"She could never recover"

What exactly does this mean? Recover means get better, and most think that means that one must be perfect, just as they were before any accident, etc took place.

Recover does not necessarily mean this. When an accident victim loses a leg or an arm, that limb may not be able to be reattached. However, the person can still recover. Get better. Walk to the best of their ability with helping aids, such as a prosthetic leg, crutches, or get around in a wheel chair.

If a person loses their eye sight, they can most likely never get it back, but they can learn to read again with Braille, listen to books, etc on tape. Though they will never be the same... they can recover. Get better.

If a person loses their colon to cancer or ulcerative colitis, they will never be the same, but they CAN recover, get better, continue to live. They will need to use a bag as a receptacle for the normal by-products of living, but they do recover. The cancer is gone, with surgery and possibly chemo, radiation...

Someone with brain damage may never be 'back to normal', but they can recover. Terri Schindler Schiavo DID recover and was living, healthy, until someone pulled her tube and refused her food and water. Once that was done, there was no longer any hope of further recovery. Long ago, when therapy was refused her by her guardian... husband, her recovery was slowed. Though it is true, Terri would never be as she was before her collapse, Terri could be helped to live to the best level she could manage to attain. Terri was living. Until they killed her by dehydrating her.

Terri was DISABLED, not dying. Terri had severe brain damage, but it was NOT non-functioning. We were taught long ago in nursing school that NO ONE KNOWS for sure what a person is able to understand when in this state. No one. And for anyone to tell you that Terri could not understand at some level is to make a claim that is not possible to make.

The autopsy did not give us the reason for her collapse, but it DID rule out bulimia. Loudly and clearly. It could not show soft tissue trauma that she may have had fifteen years ago, that could have told us more about why she collapsed. The autopsy could only tell us what we already knew. Terri was dehydrated to death, and had severe brain damage.

What COULD have told us more would have been to have had a PET Scan and an MRI before she was dehydrated/starved to death. THAT could have told us much more. The 'cover-all' diagnosis of PVS may also have been ruled out with further testing, but cannot be diagnosed with a dead body, according to many neurologists.

The Medical Examiner has left the door open for further evidence, which may some day surface. It may sound as though Felos was correct to those who do not know or do not want to know differently. But it proves what we already knew. Terri was NOT DYING when they pulled her tube and stopped the liquids that keep all of us alive. She was not dying at all. But she was disabled.

Do you know anyone that is disabled? Anyone of those disabled with any kind of brain damage? If you don't, then you are very unfortunate. I do. I know many of them, and each individual person deserves respect and dignity ...and life, regardless of what some may judge them to be. They teach us love. They deserve to be treated as a human being, including with food and water, air and shelter. Those are life support, you know....

No one ever said Terri could 'recover' to be what she was before. But Terri may have been able to regain some things, had a promise been kept to provide her with at least basic therapies. Regardless, Terri was alive, and healthy, until they killed her.