Artificial feeding-Terri Schiavo

sassynurse78 · Apr 3, 2005

I have to agree also that Angie O'Plasty, RN statements are very well stated! :) What else is left to say regarding this case? What gets me the most is that this happens all over the contry all the time. I have personally cared for many people that their families have decided to pull their tubes. The only reason we are hearing about this is because the families are fighting. I got into an argument the other night that turned pretty heated when I made the statement that the ignorant people protesting in front of a HOSPICE center should all go to jail. I mean I am sure Terri was not the only one residing there. Not to mention the fact how that glass of water would have went straight to her lungs The media is one sided and I am sure the whole truth was never reported afterall if they play onto the sympathy of people then more people will watch right? I even seen a petition going around to get the judge that ruled in her case fired. He followed the law!

Tweety, BSN, RN · Apr 3, 2005

I even seen a petition going around to get the judge that ruled in her case fired. He followed the law!

I don't know if he still has it, but the judge had to have around the clock police protection, as he received death threats.

treddrn · Apr 3, 2005

Did anyone ever think that she didn't want to eat when she could eat? She was bulimic and was told to stop because she would be in the condition she ended up being in. So why was a feeding tube inserted if after she was determined to be brain dead??

Stitchie · Apr 3, 2005

Millions of older and handicapped people might meet your definition of having no quality of life (hell half my friends say that I meet that definition). As to her personality being gone THAT is a matter that is much in dispute. The parents had over thirty medical doctors who signed affidavits that they did not believe that she was in a PVS. Yes, most of them only examined Terri via video clips ( because Michael would not allow Terri to be seen by doctors to make these kind of assessments except for those approved by him). As for media hype, I think that vast majority of the media is on your side.
Remember, that Hitler's first euthanasia was a severely disabled baby who would have certainly met your definition: "The father of a deformed child wrote to the Fuhrer with a request to be allowed to take the life of this child or this creature. Hitler ordered me to take care of this case. The child had been born blind, seemed to be idiotic, and a leg and parts of the arm were missing. Germany's Culture Minister, Christina Weiss, said that the report had been drawn up to confront the truth and "restore some dignity to the victims". As was the case with many other victims, Gerhard Kretschmar's cause of death was recorded not as euthanasia but as "heart failure", according to documents at the church where he was buried.
http://www.fpp.co.uk/Hitler/euthanasia_program/Telegraph121000.html .

Wow, what an imflammatory, horrible comment to make on a public board. I have to wonder why you're passionate about this case, especially against her husband. Comparing this to the first baby Hitler killed is just the kind of rhetoric that the media loves to see. And it's simply a horrendous thing to say to someone.

As for "Terri the person" being gone, if your brain is replaced by spinal fluid, you don't have to be a neurologist to figure out that your personality has left the building. Reflexes and associated reactions are limitless. I've seen people involved in head-on collisions with extensive brain damage -- diffuse brain damage -- open thier eyes and appear to track. But that doesn't mean they're going to get up and make dinner that night.

If I were in Terri's former state, I would hope that my family cared enough about me to let me go. We all gotta go sometime. No one is promised tomorrow, or even the next hour. Life is precious, every second of it, and it's up to each one of us to make the most of it. Lying in a bed, being turned, worried about bedsores, watching someone's muscles atrophy from lack of use, sorry, that isn't for me. Send me to Belgium and let it be over with, then celebrate my life, not fight over my death. See the good in me, not the person I became when I got sick.

Let the poor family grieve in peace and stop with the Hitler remarks. That's just nasty.

caroladybelle, BSN, RN · Apr 3, 2005

The bottom line is that we will probably never know if Michael S. did anything violent towards his wife. If I had the money I would offer him a million to take the polygraph (in fact I will write Glenn Beck in an attempt to get him to start a new fund drive for that purpose). I think there was reasonable doubt as to whether or not Mrs. Schiavo was PVS or minimally concious. Not only do we have the testimony of previous nurses who cared for her, but we also have over thirty M.D's who signed affidavits to that effect. Again, if she couldn't feel pain (as was the contention of the pro-death people) then why give morphine?

Morphine is given to ease respiratory distress, help dry secretions, and for many other reasons. In fact, it is used in acute chest pain, not primarily for it's effect on pain directly but instead indirectly. It is a vasodilator and reduces anxiety leading to decreased oxygen need, which does tend to reduce severity of chest pain.

As a prospective CRNA, you might want to take note of that.

I am also aware of your mixed feelings regarding hospice care and a family member's care there. Fair enough.

But the idea of a polygraph being used to determine "truth" in this case is not even remotely appropriate. As someone that has worked in evidence collection, polygraphes are EXTREMELY inaccurate devices that can be fooled into "innocence" easily by practiced sociopathes and can be fooled into "guilty" just as easily by the highly overwrought. Chances are if Michael Schiavo is a gifted enough liar to pull the wool over every judge's/DFAC worker's/law enforcement officer's/MD's eyes, a polygraph is not going to show anything to the contrary.

You would, to be fair have to polygraph her parents on their behavior that might contribute to this case and to Terri's bulemia. I doubt if that would go over well.

As to polygraphing that NAs, debatable. I have known many wellmeaning aides misinterpret plenty of patient actions, as well as nurses that place their own personal interpretation on words/events/actions. If they truly believe in what they saw/experienced, the polygraph would say that they are truthful in that they believe it.....yet that does not mean the event/action actually occurred.

As such, polygraphes are disallowed in most courts as proof of anything.

And you are listening to Glenn Beck for "factual" information on this case. You might try some more reliable and better sources. While I like Glenn Beck for entertainment value, this is a man (while recently reformed) spent his life drugging/drinking himself into the ground, and completely destroyed his earlier career/marriage (?) by those habits. His own character is suspect and one must consider the source.

Prodeath....to my knowledge, there are few prodeath people involved. Other than Randall Terry who promotes capital punishment for any MD that for any reason, "contributes" to abortion...or the many death penalty supporters...very few people are prodeath.

There are plenty of us that are prochoice, for the choice to dictate how to live our own lives within a reasonable framework of law for the protection of everyone's life. We also do not want government legislating what we have to endure when life is leaving us. Perhaps, we should start using the phrase "Proincredible suffering" or "Anti human rights" or "proforcing painful life" for some of those involved in this case.

James Huffman · Apr 3, 2005

Wow, what an imflammatory, horrible comment to make on a public board. I have to wonder why you're passionate about this case, especially against her husband. Comparing this to the first baby Hitler killed is just the kind of rhetoric that the media loves to see. And it's simply a horrendous thing to say to someone.
As for "Terri the person" being gone, if your brain is replaced by spinal fluid, you don't have to be a neurologist to figure out that your personality has left the building. Reflexes and associated reactions are limitless. I've seen people involved in head-on collisions with extensive brain damage -- diffuse brain damage -- open thier eyes and appear to track. But that doesn't mean they're going to get up and make dinner that night.
If I were in Terri's former state, I would hope that my family cared enough about me to let me go. We all gotta go sometime. No one is promised tomorrow, or even the next hour. Life is precious, every second of it, and it's up to each one of us to make the most of it. Lying in a bed, being turned, worried about bedsores, watching someone's muscles atrophy from lack of use, sorry, that isn't for me. Send me to Belgium and let it be over with, then celebrate my life, not fight over my death. See the good in me, not the person I became when I got sick.
Let the poor family grieve in peace and stop with the Hitler remarks. That's just nasty.

Life is precious. We agree on that. But working out the details can be complicated.

I think what Roland is trying to point out is that there may be historical parallels. Making judgements from history is not perfect, but may help us (as a nation, culture, whatever) understand where we're going. The question is not whether comparisons to Hitler and his evil are nasty, horrible, inflammatory, whatever. The question is whether they are accurate.

We don't view the human body as a "building." Hardly any but the most primitive of cultures do. Instead, we care for the body, and that's a big part of what nurses do. As far as "getting up and making dinner," I'm unwilling to make that a determinative factor as far as humanity.

Why is Roland "passionate" about this case? Perhaps for the same reasons all of us are: we view this as a very important, perhaps symbolic case about human life, and our care for that life. And for some, there is great concern that Terri Schiavo -- and others like her -- are being described using terms like "vegetable," "useless," etc., and we wonder if there are not parallells to times when other groups of people were described in similar terms, with horrendous consequences.

Terri Schiavo was alive. There were no extra-ordinary means being used to keep her alive. She was being fed, and given water. Her life included the time of her handicap, from 1990 to 2005. Life for Terri Schiavo didn't end in 1990. It ended this past Thursday. Let's remember that.

Jim Huffman, RN

LydiaNN · Apr 3, 2005

Did anyone ever think that she didn't want to eat when she could eat? She was bulimic and was told to stop because she would be in the condition she ended up being in. So why was a feeding tube inserted if after she was determined to be brain dead??

Many, many bulimics continue binging and purging for years, and don't end up in Terri's condition. It is a rare complication of bulimia. I haven't seen anything that even said the bulimia had been detected until after her heart stopped due to the low potassium levels. The reason Michael won his malpractice award was that the physician hadn't diagnosed her potassium deficiency. At any rate, even if she was told to stop, I doubt very much she was told to stop or she would end up brain dead. Maybe she was told she could end up dead, I don't know, but the point is, either do you. There is no proof that she was "determined" to be brain dead, and to insist otherwise adds nothing to the discussion.

Tweety, BSN, RN · Apr 4, 2005

The question is not whether comparisons to Hitler and his evil are nasty, horrible, inflammatory, whatever. The question is whether they are accurate.
Jim Huffman, RN

I don't feel the comparisons are accurate. Hitler was trying to make a pure society, and most of us know our history as to who did and did not fit into this category.

Many places around the world don't take the opportunity to tube feed. Not poverty stricken places like Haiti, but countries such as the Ukraine, don't go to the measure we do. They don't have people living in vegetative states, or for long periods that can't breath on their own. They allow them to die at the time. They are probably way ahead of us in that matter. Are they less compassionate about life than we are? Of course there's no comparison because they are not pulling tubes, but they are also not feeding a person severely brain damaged who is breathing.

Who knows where we are heading. However, as I stated before I'm very confiident that we aren't heading towards a state of euthanizing handicapped persons.

sbic56, BSN, RN · Apr 4, 2005

Terri Schiavo was alive. There were no extra-ordinary means being used to keep her alive. She was being fed, and given water. Her life included the time of her handicap, from 1990 to 2005. Life for Terri Schiavo didn't end in 1990. It ended this past Thursday. Let's remember that.

I see you assume that your beliefs are fact to all. They aren't. It' s the differences in what people believe constitutes life that provokes all the debate. This woman could not swallow, so I believe a feeding tube was an extraordinary means to keeping her alive. She would have died of an aspiration pnuemonia, if any of those well meaning protesters with the water bottles got through. I wondered if they really knew that or if their attempts were just symbolic. Anyway, prior the permanent feeding tube procedure being perfected in 1979, people did not live for years in this state. (Incidently, I saw an interview with the doctor who first performed the first G tube procedure placement on TV. He said he never meant for it to be used as it has been for those in PVS, as she was, but rather for a reasonable amount of time when there was hope for recovery)

I also believe her life ended in 1990. There was no rush to judgment in pulling that tube. Thankfully, her husband had the wisdom to know when further efforts were futile. Last Thursday she ceased to exist. The courts believed that she held these belief about life as well. It really doesn't matter what the rest of us think.

LydiaNN · Apr 4, 2005

I see you assume that your beliefs are fact to all. They aren't. It' s the differences in what people believe constitutes life that provokes all the debate. This woman could not swallow, so I believe a feeding tube was an extraordinary means to keeping her alive. She would have died of an aspiration pnuemonia, if any of those well meaning protesters with the water bottles got through. I wondered if they really knew that or if their attempts were just symbolic. Anyway, prior the permanent feeding tube procedure being perfected in 1979, people did not live for years in this state. (Incidently, I saw an interview with the doctor who first performed the first G tube procedure placement on TV. He said he never meant for it to be used as it has been for those in PVS, as she was, but rather for a reasonable amount of time when there was hope for recovery)
I also believe her life ended in 1990. There was no rush to judgment in pulling that tube. Thankfully, her husband had the wisdom to know when further efforts were futile. Last Thursday she ceased to exist. The courts believed that she held these belief about life as well. It really doesn't matter what the rest of us think.

Ah... silly me. I thought "alive" meant "not dead". It is one thing to debate the quality of her life, and whether she was better off dead. It is another to debate what the word alive means. If she hadn't been alive, I hardly think any of this would have been necessary!

Tweety, BSN, RN · Apr 4, 2005

Ah... silly me. I thought "alive" meant "not dead". It is one thing to debate the quality of her life, and whether she was better off dead. It is another to debate what the word alive means. If she hadn't been alive, I hardly think any of this would have been necessary!

I took it as she was talking symbolically, not literally. Surely, this poster knows the difference between life and death. Again, it's a matter of opinion that just because a person is breathing are they really "living"?

allnurses Guide · Apr 4, 2005

I think it does matter what the rest of us think. This decision will matter down the line, depending on how we see it.

I personally think, unlike my friend Tweety who said "I'm very confiident that we aren't heading towards a state of euthanizing handicapped persons" . . .that what we are looking at is euthanizing people who are no longer useful to us . . . and that definition can be quite broad depending on who you talk to.

The courts were never meant to be the last word in our society. There is a check and balance . . .

As a Christian, I believe that Terri Schiavo's soul inhabited her body until her death last week - I don't believe her soul left her when she became brain damaged.

I also don't understand blaming out of hand her parents for her bulemia . . .. people make choices as adults and blaming your bad childhood is a cop-out.

steph