Goodbye Terri

What a sad horrific day for Terri and her family Our hearts go out to them all and hope they find comfort soon. Her husband should be ashamed of himself.

Today (4/2) is a month since my mom's death. She had a peaceful death, made that way by the nurse and other rest home staff caring for her. Yes, she made the decision to stop food, drink and medication. Her mouth was moistened and she was turned hourly. We held her hand and I told her it was ok to go -that I understood. It's amazing how she died in a little over 24hrs after making that decision and 3 hours after I gave her "permission". She felt physically and emotionally cared for and at peace (I pray)to her last breath. Contrast this with poor Terri. 13 days she struggled to stay alive. I am certain she understood at some level what was happening. We don't really know how much people in coma understand. Did she feel emotionally cared for until her last breath?!! It must have been terrifying not being able to wake up enough to make her wishes known. Her family will always suffer with these awful memories. The weak are supposed to be protected by the strong in this society. Yet, her parents could get no protection for her. I only hope that she was indeed a "vegetable" and didn't think that it was her parents who would not protect her. My heart goes out to them. I hope her husband doesn't get away with something sinister. I hope the government who wouldn't step in to protect her will investigate her death. It won't help her I realize, but I hope her family will find comfort in justice, if warranted. Paula

Paula, Exactly!!!

No matter which side of the fence you were on, or even like me in the big gray area between the 2 sides where you can see both sides, the biggest things we all can learn from all this is : Don't leave your wishes undocumented. Get a living will, health care proxy. Make your wishes known. I watched my wife's mother suffer from ALS - Lou Gehrig's. She went from being vibrant, to tripping and having some walking issues, to losing fine motor skills, to losing the ability to walk on her own with some more hand issues, to losing use of her hands, then arms, then speech issues, then not being able to speak, then finally losing the ability to breathe - all while being 100% mentally alert. She asked us, after she had lost use of her hands, but still could talk, to give her extra morphine, knowing what it would have done, but we couldn't legally do it. My biggest issue with the whole Terri Schiavo case isn't with the legal battles on both sides - both sides were trying to carry out what they saw as "what she wanted/would have wanted" based on the person they knew. (Hence my statement above - get your wishes in writing!!!) Courts and "experts" looked at more than the propaganda and the canned footage that was made available to the general public (I realize that we only got part of the story, the rest was all private medical records stuff etc), and made a determination, right or wrong. My issue is more that in the same situation, they would let you put a dog to "sleep" and in fact, would probably jail you for cruelty to animals if you didn't, but wouldn't provide the same option, at least ONCE ALL THE LEGAL WRANGLING WAS DONE, for an actual human being. So we can be "humane", but "humane" isn't good enough for the root word, a human. But that's just my opinion. I know this all is very emotionally charged, on all sides.. which is why I haven't posted until now. And the biggest thing I hope everyone on all sides of this does, is to get their 'end-of-life' wishes legally documented and notarized.