all in the family
I’ve been following the Terri Schiavo debacle with interest and all I have to say is this. If something was to happen to me and the doc was to walk up to my family and friends and say something like.
Doc…“Greg has lost all brain activity”.
Mother…”Can you be more clearer”?
Doc…”He’s brain dead”.
Sister…”What’s makes that any different then before”?
Doc….”wha”?
Michelle….”Would pulling my top off bring Greg back”?
Brother….”Sure, it’s worth a shot”.
Michelle….”ok, hold my purse”.
Doc….”Wow”!
Uncle….”damn”!
Brother…”those are real, right”?
Crowd in hallway…”down in front dammit”!
Mother…”put your damn shirt back on”.
Vague voice from hallway….”I had to go to the john, what I miss”?
Doc…anyway…..the only thing keeping Greg alive is the breathing tube”.
Sister…So he’s gone”?
Sister…”dead”?
Sister…”departed”?
Doc….”yes”?
Mother…”let me wrap my head around this. So Greg’s a dead lifeless husk with no chance of ever coming back because he’s lost all brain activity which makes him brain-dead unlike a coma which is a prolonged period of unconsciousness that people can recover from, and is only being kept alive by artificial means such as this loudass respirator?
Doc…”yeah, like that”.
Sister….”oh”.
Michelle… “oh”.
Brother….”oh”.
Uncle….”oh”.
Crowd in hallway….”oh”.
Vague voice from hallway…..”can I have his bike”?
Then please let me go.
"and the monkey flipped the switch"
posted by Greg Beck at Tuesday, March 22, 2005
15 Comments:
well yea, it would probably go something like that.....except my mother wouldnt let michelle take her shirt off at all. so sorry michelle. and i'd keep the bike. and the truck.
so says the sister
The newest twist in this whole mess of terry's fate is some gal got arrested for giving her a glass of water. Now Im not an attorney, but since when is it against the law to give somebody dyin of fucking thirst a glass of water. I think that it is very unusually cruel to make her die of thirst instead of leathal injection like a mass murderer
I wrote my share on this on my site.. the goverment needs to get the fuck out of people's living and dying.. they are politicians, not bioethicists.
Love ya.
Greg,
Not comparable. Terri is not brain dead. She is not on a respirator. She isn't going to reading a book ever again, but so fucking what. Her scumbag husband(?) wants to be rid of her, he should just fucking walk away. Her parents love her and are capable and willing to care for her. She's alive, for God's sake and ah's like satavati, so steeped in this all pervasive culture of death that has been promelgated by the asswipe liberals, can easily write off a human being. BY STARVING HER TO DEATH. Absolutely fucking digusting.
MM
Let's talk about who's an asshole. Have you ever watched anyone in Terri's condition on a day to day basis? Have you seen them go in and out of aspiration pneumonia, in and out of urinary tract infections, covered in pressure sores that eat away fat, muscle, and nerves to leave stinking holes so big you can put your fist in them? Have you ever fucking done that?
So how the fuck do you know what Terri wanted, or what she told her husband, or what her life is like on a daily basis? How do you know what, if anything, goes through what's left of her mind as her muscles contract uselessly into a fetal position?
Get a fucking real life idea of what you're talking about before you go off on some sentimental tangent. Go visit a long term care facility and peek under the covers. Then see if you might want to live if you were like that, and if it was your wife, who had told you years earlier she wouldn't want to life like that, if you wouldn't try to defend her wishes, and let her be free.
Her husband? That's a laugh pal. I have been to nursing homes and seen shells of human beings. Yeah, so. My point is this is a living human being. If you want to believe what her scumbag husband came up with years after her initial strangling, fine bub, you do that. If you can watch this ah and swallow his lying bullshit, you've got a problem. If my wife had told me, no tubes of any kind, I'd respect her wishes. there is absolutely no proof what so ever that Terri said that. If you watch the home movies of her, it's obvious she has a limited capacity for interaction.The reality is that her parents love her and want to take care of her. What the fuck is your problem with that? Oh I know, another creepy lib deciding what's best for us. What's next, sending 8 year olds back to totalitarian governments. Wait, you already did that. It's the culture of death that even allows us to go there. How about 40 MILLION abortions? No problem there either, right?
Disgusting.
MM
I do believe this issue has been in the court system for years, as our beloved government has been called upon to legislate this issue which clearly should have been left in the hands of her legal guardian, not Jeb Bush.
As a nurse, I stand by what I've said. Gastrostomy tubes are a hideous means of perpetuating families in denial when used in situations like this.
Have a super duper night. I'm off to work.
MM, you consider having to live via feeding tube while your body wastes away "living"? And what is truly worse, being stuck in the living hell of a coma for 15 years, or dying over around 2 weeks time?
If her husband truly was a "scumbag", I think he would have moved along and left her parents to take care of her, don't you think?
And creepy libs deciding what's best for us? How about the Bush boys getting involved, thus pushing more of a creepy Christian Right agenda down our throats? They should have never gotten involved in this in the first place. For them, it's not about this one poor lady, she's just a prop to use to further their own agendas and causes which are suspect.
Funny shit!
Great post! and yes It is time to let her go.
Oh, and just for those of you who didn't extrapolate this from the news: the person who was arrested for trying to give Terri water could very likely have killed her with it. Why? TERRI CAN'T DRINK WATER. She'll aspirate, and get pneumonia. The water would have to go through her tube.
This entire issue has become nothing but a political agenda. When a government decides it has the right to mandate bioethics over personal wishes, we move into a Nazi regime. Put your wishes on paper now. And get it notarized, for God's sake.
satyavati,
I agree with you about a living will. However Terri was 26 when her husband strangled her and played it off as a heart attack. This is an age when most of us aren't thinking of living wills. Your point about the legal guardian is well taken, but for the fact Michael lied, under oath and on the record, about his intentions concerning Terri. My point is since Terri has no living will, her legal guardian is a liar, her parents love her and are willing to care for her and Terri has clearly demostrated a limited capacity for interaction with her parents and nurses, WHY FUCKING KILL HER? Contrary to Rusty's assertion, Terri IS NOT in acoma. There is even a case to be made that she is not PVS, but in fact has limited mental abilities. Her nurses have said she can feel pain and discomfort and she responds happily when her parents visit.
This is not a religious issue, though Christians have spoken loudly for life. This is a moral issue and for the life of me, I'll never understand why the libs are so adament to kill a human being, especially when letting her live will hurt no one.
BTW Greg, I'm sorry for flaming your friend on your bandwidth.
I meant to sign the above also.
MM
A couple more things and I've said my peace............
MM, what news source are the allegations of abuse by the husband coming from? I have not heard them, and I believe that it would have some bearing on this whole ordeal.
As for her condition, granted she may not be in a coma, but neurologistshave said that her major brain functions are simply not working and never will at this point. The part of her brain that is working is such a primitive part that any of her reactions are simply reflex, akin to a plant moving to a light source. The part of her brain that is dead is the part that is part of feeling the pain process. Though she is dying she is not suffering cause she can't feel it.
This is a political agenda, pure and simple. If it were not, the involvment up to the President would not have happened. Bush has gotten involved to appese the Christian Right that helped vote him into office.
Saying that liberals want her to die makes it sound extremly callous and cold hearted. This is about letting someone pass on to a better place. It's simply cruel to let her spend the rest of her days wasting away in a bed when the part of her mind that made her the individual she was died 15 years ago. This is truly a sad situation, but Terri Shaivo has been dead for some time now, what lies in that bed is an empty shell, not a wife or daughter.
And I'm done........
Rusty,
Go to www.hughhewitt.com and read the various postings.
I think more of George Bush than to think he is doing this as part of a political agenda. He is, after all, at the end of his political career.
For you to say that Terri would be better off dead is exactly what I mean. Neither of us have the right to want her dead or alive. All I'm saying is, lacking a responsible "legal" guardian or a living will, what not err on the side of life? Where is the harm? With the therapy that her "legal" guardian has denied her the past 15 years, who knows where she would be now. He promised, in sworn testimony, that he was going to become a nurse and to care for Terri until she died. Hell, the monetary judgement he recieved was based on the amount of money he would need to keep Terri alive into her 70's.
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