Terry Shiavo was a young female, who became sick after she had an accident in which left her brain dead for the rest of her life. Her husband, Michael Shiavo was her caretaker and was later appointed as her legal guardian on June 18, 1990. (http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/schiavo/). This was a struggle for Mr. Shiavo, as it would have been for me and many others. From this point on, Mr. Shiavo knew that he had a hard and long struggle dealing with the fact that his wife, whom he loved, is now brain dead, and he is the one left to care for her and make medical decision on her behalf. Her family was there for her also, and this is how all of this became a problem between Mr. Shiavo, and Terry's' parents Mr. and Mrs. Schindler.
Mr. Shiavo was doing his job as a caretaker for his wife, taking her to get the necessary treatment that she needed and required, and really and truly sticking by his wife in such a rough circumstance. He stated that "my wife had said she would never want to be kept alive if she were in a vegetative state". (http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/schiavo/). He was just honoring what she had wanted to do if this type of situation would ever happen, and he was obeying what she wanted. I have to totally agree with him, and how he tried and did take care of Terry. It gets hard on families and also it can take a toll of them when there is a sick family member who is in need of 24 hour care. Ethically, I see that Michael was right; however I am also in limbo to where I think he could have turned Terry's custody over to her parents, even though he did honor what she wanted. Sometimes families find themselves in a comfort zone by trying to come to peace with there loved ones by sitting there with there loved ones while they are on the machine. I couldn't imagine this struggle between Terry's family and Michael.
The main fight was about Michael removing the feeding tube in May 1998, which would result in allowing Terry to go on and pass away. That fight went on for many of years. On "July 29, 1993", Terry's parents wanted to take custody of there daughter.
The parents’ dilemma, the visuals of their anxiety and fears were captured very clearly in this clip. The stills of Michael connected to the breathing tubes, having his head prepped for surgery etc., visually evoked the magnitude of what the parents and the Michael had to go through. However, the recovery and progress was an awesome success story filled with all the elements of an inspirational narrative that not only inspired but educated as
The patient (who now has a name, Sylvia) made an attempt to end her suffering by sticking her head in an oven, while her boyfriend tried to stop her and would take her yelling and struggling (which makes him feels isolated) over her attempted suicide. Sylvia continues to feel pain from not only her bone cancer, but from her emotionally abused past and present as told in the seventh track, “Two”,
Diane was a patient of Dr. Timothy Quill, who was diagnosed with acute myelomonocytic leukemia. Diane overcame alcoholism and had vaginal cancer in her youth. She had been under his care for a period of 8 years, during which an intimate doctor-patient bond had been established. It was Dr. Quill’s observation that “she was an incredibly clear, at times brutally honest, thinker and communicator.” This observation became especially cogent after Diane heard of her diagnosis. Dr. Quill informed her of the diagnosis, and of the possible treatments. This series of treatments entailed multiple chemotherapy sessions, followed by a bone marrow transplant, accompanied by an array of ancillary treatments. At the end of this series of treatments, the survival rate was 25%, and it was further complicated in Diane’s case by the absence of a closely matched bone-marrow donor. Diane chose not to receive treatment, desiring to spend whatever time she had left outside of the hospital. Dr. Quill met with her several times to ensure that she didn’t change her mind, and he had Diane meet with a psychologist with whom she had met before. Then Diane complicated the case by informing Dr. Quill that she be able to control the time of her death, avoiding the loss of dignity and discomfort which would precede her death. Dr. Quinn informed her of the Hemlock Society, and shortly afterwards, Diane called Dr. Quinn with a request for barbiturates, complaining of insomnia. Dr. Quinn gave her the prescription and informed her how to use them to sleep, and the amount necessary to commit suicide. Diane called all of her friends to say goodbye, including Dr. Quinn, and took her life two days after they met.
In February of 1990 a woman named Terri Schiavo collapsed at home suffering cardiac arrest in her home in St. Petersburg, Florida. She was resuscitated but had severe brain damage because she had no oxygen going to her brain for several minutes. Terri was severely brain damaged and in a vegetative state but could still breathe and maintain a heart beat on her own. After two and a half months and no signs of improvement, impaired vision, and the inability to move her arms and legs she needed a feeding tube to sustain her life since she seemed to be in a persistent vegetative state. For 2 years doctors attempted speech and physical therapy with no success. In 1998 Schiavos husband claimed she would not want to live in that quality of life without a prospect of recovery so he tried several times over the course of many years to pull the feeding tube so she could pass. Bob and Mary Schindler challenged and fought for a
As a nursing student, I have had some exposure to death during patient care. My first encounter with direct death was witnessing a patient after attempted resuscitation efforts die in the emergency department. As I observed others reactions, I noticed I was the only one who seemed fazed by the preceding events and the end result, although I didn’t show it outwardly. During my Aging and End of life clinical rotation, I have been exposed to a near death experience with a family and I had the rewarding experience of forming a relationship with the patient’s wife during the short hour I was in their home. From reading the accounts in this book, it confirmed to me the importance of catering to the needs of the family and the dying as an important issue to address as they are critical to overall care.
After Michael Mulvaney Sr., the father, find outs about the rape, he becomes starts to drink heavily, become silent and angry with his family and consequently he loses all connection to his family. When Michael Sr. found out who did this to his daughter, he broke Zachary Lundt's, the rapist, nose and cracked a couple of his ribs. Since Michael Sr. did that, he realized that he could not charge Zachary with sexual assault, without being charged himself. Michael soon realized that he screwed up, and shouldn't of went after Zachary. After the fight, Michael Sr. stopped coming home for dinner and always went for drives late at night. He started to drink a lot, too much, and kept on getting angrier. His attitude towards work changed too. He started showing up at jobs late and didn't care what his workers were doing. His business started to decrease and slowly he was going bankrupt. He failed to tell his wife Corinne important information, like their money, and how they were slowly losing it, and how he was angry all the time. He also started to avoid looking at his daughter Marianne, the victim, because he said: ."..I'm not strong enough, I'm a coward. How ca...
At one point Quill (2005) writes, “He believed that his wife would not want to be kept alive,” and slightly later in the paragraph says, “The Schindler family, however, did not accept the diagnosis of a persistent vegetative state, believing instead that Ms. Schiavo’s ” (p. 1631). Why would he use “his wife” in place of “Ms. Sciavo” in the beginning, and why did he use “Ms. Schiavo” instead of a familial term towards the end? Using the same type of term would have kept neutrality, but deviating from this subconsciously makes readers believe the relationship between Mr. Schiavo and Ms. Schiavo was stronger than the one between Ms. Schiavo and the Schindlers, which would lead to readers be more inclined to agree that Mr. Schiavo was
Terri Schiavo is a forty year old women who had a severe heart attack 15 years ago which resulted in brain damage. She had no living will so there is no legal document of what she would have wanted if she became brain damage and couldn’t function on her own but her husband, Michael Schiavo, says that after 15 years of being on a feeding tube she would have wanted to die. The question is should he have the right to remove the feeding tube? Anybody who knows me will know that my answer is no! The reason for that is because I am a Christian and I do not believe in terminating someone’s life. It’s my belief that as long as a persons heart is beating he or she stills has life in them.
Michael soon realizes that he wishes he would have simply turned himself in. Afterwards, it seemed like such a logical choice, but he knew that if he did he would be breaking the loyalty to Joe.
...ce word got out of his unexpected death. Every radio station was unleashing the news of Michael’s sudden death; the station could be changed to all six preset stations in the car and the news would be the same. His death was very controversial. For a while it was unsure if Michael had overdosed on his own account or if his death was not an accident. This was heavily publicized in newspapers, on television, and on the radio. People wanted answers.
Chapter Seven. Woman Dies on Beech Street. Terri Schiavo on February 25th, 1990 suffered from cardiac
He describes how the doctors can change the patient’s views and how they can shape them according to what they believe is right and that is what happened in Godelieva’s case. In “The Death Treatment”, Aviv writes about a doctor named Distelmans, who was the proponent for making euthanasia legal for people who have incurable diseases. She also mentions that Distelmans has euthanized hundreds of people and he gives talks at schools and hospitals and other events. Distelmans is influencing people to do euthanasia, even though there are other solutions and treatments available for these people to resolve their problems. Godelieva visited Distelmans and a few months later, she decided to file for euthanasia. Before meeting him, Godelieva was depressed; however, she didn’t have thoughts about ending her life as Aviv mentions that in her diary Godelieva wrote that, “She couldn’t comprehend why her husband would kill
...overtaken her body and the family know how much care Deana will need. By placing Deana in a nursing home where she can get the care she needed, I could only imagine that the decisions from the family were very challenging. Caring for Deana probably was a lot on some or most of the family member. So being honest about the care she needed, the decision made about placement in the nursing home was the best decision they made and in her best interest.
Barbra Huttmann’s purpose in writing her story in A Crime of Compassion is to convince people that no matter their beliefs, it is sometimes more humane to let someone die if they are suffering. This was the case with a cancer patient of hers named Mac. She communicates this directly by saying, “Until there is legislation making it a criminal act to code a patient has requested the right to die, we will all of us risk of the same face as Mac” (Huttmann 422).
The triage set up for evacuation didn’t give priority to critically diseased patients; instead many were euthanized by the exhausted medical and nursing crew. Unexpectedly, the rescue came to evacuate the entire hospital on the fifth day of the events. Fink ponders the legal consequences of the deadly choice to euthanize patients and the ethical issues surrounding euthanasia in health care setting during large scale disasters.