The Right To Life.

[Guest kath]

In the court there is a highly charged case involving a 41 yr old woman who 15 yrs ago had a heart attack and was left brain dead. her husband wants her removed from life support and her parents want her to live. They say she has shown signs of improvement. They have photos of her smiling and responding and they said with treatment she may come around.

The case gets more complicated because its learned that her loving husband has taken a lover and has children by her, and that his wife has a million dollar life insurance policy paid on the event of her death.

If he divorces his wife, he wouldn't get that, nor would he get it if he turns custody over to her parents. He says its not about the money. He has been offered the money by another person, even more if he justs walks away. He has refused.

in a sworn affidated, a nurse has said she heard him say "So when is the b itch going to die?"

Someone pointed out after this amount of time, her body, even if the brain could be healed, would begin to atropy. her muscles would constrict, and she would get bed sores.

Someone also said that they would should get their living wills in order.

Living wills, can be overridden by the family, and the drs, and even the courts when it has been determined to be in the best intrest of the patient, or the money runs out.

Case in point there was a young toddler that was brain damaged and while his mother pleaded with the drs to help her child, to not to remove the tubes and that she wanted her child to live- they withdrew the toddlers feeding tubes, and the child died.

This wasn't years ago, this was not long ago. The difference was the toddlers family was poor. There was no million dollar life insurance.

So it begs the question.

What caused Terries heart attack to begin with? where was she that she couldn't get medical help in time that made her brain damaged, yet still get medical help so that she would live?

There is another side to this legislation that they said would be decided on a case by case basis.

There was another young woman who had suffered brain damage, and she was on life support and they had been working on removing her from life support and it was a battle with the courts back and forth to keep her alive, or let her die. The courts were told she would die fairly quickly with out it- smothering as her body couldn't draw in enough air.

but the drs were wrong. She lived for several years to die later of an infection.

There are words that people flinch from.

Assisted suicides.

Euthinasia.

Two years ago the nurses screwed up and missed responding to an alarm for half an hour. By the time the alarm was answered, the damage was done. My fater lay in a vegitaive state.

You hear the term brain dead, and they tell you that the person is gone- but-

they look at you. they turn their head, they move their limbs. they listen and you don't know if they understand. Its not like they just lay there with their eyes closed.

I asked the nurse what would be the next step, and she said they would continue to give him the morphin, for pain, giving him a little bit, then a little bit more.

and at the time the way she worded it was that she was just going to manage the pump button.

it wasn't until later that I realized she was changing the dose and using the morphin to kill him. Mind you, I was not my dads POA, or had any athority to make that decision and if it came to court that she said I oked it I wasn't the one to ask.

but it would have never been known what she was doing unless I had.

There was no reason for my dad to have died on that day. He was recovering from broncitus and the fluid in his lungs was from being on the moriphin, as was the problems that his body had been having. While the drs have their little comfort zone of what they felt the cause of death was, it was because she overdosed him.

yes, he had lung cancer. yes, he was stage 4, but he was in his right mind when he went into the hospital, and had said do what ever it takes to make me well.

in which the drs failed. He didn't have a million dollar life insurance policy. He was older than terri and my mum didn't want him to suffer.

She won't ever know about the conversation the nurse and i had. She won't know that dad didn't just die on his own when the resperator was removed, or that each time he tried to rebound with his breathing, the nurse upped the dose.

But, they know. they know what is happening. because my father cried. He looked at my mum, trying to be brave and tears came down his cheaks.

I wiped his tears, and closed his eyes for the last time.

I would have given up my job, everything to stay with him and care for him as he was, because I love him. Because I wanted just one more day with him. I knew that his cancer would take him from us in time, but with the stage he was in, it wasn't supposed to be that day, or the next. He could have lived for a lot longer if they had done their jobs right.

so I know how Terries parents feel.

and I know, if her husband truly loved her, he would let her parents have custody of her and walk away.

not see her in the grave to ease his mind about what he is doing while she lay.

Kath

[Guest fledgling666]

it's HEALTH ins. not LIFE ins. that pays doctors and you can't have a million dollar policy, in fact, all HMO policies are worth a LOT MORE than that.

i am not trying to destroy your story. there are a great many health practitioners that have made it completely the norm to use the health ins. reimbursement to them as a guide as to what treatments and so on a patient will receive. this is wrong, it makes the health ins. company responsible in a round about way for what treatment the patient gets rather than the doctor treating them.

that aside, my opinion on this matter is one that involves no dramatic hearsay or first-hand experience, just what i believe to be the moral and right thing to do. the husband should have all the say. when she married him, she gave him her life, when he married her, he gave her his. this is the way it should be, not necessarily how it is seen today in the public view, but this is what is meant by the word "marraige". one decides for the other. once married, the parents have no more say in the matter. congress has absolutely no position on matters of a personal nature, absolutely none.

thank you for reviving the idea so i wouldn't have to and risk getting booted. i am glad i was able to put my opinion down in here since i missed the last thread and it was locked.

again, i don't mean to start an argument. i just believe differently. last i checked, that was still ok, so don't take it personally, it's just that this thread is open, the other is locked and i wanted to say my two cents. thanks.

[Guest kath]

again, i don't mean to start an argument. i just believe differently. last i checked, that was still ok, so don't take it personally, it's just that this thread is open, the other is locked and i wanted to say my two cents. thanks.

It was a life insurance policy. Yes, with enough money you get umbrella coverage. I know of two people who had such policys, one paid out at two million dollars, and the other replaced their house when it blew up. The partiulars of it are that it cant be something like cancer, or a degenerative disease. Auto accidents are covered. falling off a deck that collapses is covered. stepping in front of a car because you are dispondent isn't covered. As long as you know where to look, you can get coverage.

I am long past arguing about what is right and wrong in the case of my father. I was able to speak with my mother today about Terries case, and she informed me of some things that I didn't know.

Terries husband had allready been paid by the life insurance policy for her care. he has spent it on other things, and not, her.

He also has a girlfriend, who has several children by him.

Terri, at the beginning was brought to the point where she could swallow on her own, and walk around with assistance.

Terries husband gave orders for the nurses to stop all forms of therapy so that she would fail to recover.

When the paramedics arrived Terries husband was in another room reading a magaizene. The drs who admitted her found she had bruse marks around her neck, and later x rays showed she had multipul fractures. Shortly before her heart attack, Terries told her best friend she was leaving her husband because he was abusive.

So then the question is, now that a person who was in a coma for 20 years wakes up, is he afraid of what she would say?

True, she married him. but that doesn't mean he owns her.

This isn't a question about faith. My family is religious, and my mother asked the priest what is done in this case, and the answer was, removing the resperator, wasn't removing the comfort measures as the removal of food would.

My best friends grandfather suffered a stroke, and was on the feeding tubes, and they said he could live years. His wife made the painful decision to remove the tubes. My friend sat with her grandfather, untill he died. She said it was the most horrible way to die.

If we allow, and look the other way when she dies, if we allow strangers to enter into this and judge our lives, from a distance- what does that make us as a people?

its not a faith issue, Its not about the hear after. It is retesting Roe vs wade, and it goes beyond Terrie.

Right now, if you are stage three with cancer, and wish to be cared for at a hospice, you have to give up your right to treatment and accept in doing so will shorten your life to just 6 months. There is no law that protects the people who are ill. there are better laws for privacy than there are for allowing care.

While we may feel it wont ever touch our lives- it can at a moments notice.

This case should have never had to been forced as an issue. everyone has the right to live.

Kath

[hippyroo]

I just wanted to post before this thread is censored too.

"when I get older losing my hair

many years from now

will you be still be getting me a valentine, birthday card, bottle of wine?

will you still need me? will you still need me?

when I'm sixty-four?"

hope my loved ones don't make me die of thirst when i am old

[Raven Wolf]

Ok... I'm not sure that this is the place for this sort of discussion, and I will close this thread after this post. If Graham decides it should contine, then it shall be opened again, but he did close the last thread, pointing out that this was not the place for these descussions.

Kath, I know about the story of your father, and you know I extend my deepest sympothy for your loss.

I have only this to say, and then I think this discussion be closed.

We're all talking about how the parnets feel, or whether the husband is being faithful to his wife (which I'd love to learn where you got that information)... but has anyone considered Terri? Why is the battle about whether her husband has a right to decide or whether the parents have the authority to decide FOR HER? If there is any justice in the universe, her soul has already left her body, because I can't imagine a worse hell than that... To be trapped in a lifeless body, unable to move or speak, being force-fed by tubes.

Maybe we should all take a few minutes to think of Terri, and what's best for her. I, for one, will be praying for an end to her suffering.

Thank you for understanding, and forgive me, Graham in case I have overstepped my boundaries.