A Visit With Terri Schiavo

For what seems like an eternity, but is in actuality only a few years, I have been writing where ever and whenever I can about Terri Schindler Schiavo. I have written to newspapers that called her 'brain dead', telling them that if Terri were brain dead, she would be on a respirator, NOT breathing on her own. I have corrected any medical terminology that was used which was incorrect, based on everything I could find to read about her, and videos of her that are online.

Terri is not dying, I said. Terri is only brain-damaged, as are MANY people in this world, in this country. I have described a G-tube, and how it is used. I showed that again, MANY people in this world are using G or J tubes to live, and this is NOT artificial, but formula-type liquids and water. Jevity, Ensure, Glucerna are some of the names used, and many people use these very liquids to supplement their own diets.

As a nurse for 32 years, and a nursing assistant before then, I have taken care of MANY patients like Terri, adult and child. I have seen MANY improve with the therapies that Michael Schiavo has forbidden (in spite of winning a law suit which gave Terri $750,000 to use for that treatment).

Her family's first attorney worked very hard to save her life. Their new attorneys since Sept, 2004 have been also, and finally got a chance to MEET their clients' daughter on Christmas Eve.
According to this response from one of them, they saw Terri nearly the same way I have been describing her. Terri is alive, responsive, and she LAUGHS at her father's jokes.

This article is an excellent description that should be read by everyone. This case is ominous, for many reasons. It is an affront to any disabled person, regardless of cause of the disability, wether from illness, injury, or birth. Every human being has a right to essential basics even if only for 'comfort care'. This includes food, water, air and shelter. Terri is NOT a vegetable, she is a child of God, a human being.

Mr Schiavo has gone on with his life without Terri, living in an adulterous relationship with another woman by whom he has now had two children for at least the last nine years. Which parts of the vows they spoke has he kept?


Catholic Wedding Vow forms:

I, N., take you, N., to be my wife.
I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health.
I will love you and honor you all the days of my life.

OR:
I, N., take you, N., for my lawful wife,
to have and to hold, from this day forward,
for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health,
until death do us part.