because they go in and out of consiousness. But they also give DEFINITE, not random reponses to stimuli and to loved ones and such responses are NO coincidence.
Nurses working with Terri have said she responded to pain and other stimuli. And unfortunately Terri's physical condition deteriorated when rehabilitative therapy stopped.
Regardless, even were Terri in a coma (which she wasn't), it would be grossly immoral to end their lives prematurely. Such patients should receive the best of care, food and water and let nature take it's course. Studies have consistently shown, comatose patients are far more aware of their surroundings than they appear to be.
Yet, we were able to feed him by mouth. It is very hard work and takes patience, not highly qualified medical opinion, to feed a person in that condition. He did not know how to chew, could swallow reflexively, a motor function common to even the severely retarded. But we took our time and did what the medical technicians said was impossible. So far as aspiration is concerned, we at times offered gelatin, Jello, to keep him hydrated. We did it for 26 years and he thrived, did not develop, but lived a happy life."
mm, may God bless you and your entire family for choosing to love and so thoroughly care for your son. Your devotion is admirable and quite heroic. Would that many people learn from your extraordinary sacrifice and great example and thank you so much for your personal testimony. : )
Quentin, I urge you to take the summary of the video with a grain of salt, knowing the bias favoring their interests. If you have had direct experience with someone like Terri you would realize again and again that while some reactions may be random, some are very real indeed.
The observations you heard are at diametric odds with those of a highly respected priest who visited her each day, described her smiles personally to us and reactions, just minutes after visiting with her. He told us of her courageous demeanor and attempts to react right up to near the end.
Who are you going to believe?
Thank you for your kind words.
"Also, someone asked about the rest of the 4 hours of video. I have not seen it myself, but have read summary descriptions by the judge, a reporter who viewed them, and someone from the area, whom I respect and trust, who has seen them."-- Quentin version 2
Post #963 was for you as much as for me. I could not -- and still do not -- credit your point in #908 that disability rights activists suffer "palpable fear" and "do not trust the people in their lives who are closest to them." Nor, being handicapped myself, do I look down on people with disabilities as "poor folks."
I went back and read every link posted at that site in regard to Terri Schiavo. Nobody even mentioned such fear or mistrust! What they were all concerned about, rather, was discrimination and social attitudes that seemed to them threatening. What they fear is the very real possibility that they will be cut off from medical care or even treated as "useless eaters" and forcibly "euthanized" for being disabled. As the euthanasia movement gathers force, these questions loom larger and larger.
It is revealing that they fear being treated like Terri Schiavo. They know she was treated cruelly!
Terri was, in fact, a supreme example of an individual being deprived of her rights and denied any say in her care. If we are to defend our own rights to decide our fate, we must defend hers.
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