Schiavo autopsy report to be released

[Bravus]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/14/AR2005061401179.html

This should be interesting: I personally believe very unwarranted claims were made on both sides, but there may well be some words I have to eat tomorrow... We'll see.

[Bravus]

Here it is: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050615/ap_o...HNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

[bevin]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050615/ap_on_re_us/schiavo_autopsy_19

What do you know, the husband and the doctors were right, and the parents and the religious cranks and the politicians wrong...

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The autopsy released Wednesday on Terri Schiavo backed her husband's contention that she was in a persistent vegetative state, finding she was severely and irreversibly brain-damaged and blind as well. It also found no evidence that she was strangled or otherwise abused before she collapsed.

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Think they will apologize...

Not a chance.

/Bevin

[Ron Lambert]

The report was "inconclusive" on whether she had been abused prior to admittance to the hospital. The report only said they could not find evidence she had been strangled.

The Schindlers still fault Schiavo's husband for delaying for so long to call 911, while she was lying unconscious on the floor. There are still suspicious circumstances that have been documented by eyewitnesses. The report also said that bulimia was not the cause of her brain damage.

Knowing what we knew then, I still would have demanded that her feeding tube not be disconnected, and I still condemn those who were ready to condone murdering her.

The report also notes that she was blind; however, the conclusion that she could not have responded to people as her parents claimed fails to take into consideration that she may still ave been able to hear, and even a blind person turns his/her face toward a voice they are listening to.

I still think it is a great injustice that Schiavo's husband will get whatever money is left in her fund. We need a law that will prevent a clearly compromised, unfaithful spouse from having the right to make such a decision over parents who still love her without question. Especially since Terri had told people that she was going to divorce her husband only a day or so before she was admitted to the hospital. As far as I am concerned, justice will not be served until such a law is passed, and until Terri's husband is behind bars.

[Bravus]

Guess you were right, bevin.

[Kimberly]

Calling removing a feeding tube MURDER, just shows that you do not understand end of life care.

Being an RN, I have dealt with a lot of death and dying.

If a petient's family is told the EEG is flat and the patient is brain dead, they have a choice. If the choice is made to remove nutrition, that is their right, and the patient's. If a vegetative patient continues to receive artificial nutrition, the patient could live a long time. For what purpose? To watch a "dead" person stay alive?

Is that the kind of end of life care YOU want?

To not know your surroundings, to not be able to see, hear talk, taste, move, go to the bathroom on your own?

I hope you write up a care plan how you want everything done to your body, no matter what condition it's in.

I feel this would be agonizing for a family to watch.

I also heard Terri's brain was half the size of a normal brain. Is that a way to live? I think she has much more peace now than she did before.

Kim

[Kimberly]

Ron, there should be a lot of people behind bars, then. People who chose to let their loved ones die, instead of prolonging life in a vegetative state.

People in the medical field see this all the time.

IF it is determined I will never wake up and I have a flat EEG, yank the plug and let me go in peace!

Kim

[Dr. Shane]

There was a lot more at issue in this case than whether or not the husband and doctors were right about her state. That seems to get lost.

One of the issues was a husband's right to trump the parent's after he had moved on and started another family and was a suspect of foul play.

The other issue was the court system's total disregard for the will of the people as expressed through their elected representatives. That was the most disturbing. The people, through Congress and the President, told the courts to order a new review of her case. The court pretty much gave its middle finger to the people and said, "Don't questions us. We are the elites, we are dressed in black, we are not elected, we have lifetime positions and we rule."

Now had the courts followed the will of the people the same result would have happened. Terry's feeding tube would have still been removed. But after further review. Yet we really don't live in a democracy. We are ruled by men and women in black.

[Ron Lambert]

There are a number of assumptions being made on the basis of ignorance. It is assumed that with only about 50% of her brain still functioning, Terri could not have any conscious awareness or desire to live. Kimberly asked if having half a brain were any way to live. But how do you know what kind of life that was, on the inside?

Let me remind you of a couple of well-documented medical conditions, one a more extreme form of the other. First there is porencephaly, then hydranencephaly, which is a more extreme form of porencephaly.

According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health:

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Porencephaly is an extremely rare disorder of the central nervous system involving cysts or cavities in a cerebral hemisphere....Individuals with porencephaly may have poor or absent speech development, epilepsy, hydrocephalus, spastic contractures (shrinkage or shortening of a muscle), and mental retardation. The prognosis for individuals with porencephaly varies according to the location and extent of the lesions. Some patients with this disorder may develop only minor neurological problems and have normal intelligence....

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Link: http://healthlink.mcw.edu/article/921449639.html

Also from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health, is this concerning hydranencephaly:

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Hydranencephaly is a rare condition in which the cerebral hemispheres are absent and replaced by sacs filled with cerebrospinal fluid. Usually the cerebellum and brainstem are formed normally. An infant with hydranencephaly may appear normal at birth. The infant’s head size and spontaneous reflexes such as sucking, swallowing, crying, and moving the arms and legs may all seem normal. However, after a few weeks the infant usually becomes irritable and has increased muscle tone (hypertonia).

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After several months of life, seizures and hydrocephalus may develop. Other symptoms may include visual impairment, lack of growth, deafness, blindness, spastic quadriparesis (paralysis), and intellectual deficits.

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Hydranencephaly is an extreme form of porencephaly....The outlook for children with hydranencephaly is poor. Death generally occurs before age 1.

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Link for above: http://www.icomm.ca/geneinfo/hydran.htm

Do you get the picture? Infants have been born with both hemispheres of the cerebrum completely missing--which is more than 50% of the brain. Yet they are not in a "vegetative state." There are varying degrees of severity, depending on just how much brain tissue is missing. But notice that even in the most extreme cases there are "intellectual deficits." That does not mean mindless, does it? And in the first few months of life, the condition is not even apparent because "the infant’s early behavior appears to be relatively normal." And since this is the most extreme form, there is a whole spectrum of lesser conditions, up to the point where there "may develop only minor neurological problems and...normal intelligence."

If 50% of brain matter is lost because of a blunt force trauma, that is one thing, because the damage is random, not selective. But when brain tissue is dying because of lack of oxygen, the body automatically prioritizes its ration of oxygen-rich blood, and as a result the most vital brain structures are preserved as long as possible. This is what happened to Terri Schiavo.

Since she did, according to her parents, respond to the sound of familiar voices, turning toward those who loved her, and refusing to turn toward the voice of her estranged husband, and since her parents report she did show other responses to them that indicated some kind of consciousness, the best assumption would be that enough of her brain's vital structures were preserved to enable some kind of conscious awareness. She might be unable to talk intelligibly (although she could make sounds), she might be unable to move normally, she might be blind, but we have no right to assume there was no mind there.

I believe Terri Schiavo was consciously aware, she did feel hunger and thirst, and when the feeding tube was removed for the final time, she was aware of dying of thirst and starvation.

Being aware that she was alive, she may have wanted to continue living, as any normal organism wants to. She was not in pain as far as we know. Her memory was probably impaired, so that she did not even remember all she had lost. Who has the right to say she would not have wanted to go on living? Her parents believed she would because of their knowledge of her religious beliefs. Only her husband claimed she ever said she would not want to live under such circumstances--and who can believe anything he says?

Removing Terri Schiavo's feeding tube was indeed murder, and worse, it was murder by means of torture--withholding food and water. If you are going to engage in mercy-killing, call in Dr. Kevorkian and kill her quick and painlessly. Don't make her die of thirst and starvation over nearly a week of suffering! What could possibly be moral about that?

[bevin]

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We need a law that will prevent a clearly compromised, unfaithful spouse from having the right to make such a decision over parents who still love her without question. Especially since Terri had told people that she was going to divorce her husband only a day or so before she was admitted to the hospital. As far as I am concerned, justice will not be served until such a law is passed, and until Terri's husband is behind bars.

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Ron,

you should not let the lies told by her parent's have such heavy weight. The independent studies and the courts do not support the your conclusion.

I refer you to the News Week article which clearly showed that her parents and her husband were on good terms for years after her injury occurred. It was only after he finally admitted THE TRUTH AS PROVEN BY THE AUTOPSY and they did not that their ways parted - and they started using every possible legal trick to keep her 'alive' - including character assassination.

/Bevin

[Kimberly]

Oh, Ron you obviously didn't listen to a thing I said. HOW DO YOU THINK PEOPLE DIE??? Sick people who have said they do not want to be hooked up to artificial life support are asking that their feeding tubes be withdrawn! It is artificial support when you can't feed yourself! There are many people who do not want to live like she did.

If you want to live like that, go ahead. The parents were in denial and did not want to hear the doctors tell them Terri was only having reflexive brain stem responses, she was not really interacting with them. The parents were living in a dream world.

I am perfectly aware of other forms of brain damge, what is your point? Doctors can show parents of brain-damaged babies tests that prove there is not much brain activity, even if the baby sucks on a bottle.

Have you seen the pain and suffering of brain damaged babies? I see by your profile you work with computers, not with sick people in a hospital, am I right?

Try walking in a nurse's shoes sometime.

Kim

[Kimberly]

Thank you, Bevin...for the information.

Kim

[Bravus]

Just wanted to note: the autopsy does nothing at all to alter the morality of the case, and people have different perspectives on that. I can actually understand and respect the fact that some people believe removing the feeding tube was wrong, based on their respect for life. Others, also based on their respect for life, believe it was the right thing to do.

What the autopsy report does is simply bring some facts to the table. There were many claims made - about abuse, about how much function she had, etc. The autopsy supports some of those claims and disproves others.

What I can't respect is a determination to go on believing certain things despite the facts. This brings us to the whole discussion of the 'reality-based community'. The report is *not*, for example, 'inconclusive' on the question of abuse: it conclusively found no evidence of abuse.

So, by all means continue to believe that it was wrong the remove the tube. But once you get into the realm of denying the facts of the case, you tend to bring your case into disrepute, at least with me.

[Ron Lambert]

The autopsy report also said that bulimia was not a factor in Terri's condition, which proves that her husband, Michael, lied. The report also states that she did not have a heart attack, as was claimed.

The people who said Terri told them that Michael had in fact abused her, and told them that she was going to tell him she wanted a divorce--the day before she was found unconscious on the floor with her husband just sitting there not calling 911--have credibility that weighs more than anything concluded by the medical examiner so many years later.

Maybe he only slapped her around. Maybe he punched her lights out. Unless he cracked her skull, that would not show up in the autopsy over a decade later. But SOMETHING rendered Terri unconscious. In claiming that it was an eating disorder, bulimia, Michael lied.

[Neil D]

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The autopsy report also said that bulimia was not a factor in Terri's condition, which proves that her husband, Michael, lied. The report also states that she did not have a heart attack, as was claimed.

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Quote:

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On the subject of what might have caused Schiavo's original collapse, Thogmartin was skeptical that it was from an electrolyte imbalance brought on by an eating disorder.

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It is NOT ruled out. And it is rather hard to prove, in an autopsy, the electrolyte imbalance 15 years hence of an incident, especially when you have corrected it during those same 15 years.

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Still unknown is what caused Schiavo, 41, to lose consciousness on a winter morning in 1990. Her heart beat ineffectively for nearly an hour, depriving her brain of blood flow and oxygen.

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Maybe Nan or one of the other Drs who frequent c/a can explain if damage to the heart from electrolyte imbalance can show up on autopsy....

It seems to me that an electrolyte imbalance should only cause the heart to either contract or not contract, depending upon the electrolyte. Would that show up in an autopsy? I am not sure.

[Dr. Shane]

It seems rather odd the Governor Bush is now wanting an investigation. I mean, really. I tend to agree with Brother Neil here. How much can be discovered from an autopsy so many years later? I don't see that Gov. Bush has any political capital to gain. From how I see it, he can only lose on this.