She might have only a week to live unless her parents can alter the verdict of Pinellas Circuit Court Judge George Greer before March 18. That is the day Greer has set for the removal of 41-year-old Terri Schiavo's feeding tube.
According to attorney Gary Fox in a Fox News interview, Schiavo grew up an overweight child and coped with the condition by developing bulimia, an eating disorder. The habit carried into her adult life, and in 1990 Schiavo went to the bathroom to purge after dinner. Her husband, Michael Schiavo, said he heard a thump and went to check on her. When he arrived, he found his wife lying on the floor.
Dr. Michael Baden, a forensic psychologist, said Terri Schiavo had had a heart attack caused by a chemical imbalance.
"If you get too high potassium or too low potassium, then the heart stops," Baden told Fox News. "If there's not enough blood going to the brain for five minutes because of the heart stoppage, then it causes permanent brain damage."
Such was the case for Terri Schiavo, and since her collapse she has been in a vegetative state at Pinellas Park hospice in Florida.
Greer's ruling came on the 15th anniversary of her collapse. Today her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, and her brother, Bobby Schindler, are fighting against Greer's ruling and against Michael Schiavo. They say Terri Schiavo still responds to them.
"She's trying to speak to us right now," Bobby said in the Fox story. "She is trying to speak and she can be taught to eat again and she won't even need the feeding tube if Michael and the courts would just permit her to have rehabilitation and therapy."
According to Fox News, the Schindlers have appealed court rulings at every level of the Florida court system since the late 1990s on whether their daughter should live or die. Michael Schiavo has fought their efforts.
"Mr. Schiavo made a resolute promise to his wife when she said, 'Honey, please don't keep me alive like this with tubes if something like that happened to me,'" said George Felos, Michael Schiavo's attorney.
He is making an effort to carry out his wife's wishes not to be kept alive artificially.
"As I understand it, she has not shown any real improvement in the past 10 years and could not survive without the feeding tube," said Joyce Hinsley, a retired Amarillo College professor of modern languages.
"As far as I am concerned, that is not a life, certainly not one that I would wish for myself or for my loved ones. If it were up to me, I'd probably make the same decision that her husband has made."
The Schindlers and Terri Schiavo's other supporters, however, say Michael Schiavo is not acting with his wife's welfare in mind, and the Schindlers are filing to divorce the Schiavos.
"We have filed divorce proceedings because of his total disregard for Terri as his wife," Bob Schindler said. "He is married to Terri, but he is living with another woman and he has two children by her. It has become quite obvious that his priorities are not in Terri's best interest."
"Without having all the evidence, I can only say that I support Mr. Schiavo's case," said David K. Kelley, a former AC student. "He may very well have two reasons for wanting to do this, but as long as his wife said she wanted that to be done, his complying with her wishes overrides any ulterior motive he has."
The divorce effort is unprecedented, said David Gibbs, an attorney for the Schindlers, and it would allow Terri Schiavo to terminate her marriage even after her death.
Felos said that no matter what the court's decision on the divorce, "any new guardian would be obligated to remove Terri Schiavo's feeding tube, because the court has ruled it is her wish not to be kept alive artificially."
Greer, however, has hinted that he will not consider divorce and, according to Fox News, he wrote that "he was no longer comfortable granting delays in the long-running family feud. He said this case must end."
"The court is no longer comfortable granting stays simply upon the filings of new motions," Greer wrote. "There will always be 'new' issues."
Unless Greer considers the divorce plea or reverses his decision, March 18 will be the day Terri Schiavo's feeding tube will be removed. The result would be starvation and dehydration and ultimately death.
"My heart says her quality of life is not good, and I think they probably just need to let her die a peaceful death," said Rhonda Stephenson, an AC administrative assistant in student activities. "I know as a parent that that would be hard to do, but I really believe that would be the best thing for her."
In addition to the request for divorce, the family is anticipating Terri Schiavo's death and asking that reporters be allowed to see her interactions, that the family may take photographs for them to keep, rather than the photos becoming Michael Schiavo's property, that the woman be allowed to die at home and that she may have a proper burial rather than the cremation her husband has planned.
Be the first to comment on this article!