Posted by
Jan@Oasis on Saturday, July 26, 2008 12:00:38 AM
Dear Laura,
I do adore your show. You are obviously a great conservative thinker. You are smart, and funny, and compassionate. You are a good Catholic. But you are seriously misguided about one particular topic: the poor departed soul known as Terri Schiavo. On this subject, I am SO tempted to say you should, as the old saying goes, remain silent and have others think you a fool, rather than opening your mouth and proving it beyond a doubt.
A while back, I wrote a blog post on Terri after seeing her brother on CSpan lamenting the fact that Terri had finally been allowed to die. He claimed that she was not in a persistent vegetative state, and that she was starved and dehydrated to death. All of this is pure fantasy, and while I pity him and Terri's parents, and any other folks who are needlessly distressed over the circumstances of her passing, I must correct some misconceptions.
First, let me say that I AGREE with you and your guest of last week, a lawyer from Alliance Defense Fund I think he was, along with the young man who had woken up from what was obviously NOT a PVS. I AGREE that the doctors jumped the gun by discontinuing his feeding tube and hydration. But his case is NOTHING like Terri Schiavo's. Just the time factor alone is a glaring difference. He apparently had brain activity. She did not, and had not, for FIFTEEN years. I'm not sure why the docs were so quick to recommend calling a halt to this young man's treatment, but it has NOTHING to do with the Schiavo situation.
If I were Michael Schiavo, I would sue all of you crazed right-to-life zealots who called me a murderer. I believe Michael Schiavo tried his best for Terri, even going to nursing school to learn how to take care of her. After seven years or so though, it was apparent that she was not going to ever "wake up," because the cognitive part of her brain was dead. Perhaps you are not aware, dear Laura, that the brainstem can continue to function even if the rest of the brain does not, and the brainstem is responsible for breathing, blood pressure, etc. Strictly PHYSIOLOGICAL functions, having nothing to do with the person herself, her personality, her consciousness, her awareness. All of that was gone, in Terri's case. It is disgraceful that any doctor should have been telling her parents that there was any hope of her "coming back." The lawyer for her parents was talking as if she would get up at any moment and go to the mall. There is a reason all the videos and pictures the media had of Terri were ten years old. I don't think by the time she was finally allowed to go to her final rest that she looked NEARLY that good.
Fox News had a wonderful neurologist on who said that he thought it might be good if GPs did not give "expert" opinion on neurological patients. He was convinced that Terri was not only in a PVS, but that her brain was most likely wasting away as well. The autopsy bore that out. Her brain was the consistency of jello. Smooth, no wrinkles, just a glob of tissue. Terri herself had died long ago. Just because medical science was able to keep her body functioning doesn't mean it should have.
Another neurologist who spoke about this case said this: "The family, the governor and even Congress has been duped into thinking Terri is not terminally ill, because she can breathe on her own. The fact is, if one is unable to walk, speak, eat, drink, and otherwise care for oneself, one is indeed TERMINALLY ILL, and any intervention under these circumstances, when this has gone on for such a long time, is definietly 'extraordinary.' " Most people, when asked, will deny that they would want to be kept in this limbo for fifteen years. Would you? Michael Schiavo believed Terri would not have wanted this existence either, and I daresay I think he was right.
As Glenn Beck, or it may have been Neal Boortz, said at the time, Terri died, finally, because "she earned it." That she did. She was tortured for far too long to feed her parents' neurotic demands. They wanted to take care of her, but she was not in their home and I'm pretty sure someone else was paying the tab. If money could have brought back this poor soul, then spend it. But it wasn't going to happen, and the idea shouldn't be put out there for the gullible public that it ever would have.
I am a former hospice nurse, and as such I must register a very strong objection to something your lawyer guest said. He implied that hospice is out there trying to round up every patient with the slightest indication of a possible terminal diagnosis, to ensnare him or her into our diabolical web of death. This is such a wrong-headed view of hospice that I hardly know where to begin. We have extremely strict guidelines for which patients qualify for hospice. My job was to assess potential patients, referred either by a physician or by the family and/or patient themselves, and to decide, with my supervisors, whether to admit said patients to our service. Since hospice care is a Medicare benefit, Medicare has stringent guidelines as well, and will not pay for patients who are not appropriate for hospice care. Hospice is not a Death Cult. It is the most compassionate and caring solution for patients who are no longer able to benefit from medical intervention. We offer palliative care, comfort care--whatever the patient needs while on our service, we will provide. It is often a matter of coming into a situation where utter chaos and panic abound, and making order out of it, giving the patient's needs FIRST priority. Anyone who has experienced modern medical care can attest to the fact that in the world of the hospital, patients' needs are often secondary to the needs of the facility, the physician, the nurses and maybe even the housekeeping staff. When patients realize that no request is too big or too small for hospice to respond to, they feel immense relief and comfort. I have been an OB nurse and a teacher of nursing assistants, but hospice was by far the most rewarding--the purest nursing--I have ever experienced. My mother died in hospice care, and that motivated me to be one of those nurses--truly angels of mercy--who made her last days so much better than they would have been otherwise. Sometimes a hospice patient will fool us all and stabilize, and he or she will be taken off hospice care, until such time as he or she may need us again. Becoming a hospice patient does not mean the end of hope, for hope is always appropriate. As hospice nurses and physicians, we are often more religious, more trusting of God to decide, than other medical professionals. It is liberating, it is calming, to know that we are no longer in charge (we know, actually, that we never were) of who lives and who dies, and when and how. It seems that Terri's family might have been better off turning her over to God long before they were forced to.
Dear Laura, let Terri go. She was not starved to death, nor dehydrated to death. When one is dying, food and water actually cause pain and discomfort, for the body is not capable of processing them anymore. Feeding tubes are horrible, uncomfortable intrusions, and patients who have any capability for purposeful movement will almost to a person try to pull them out.
Terri's parents are supposedly strong Catholics, yet they were afraid to let Terri go to God. I believe with all my heart that she would have chosen to go much sooner than she did, and that Michael did the right thing by finally insisting on releasing her from her prison. This type of situation happens every day all over this country, and the dopes in Congress don't get involved. Michael Schiavo had the RIGHT to make the decison he made, and he had many, many expert opinions on his side. It was really not the business of the media, or Congress, or Gov. Bush, or ANYONE else, to try to override Terri's husband and the physicians who were advising him. I hope we can lay the whole sorry case to rest, and let Terri rest along with it. Please. Her suffering began to END with the removal of the artificial tubes and the goop going into them. I would say to Terri as I did to my mom, "Congratulations on getting out of here! Godspeed." Sincerely, JAN
P. S. Dear Laura, I believe in the sanctity of life too, and death is part of it. Knowing when to let go is so important to oneself and one's family. God decides, once the medical professionals have used up their bag of tricks. It often takes far too long and causes far too much agony for the dying person and his or her family. Please think about these issues I've brought up and realize that not every patient should be forced to remain here to satisfy a fantasy, or in the case of some physicians, an oversized ego.