31-Mar-2005, 06:02 AM
If there was a loving and compassionate God running things, Terry Schiavo would have passed on immediately after her heart attack. I think most of the current controversy is caused by her mother's unrealistic expectations about her "little girl". I think it amounts to criminal cruelty.
Technology can keep almost anyone alive who should have died. In the US, it's often a function of available funding that controls the level of care a patient gets. I can't imagine how the Schindlers have paid for Terry's care for 15 years. It would have bankrupted most people several times over.
Quite honestly, Brian, I don't think she has the mental capacity to make any decisions. The medical evidence shows that all the section of the brain that handles cognitive thought, rational decision making and action has been dead for many years. The videos they show on TV are nothing like the reality. She only blinks because her mom is spitting in her eyes, and most of the video is a couple of years old, if not more.
I sure as hell wouldn't want to be in her condition. I hope whenever I go it's with a no-question, big bang type of departure. A long drawn-out descent into dementia for several years is my worst nightmare. That's how my Dad went - about three years total.
Some years back, an acquaintance who was a glider pilot was diagnosed with inoperable cancer. He took the news very stoically and continued his flying. One gorgeous summer evening, he launched on a flight from our summer base in Eastern Washington and headed out towards the Cascade mountains. With tremendous wave lift, he climbed to about 35,000 feet. He then ceased to communicate with the glider operations center or the FAA.
The wreckage was found a couple of months later. As best anyone could tell, after a review of the on-board recording equipment, he'd headed into the sunset and taken his oxygen mask off, dying of anoxia. The uncontrolled glider had crashed sometime later. I always thought what a way to go - doing what you loved in the most spectacularly scenic area of the world.
Frank Damp
Technology can keep almost anyone alive who should have died. In the US, it's often a function of available funding that controls the level of care a patient gets. I can't imagine how the Schindlers have paid for Terry's care for 15 years. It would have bankrupted most people several times over.
Quite honestly, Brian, I don't think she has the mental capacity to make any decisions. The medical evidence shows that all the section of the brain that handles cognitive thought, rational decision making and action has been dead for many years. The videos they show on TV are nothing like the reality. She only blinks because her mom is spitting in her eyes, and most of the video is a couple of years old, if not more.
I sure as hell wouldn't want to be in her condition. I hope whenever I go it's with a no-question, big bang type of departure. A long drawn-out descent into dementia for several years is my worst nightmare. That's how my Dad went - about three years total.
Some years back, an acquaintance who was a glider pilot was diagnosed with inoperable cancer. He took the news very stoically and continued his flying. One gorgeous summer evening, he launched on a flight from our summer base in Eastern Washington and headed out towards the Cascade mountains. With tremendous wave lift, he climbed to about 35,000 feet. He then ceased to communicate with the glider operations center or the FAA.
The wreckage was found a couple of months later. As best anyone could tell, after a review of the on-board recording equipment, he'd headed into the sunset and taken his oxygen mask off, dying of anoxia. The uncontrolled glider had crashed sometime later. I always thought what a way to go - doing what you loved in the most spectacularly scenic area of the world.
Frank Damp
Frank Damp (wife Eileen, nee Nixon)
Leyland resident 1941-1965, emigrated to the US in 1968,
retired to Anacortes, Washington State, USA in 1999.
Leyland resident 1941-1965, emigrated to the US in 1968,
retired to Anacortes, Washington State, USA in 1999.