Posted on 03/14/2006 11:28:51 AM PST by KevinNuPac
Terri's Day challenges the nation to unify
Kevin Fobbs
March 13, 2006
Terri's Day — A Celebration of the Culture of Life honoring Terri Schiavo with a day of remembrance challenges each and every one of us to stop for a moment and ask ourselves a question, do we respect ourselves, our families, our lives?
And if we are faced with the question of the possible certainty of death, does anyone truly know, or even have the faintest clue about, our wishes? That is the greatest good, the greatest legacy that Terri Schiavo's death and an annual "Terri's Day" can bring to our lives and to the celebration of the Culture of Life.
On March 18th, we as a nation will begin to grieve again, to reach into our hearts and feel with our collective national spirit what the Schindler family felt last year at this time as each moment since Terri was disconnected from the feeding lifeline, the moments crept by like hours and hours like days.
All of us have felt in some way that pain — even if it were only in the privacy of our loved one's home, hospital room, hospice or perhaps talking with an attorney and doctor attempting to make sense out of some fleeting comments made in a conversation perhaps voiced ten, twelve or even two decades earlier — not necessarily an expression of her true feeling about an end-of-life decision but merely an incidental musing in a long-forgotten side conversation.
For at least one million Americans, and quite possibly a whole lot more, this is an opportunity to voice an opinion through a pledge supporting a resolution in each state called "Terri's Day — A Celebration of the Culture of Life." Each and every person who cares that your family, your spouse, your mother, your father, your sister or brother understands with clarity what you wish the end of life for you to be, with dignity and certainty should sign the online pledge at www.kevinfobbs.com and take the additional step to sign a Living Will — or as they call it at www.terrisfight.org, the Will to Live.
Some have asked why Americans should care about an annual Terri's Day. It is quite simple, we tend to keep turning the page on the Culture of Life because we feel it does not affect us. We tend to believe that seemingly universal belief that those who are handicapped, those who are not quite living a "perfect" life or by contemporary notion "ideal" then those lives are possibly disposable, marginal, not relevant, and part of the Culture of Death which embraces a "disposable society."
But life and our values for the Culture of Life are not disposable. Think about the young people today who would rather hurt themselves or even take their own lives rather than feel "imperfect" or the elderly person whose family is told by an insensitive health care professional while the stricken person struggles to cling to life, "she would be better off in another place," — just let her die, disconnect her from life, because her quality of life is not up to "contemporary standards. "
Why does celebrating the Culture of Life in Michigan become so essential for all of us in America? It is important for several reasons. Dr. Jack Kervorkian, also known as "Doctor Death" helped launch first in Michigan and then the nation the notion of the death culture. Secondly, and equally as important, at the May 12 event — just two days before Mother's Day — there will also be a "Mary's Moms" celebration of those women and mothers who have met challenges in standing up for some aspect of the Culture of Life.
This past weekend I sat at my cousin's funeral — or going home celebration, which more accurately describes it — thinking about the dearly departed and how she packed so much caring for others into her life even as she struggled with illness and advancing age. She was a wonderful woman who had lived through many, many challenges in her life, but in her 73 years she had met these challenges with dignity and had conveyed to her family when would be the right time to allow her to pass away.
Her daughter, who is a minister, spoke to the packed church about the times when, with all of her pain and then a stroke, the doctors had informed them that perhaps it was better to let her go. Yet that was three years ago that that occurred, and if the family had listened to the doctors and refused to see how she fought back and not only recovered but went back to volunteering at the church to feed and clothe the homeless. The medical professionals didn't care about an elderly lady who was on dialysis, but the family did and they knew better. Patricia lived three more years — years her extensive extended family considered "a gift from God."
So isn't part of the lesson of Terri's legacy and Terri's Day for families and loved ones to have a meaningful conversation with their family and to have the written document on hand as well that conveys the wishes clearly and concisely? You betcha.
As I sat in the church I thought of all of the families across the nation and the world who were sitting at their loved one's bedsides — or even standing outside of a hospital emergency room — overwhelmed with emotion, torn by what may be days of conflicting anguished decisions. I thought again of how out of death we may have the certainty of life. Terri's death reminded the nation that yes a state can and will starve you to death, and your family may be rendered helpless as you watch your loved one's precious life forces drain slowly away.
By signing the online pledge at www.kevinfobbs.com or going to www.terrisfight.org, you can learn about how to encourage your state legislature to establish March 31st as an official Terri's Day. Hold a Culture of Life Home Party or meet-and-greet to sign pledges, share ideas and support The Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation as well as Culture of Life activities and events in your community or around the nation. Between now and March 31st you can make a dramatic difference for yourself, your family and for the nation. Stand up for the Culture of Life because one person, one life, one family can and does make a difference in America. Make the difference and be the difference today. America...The countdown for the Culture of Life has begun.
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Kevin Fobbs is President of National Urban Policy Action Council (NuPac), a non-partisan civic and citizen-action organization that focuses on taking the politics out of policy to secure urban America's future one neighborhood, one city, and one person at a time. View NuPac on the web at www.nupac.info. Kevin Fobbs is a regular contributing columnist for the Detroit News. He is also the daily host of The Kevin Fobbs Show on News Talk WDTK - 1400 AM in Detroit. Listen to The Kevin Fobbs Show online at www.wdtkam.com daily 2-3 p.m., and call in toll-free nationwide to make your opinion count at 800-923-WDTK(9385) © Copyright 2006 by Kevin Fobbs http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/fobbs/060313
That was his version of a conversation he had with a Dr. Harrison in the 1993 guardianship hearings. I can't find where they questioned Harrison about it. It could be just a Mickey cat story, but it's in the record.
I didn't include that in my post below because of length, but what I thought was interesting was that it appears that Terri had not seen a neurologist since Dr. Yingling (who turns out not to be a medical doctor at all) until one day before Michael's court testimony! I can only imagine what a little police interrogation might lead to with this character.
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SHEEHAN: Okay. How often does Doctor Harrison see her, do you know.
SCHIAVO: He's seen her---
NILSSON: You're talking right now, as we sit?
SHEEHAN: Yeah. I mean does he see her on a regular basis now?
SCHIAVO: No.
SHEEHAN: When was the last time he saw her?
SCHIAVO: Yesterday.
SHEEHAN: When was the last time before that?
SCHIAVO: She didn't.
SHEEHAN: So Doctor Harrison saw her for the first time yesterday?
SCHIAVO: Yes, on the advice of Doctor Lyles to go see her or him.
SHEEHAN: Okay. When was the last time Terri had seen a neurologist?
SCHIAVO: I'd have to look up some records. I don't remember.
SHEEHAN: Has it been years?
SCHIAVO: No, I don't think it's been years.
SHEEHAN: Has a neurologist seen her since Doctor Yingling saw her?( April 1991)
SCHIAVO: I don't recall.
www.northcountrygazette.org/articles/102905SchiavoImplant.html
Catholics I admire include Brother Paul O'Donnell and Brother Hilary, the Franciscan monks from Minnesota who stood by Terri and her family. A mild mannered man, Brother Paul spoke as if the Holy Ghost were speaking through him when he defended Terri.
Here is something else from Minnesota, the state where I was born.
A bill encouraging Minnesotans to make their long-term and end-of-life care wishes known continued to pass legislative hurdles this week.
The Minnesota House Civil Law Committee voted March 27 in favor of the “Starvation and Dehydration of Persons with Disabilities Prevention Act.”
Bill covers food and water issues for those in long-term care or ending life
Minnesota bishops support proposal
8mm
She was sleeping. How did the next one turn out?
Btw, note what the alleged doctor allegedly said. "She died four years ago." That would put this EEG in 1994 -- at least a year after Michael withdrew all therapy and put a DNR on Terri's charts. So, why were they allegedly doing a diagnostic test in 1994?
Also btw, the term "flat-line" is propagandistic. People hear it and think of heart monitors, especially in dramatic TV scenes. It symbolizes death, or at least defibrillation. The beeping stops, the line goes flat and -- oh my Hubbard!! -- the patient's heart has stopped. He's dead, he's dying, quick, give him a Heimlich maneuver!!
Too bad we don't have EMGs -- electromorality graphs. Put little wires on your conscience. Michael wouldn't even flat-line. His graph would point straight down.
I wish some courageous investigators really interested in justice would take a hard look at the time when Dr. Yoshio Hosobuchi was in the picture, per your link. I keep posting the picture of Terri because she was on her way to substantial recovery before they started experimenting with her brain.
This was taken a couple years or so after the incident and as her many broken bones were healing, and before Mikey cashed in on the malpractice lottery.
There you go, using Hubbard in vain. Can felos be used as a verb, as in "The serial killer felosed another victim>"?
Well I've been through the last couple days from hell. And I have to say I think I felt a small fraction of what Terri was going through when she died!
I got dehydrated and I believe from the damned thyroid medicine I'm taking. I feel awful! I have no idea how it happend but I do know that the last couple of days my muscles in my body were tight, week, and I was shaking! I had body tremors, pain throughout my body everywhere. I couldn't use any of my muscles it was so bad! I was thirsty, had dry mouth, and my eyes were sunken in. I go to the doctor and find out I'm dehydrated and I starte drinking gatorade quickly and lots of it. I feel lots better, cept a bad headache now! But WOW, is all I can say! Dehydration feels awful and nothing to mess with. Terri had to be in severe pain dying is all i can say. Dehydration is TERRIBLE!
Can you imagine then, Terri with supposed weak heart went thirteen days without a drop to touch her lips? Few of the strongest could go that long and with suffering we can hardly imagine.
Dehydration can sneak up as you found out. It would happen to our son sometimes. He couldn't talk and we wouldn't always realize it at first until some early symptoms. Then we would learn to pinch gently some loose skin on his arm. If it snapped back, we would not worry, but if it took time to return, we knew he needed water right away.
Thirteen days...it still boggles the mind.
Feb. 1990 - Nov. 1993. Close enough as far as 4 years go. If I were diabolical and facing a guardianship hearing, and the risk of losing all that money, I would want to make it look good too.
Interesting article.
Seems Michael sued Prudential Insurance, the company Terri worked for before her injury, at least two times. Those suits are in additional to the suits against Terri's doctors. I wonder how much money he actually gained from all the different lawsuits.
Terri's first GAL said there was a conflict of interest concerning Michael's guardianship of Terri and his desire to eliminate her. I think his name was Pierce. He said MS would inherit Terri's money by killing her. Pierce was right about the conflict of interest. Terri probably had a life insurance policy with Prudential too. Felos had Pierce removed as Terri's GAL.
Other than Pierce, the only guardian who would have put Terri's interests first would have been her real family, the Schindlers. Any other guardian appointed by Greer, most likely would have been a robot for Felos and his new age death cult, since Felos seemed to control the court. The Schindlers fought so hard to save Terri, but they were out numbered by the ghouls and as Mr Schindler says - they were blindsided.
Even though it's been a year since all this happened, I still can't believe it was not stopped. Apparently there are NO WHITE ROSES in power in America. How very sad.
Oops - I forget this from the article:
""ST. PETERSBURG BEACH - Mike Schiavo vividly remembers the morning of Feb. 25. Usually a late sleeper, Schiavo awakened suddenly about 5 a.m. and started to get out of bed.
"For some strange reason that day, I was just taking the covers off, and then she hit the floor," he said.""
Has anyone else ever, ever, ever heard the *I WAS JUST TAKING THE COVERS OFF, AND THEN SHE HIT THE FLOOR*?????????????????????
What the heck is that all about????????
"So powerful were the tender cruelties of the murderers that not a drop of liquid could touch Terri's lips. Monsignor was blocked from even placing a drop of wine from Communion on her lips."
This is demonic!!
It seems that I remember - maybe a week or so before Terri's passing, she was allowed Holy Communion on one day, and she had renewed energy that day, and when her friends came, and talked about how they would go dancing, Terri raised her hands, as to demonstrate/gesture dancing. I wish I saved the link where I read this in my personal files.
Does anyone else remember this?
None whats so ever. The book of Revelations is getting closer all the time.
I wonder if he ever had a moment after that when he didn't see it. That's a memory that could drive anyone to suicide.
That's right, and they had Wolfson removed too, for the audacity of suggesting that Terri should be given another swallowing test. Premeditated it was.
Did you ever learn what his final note said?
So that's what happened! He asphyxiated her with the covers!
Spelling may have been Pearse, if anybody wants to try a search.
Haul him in for questioning I say.
The leaders didn't show up a year ago.
But Sophie of the White Rose died too as did her compatriots, and the leaders then failed too, but the White Rose continued as it does today.
I cannot take credit for any of the discovery of this symbol, but shamelessly plagiarize our own Terri compatriots like BykrBayb, T'wit, bjs1779 and others more knowledgeable.
8mm
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