I agree with the others who have posted. She's beyond pain. She's brain dead. There would be no response if she was shot or if she was given a lethal injection.

I think you're projecting your feelings and concept of pain onto her, but she is incapable of experiencing those feelings.

Waxy

 

and from the different sources that I have heard and read...she has some motor skill..like pushing away those she doesn't want near her, smiling, moaning.

if this is the case...then she is indeed not brain dead. I have a half brother who at birth was blind in both eyes, some mental retardation, several other problems. Has never been able to stand on his own, doctors repeatedly said that he would never be able to recognize colors or shapes, that he would be vegetable all his life. some still say he is. I know differntly. I know he responds to some colors of light and doesn't to others. I know that he can recognize differnt voices and smiles when he hears the voice of a loved one. He doesn't do anything all day, but sit in a bed or chair and moan and laugh. He plays a little musical keyboard by banging on it, but he is stimulated by outside sources and resonds to them. To many he is a vegetable. Is this a great life...NO. Is he alive....very much so. Does he have feelings and emotions...very much so. Does he feel pain...of course. I appreciate everyone's opinion on this subject, but I don't think unless you have been around the person in question that you have all the facts. I don't think that you can make a good judgement based soley on what you have read. I don't think you can tell me she doens't feel pain just because somebody else told you that. As good as doctors are...they are often wrong. As good as doctors are, they often mis-diagnos stuff. As good as doctors are, they don't know everything. And all we have to go on is what the media is telling us....Since when did everything they report become the honest, complete and total truth? I'm not saying that this whole situation hasn't caused problems and maybe it has been handled in the wrong way...but I don't think we ( a bunch of people hanging out on some website forum about trucks) have all the details to make such a condeming judgement in this situation.

 

Fisher
Earlier, I said that starvation is NOT painful, this is backed up by her neurologist. The contention that pulling her feeding tube is painful does not hold water , so to speak.
Yes, it is an awful thing to use money as a reason to stop "life support". I published some conservative figures earlier in the thread. I gather you don't have a problem with your medical premiums, and are glad they are at the existing level. How many months of full health (including dental) coverage would 1 month of Terri's or 1 day of ICU care buy your family?
UMG
I disagree with your contention of no right to die. It comes down to a dignity thing. Would you be embarrassed about defecating in your bed daily? How about having your kids washing your entire (including crotch and butt crack) body? Which is worse, death or prolonged indignity? Again, this is my bag, you pay me to be involved in this area of medicine (critical/ longterm care). I contend you DO have a right to die. I also contend that it is playing god to extend life beyond the ability to interact with your environment.

 

and deciding to starve her to death (whether in your opinion or not is painful) isn't playing God? That will not hold water with me.

 

Kennyrrt....obviously crotches and buttcracks are an issue with you...which poses this question...Since it is so degrading to have to have somebody wash you in each of those locations, if you were to be invovled in a wreck or severe fall where your upper body and arms had to be put into some kind of body cast for an extended period of time (lets just say 4-6 weeks), would you prefer not to have yourself washed because its so degrading or would you prefer we just shoot you? I'm sure you'll be doped up on morphine so you won't feel much and by that time you will probably have exceeded your insurance payout....so which is it?

 

Keeping her alive is playing "God" IMHO.

She would have died of natural causes long ago had "man" not stepped in.

Waxy

 

Not even close to an apples to apples comparison. That's really stretching.

Dignity is a trait often misunderstood or ignored by many Americans in the quest to homogenize all personalities into one bland, politically acceptable standard. Make a decision, heavens no, my government/religion/family/friends say......

 

come on.... are you kidding me? I don't guess anything ever plays into your decision making? Yeah...I make my decisions, but yes...they are based on several things - what I want, what I need, what I believe....you can't just throw out all reason, understanding, logic and fact in making a decision. Decision making can't always come down to just the money aspect of it. That having been said, I know that likewise it can't always come down to your preference either.


making decisions based on what you believe has nothing to do with dignity.... other than following thru with it. Pride often cause great men and nations to fall.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by fisher_of_man
[B]you can't just throw out all reason, understanding, logic and fact in making a decision.

If it came down to my wife living as a vegetable without dignity against her wish, I wouldn't hesitate in disregarding those factors. As I said, she's far more important to me than being dictated to by society's mores and legislation. I feel sorry for those people who aren't strong enough to act on their own when what should be the most important person in their life makes a reasonable request. What's the point of being mated if you're not fully devoted to each other? That has nothing to do with pride.

 

Shoot me.
Fact is, I have an advance directive regarding unconsciousness or the ability to say yes or no. Get it over with rather than extending my wife's mourning period. And don't spend all her money in an asinine attempt to maintain immortality.

 

We have the same thing, with the executor of our trust also having full power of attorney for the will in the event both of us are incapacitated.

A sidenote on living wills and trusts:

Many lawyers now advise anyone establishing or changing a trust and/or living will/attachments to 'season' the documents by appearing in front of lawyer and a witness six months to one year after the documents are drawn up to answer a series of questions to re-establish being of sound mind in execution of the documents. Seems some of the sleazeball lawyers are attempting to invalidate trusts and wills using that approach for shirttail relatives and the seasoning puts your documents in safer territory.

 

Fisher,

Think of it from this point; it is not God that is keeping this woman alive, it is man and machine maintaining an artificial, minimal level of what can only loosely called 'life'.

 

The funny thing is the parents want her. Why? Based on what the rest of you have been saying, they should be happy to put an end to her suffering. Instead they want her so that they can look after her.

"If it came down to my wife living as a vegetable without dignity against her wish, I wouldn't hesitate in disregarding those factors."

These lines of reasoning are easy to say but often take a different approach when they become real. Look at how many people will go to extremes to save a pet, let alone a spouse or loved one.

 

Dan
You bring up an excellent point. Never having been faced with actually turning the pump off someone I love, I'm not sure how I would react. It IS very easy to look at it as an outsider, and say ...

Because I deal with this every day, I obviously have an extremely jaundiced view. But, waking up to see ANY of my colleagues looking at me and unable to move is so terrifying to me as to prefer death. I truly believe that even comatose people suffer. At the risk of invoking old paraphrases, we wouldn't do this stuff to the dog we love. We wouldn't because we don't want our dog to suffer. Why are people exempt from that humanity?

 

Parents can never be objective about their children, or see them as they really are. I think what the parents are seeing when they look at their daughter is an amalgam of snapshots taken from loving memories of her from before birth to when she left home to marry, and even after that. For most people, a parent/child bond is unlike any other. My own oldest son was in a serious accident seven or eight years ago. When the call came at three in the morning, we were told "He hasn't regained consciousness, and is breathing with aid of a respirator." Talk about blood running cold...We needed to take a ferry to get to the hospital. The first ferry of the day was over an hour out. We had a lot of time to think, his mother and I. We didn't talk much. Being a pessimist, I felt that I was probably going to the hospital to watch my son slip away from us forever. I can tell you that I wasn't thinking of him as a 24 year-old man with a life and loves of his own. I was thinking of the day he was born, holding him in my arms, birthday parties, Christmases, vacations, first day of school...like I said, snapshots from twenty-odd years of bringing him up. As it turned out, he had a long (cranky) rehab, and he wears a lot of surgical metals on his skeleton, but he's otherwise fine.

Still, I know him, and I believe and hope that I would have had what it takes to make the call if I had been forced to. Quality of life. That's what it's about for me, and that's the way my sons have come to feel in their adulthood as well. And I've got some pretty demanding criteria to judge what high quality life is.

Are public monies being utilized in this effort to keep her alive by artificial means? I wouldn't take the choice to keep her alive away from anyone, ever, if they had the independent means to pay. However, when a huge preponderance of medical experts agree, in this case, over many years, that it's hopeless, I can't see how it is right to spend public dollars on it.