Here are some thoughts

I have been doing some thinking on Terri Schiavo. I have never met her or any one close to her and I can only comment from my point of view and give an opinion; I don’t pretend to be Solomon or to really reach meaningful conclusion here. Are we extending her life or are we prolonging the death experience. I signed the DNR letter when my father collapsed and was taken to the hospital. I had many conversations with my Dad over the years and I knew that he did not want heroic measures taken to extend his life if he was on life support. This decision was easy when I signed it at the hospital and I was standing next to him when he took his last breathe. Months later the nightmares began and I did feel guilty for some time, convincing myself over and over again that my decision was correct and then I convinced myself that it was wrong and I had killed my father. Today I have come to grips with the fact that I did what he wanted and that is all that I did, I fulfilled his wishes, not mine, and I did help my dad go to heaven the way he wanted to go, his way and on his terms.

There are a lot of hysterical people running around claiming that they know what is best for this poor women and family. None of these people have ever met her, met her husband until she unfortunately became the “flavor of the day” no one outside of her family knew her.

Her family is her husband and to a point her father and mother. When she married her father for lack of a better phrase, “ Gave her away.” I know this doesn’t mean what it says but when she married her husband was, is the one that is responsible for her. Tragic as it is he does have the right to make this decision. The husband has for years told the same story, that after a couple of funerals were family members died after being on ventilators she told him that she never wanted to be like that. Now his error was that he didn’t have her write it down, but how does a young husband tell his even younger wife she needs to write down this “living will statement.” I am sure lots of Americans are writing down their wishes now, but 15 years ago this was a quiet subject for everyone.
I have been married and I had conversations with my wife about our plans and our wishes that I never told my parents about.

While in hospice care her husband was asked to remove her from the facility because he demanded on a continuous basis better treatment for his wife. She has been bedridden for 15 years and has never had a bedsore. 15 years in bed and no bedsores, I would say that that isn’t mistreatment that is excellent treatment.

Her husband never mistreated this poor girl; she had a heart attack due to low potassium from an eating disorder. Her medical care was botched at the hospital and she was put in hospice. There was a settlement that pays for her care and has not made the husband rich. This is why the guy comes across as the bad guy because he didn’t sit by her bedside everyday and forgo any hope of a life for himself. He went out and met someone else and didn’t play the grieving husband or play the martyr role that we think he should play. Did he give away his right to make this decision when he gave up on her and started seeing someone else, maybe I think but she was already in a coma when he met someone else.

Terri’s parents are the ones I feel sorry for the most. What are they supposed to do, not fight and let her die? They are doing what I hope all parents would do love, cherish and care for their children forever. Some would say that they are not caring for her but extending her suffering, but I fear that they are doing all they know how to do, love their daughter.

Everybody has had his or her shot to make their case but the truth is she decided what she wanted to have down in her conversations with her husband years ago. I cannot imagine the pain and agony that her husband has gone through and has to deal with now and how has he changed in 15 years of battling to fulfill his wives wishes, but it seems to me that everyone should take a deep breath and let go.

I do worry in part because somehow it just doesn’t seem right have close 30, 000 people a year die from having their life support turned off by family members, yet I do not want to be on life support and be a burden for my family. We do not know what it is like to be the patient because only 1 person has ever “recovered” while being in the same degree of “coma” or “vegetative state” as Mrs. Schiavo and he remembers nothing of his lengthy hospital state.

Life is precious and should not be wasted and love is even more precious and is rarely viewed in such a bright light but so many people and when magnified by the TV cameras, the politicians and the religious people I fear we all loose sight of the absolute gift we have.