Forums > Social Discussion > When is it time to let go??
Login/Join to Participate1,489 posts
Location: state of confusion
Ok so I was reading the news today I came across the story of Teri Schiavo. Now Teri has been in a vegatative state for over 15 years now, caused by a car accident I believe, any way.....
For the last few years her husband Michale and her parents have been in legal battles over when to pull her feeding tube. It has gone as far as President Bush's brother, Jeb Bush, steping in and saying that her husband had no right to remove the tube (Jeb is Florida gov.)
Ok long story short, this has gone back and forth between the parents and the husband, in my opinion, for too long........so how long is to long to old on to a life? I have no wishes to EVER be on life support for more than week ( I have a living will) but what about those that don't think about this possibility, how long would you hold on?
You can't avoid pain by fencing yourself from it.
Some times you need the help of others more than anything else
But you have to let them close enough to help......
People want to be needed, I found that out too
Mistress of Pink...Multicoloured
6,140 posts
Location: Over There, United Kingdom
Well saying now, i would say when the odds of the person ever coming round are really low (like below 10%)
but being in that situation, if it was someone i really loved, i dont think i woudl be thinking rationally.
Never pick up a duck in a dungeon...
Super Gidg!!!!
8,506 posts
Location: Portland Oregon USA
There is so much debate over this case in the US. As Pink says, loved ones don't necessarily think rationally in situations like this.
Growing old is mandatory; growing up is NOT.
Proud member of the HoP DPS.
Sanity is a highly overrated state of mind.
I'm normal ... it's everyone else that's crazy.
Gidg
1,489 posts
Location: state of confusion
even still rational thinking aside, her parents are being selfish, they are not taking into consideration her husband, hell their whole case is that he is trying to hurry her death so he has acess to her life insurance (or some larg sum of money) so he and his new girl friend can move on
granted that fact that he is dating again does look suspect, but this women is dead,
You can't avoid pain by fencing yourself from it.
Some times you need the help of others more than anything else
But you have to let them close enough to help......
People want to be needed, I found that out too
Liquid Cow
2,629 posts
Location: High Wycombe, England
15 years is a long time to be effectively single, I say good luck to him if he's started dating again.
Really, I think the parents are (understandably) living with a false hope that she'll recover, but maybe after 15 years it's time to finally say goodbye and turn the life support off.
I'd like to think that I'd find the strength to do that if I were in a similar situation, but the only way of knowing involves something that I really, really hope doesn't happen.
But there's no sense crying over every mistake. You just keep on trying till you run out of cake.
2,530 posts
Location: Manchester, United Kingdom
i admit that the parents may be holding onto a lost hope, but there has been cases where people have been in a coma (however you spell it) for 20+ years, and then just randomly woken up one day, so in some ways there is still hope, but if the parent's only argument is that he's trying to get at her life insurance, then their arguement is weak, and they should let her husband move on.
We are the music makers, We are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers, And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers, On whom the pale moon gleams;
We are the movers and shakers of the world for ever, it seems.
1,643 posts
Location: ffidrac
mmm... i always wonder with that situation though - i.e. if you did wake up after 20 odd years in a coma - would you actually have wanted to wake up?? i mean you've missed 20 years of your life, which could mean the difference between being a child and a fully grown adult... how frickin' weird would that be? and everyone you've known will have moved on in some way, even if it was say a husband/wife or whatever whose actually reamined faithful, surely their mental state has got to have been affected by the fact that you've been in a coma so long.... off on another tangent, for that same reason, would you really want to be cryogenically frozen??
There might also be a medical difference between those people who do wake up and this woman though, i always thought 'vegetive' meant brain dead - whereas i presume those that wake up have some sort of record of brain activity??
Aurinko freedom agreement reached 10th Sept 2006
if it makes no sense that's because it's NOn-sense.
1,489 posts
Location: state of confusion
see NOn i would never want to miss 20 years of life do to a comma, like you said you would have missed so much. to you it would still be X year and X day, all your friends have moved on, kids are grown, hell the whole world could have changed. think about the mental anguish the time it would take to adjust
You can't avoid pain by fencing yourself from it.
Some times you need the help of others more than anything else
But you have to let them close enough to help......
People want to be needed, I found that out too
Pirate Pixie Crew Captain
8,428 posts
Location: Wales
In answer to the original question :- Unless you are ever put in this situation (I hope none of you ever are) I don't think you can honestly know how you would react. Its easy to say you know when you are free from the real choice to say that you would let go.
To the question of would you want to come out of a coma 20 years down the line, again I think you can't really say without being in that situation. I guess it depends on what type of person you are and how good you are at adapting. Some people have come out of comas in the past and said they knew what was going on around them and that they were desperately trying to tell the people around them that they were still in there.
I'm not sure I agree with removing feed tubes from coma patients and letting them die. That is in effect starving them to death. If you decide they are dead and you have done all the tests you can that prove that, I don't think starving them is the way to go. Having said that I'm not sure how else you would do it. I'm not sure I believe in legalising euthanasia. sometimes I hear stories and I think yes legalising euthanasia is a good thing and then I hear the flip side to how it could be abused and I think we are better off not legalising it........ I don't know really. Is witholding a food supply until the person starves better than a lethal injection........ I don't know.
Feed me Chocolate!!! Feed me NOW!
1,489 posts
Location: state of confusion
i agree with you some what skul, you never know till you are in that situation, however, sit down and think about being in that situation, seriously think about it, granted its not the real thing but if you can put your mind in that state you can understand that state.......
once i had my daughter i decided to make out a living will for just such an ocassion, i dont want to sleep for 15+ years and miss her life, i wouldnt know her any more.........but then again thats just me
You can't avoid pain by fencing yourself from it.
Some times you need the help of others more than anything else
But you have to let them close enough to help......
People want to be needed, I found that out too
Pirate Pixie Crew Captain
8,428 posts
Location: Wales
But who's to say after the 15 years when you wake up you don't forge a wonderful relationship with your daughter....... you just don't know.
No matter how you try to put your self in the mind set of how it would be like you never can because you have not experianced it.
Feed me Chocolate!!! Feed me NOW!
1,489 posts
Location: state of confusion
thats true, thats verry true..........but what would you want? thats what im trying to see here is what would your personal choice be? would you want to stay like that, or would you rather pass on?
You can't avoid pain by fencing yourself from it.
Some times you need the help of others more than anything else
But you have to let them close enough to help......
People want to be needed, I found that out too
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