Re: Global Eye - Body Double

I live in Houston, I work in the Texas Medical Center, I am a Registered Nurse. There are parts of this article that I agree with and parts that very much anger me. The bias here is that the author seems to strongly believe that because this woman was black, lower class, opressed, etc that her child was not given the opportunity to live despite her mothers wishes.

I want everyone to know something, decisions such as these involving Sun Hudson and Terri Schiavo are made EVERY DAY by a team of hospital employees known as an ETHICS COMMITTEE. It is important for such committees to exist because sometimes parents, despite their good intentions, are unable to realize the extremely inhumane circumstances under which they are asking to keep their child alive. Sun's lungs were so severely underdeveloped that they would NEVER regain full functionality. HE WOULD NEVER BE ABLE TO BREATHE ON HIS OWN. To maintain the life of a baby who can not breathe, think, eat, or move independently is outrageous. It would not matter if this child belonged to Donald Trump, an ethics committee would have come to the same conclusions. It has nothing to do with ability to pay or race or gender. These teams of highly trained individuals are forced to make tough decisions every day. Maybe the parent is in denial, not fully cognizant of what sustaining this patient's life really means. Maybe there is conflict between family member: son, daughter, aunt, cousin and wife all have different ideas of what should be done for the patient. How do you solve issues such as these? It is a very sticky situation, and there is always going to be some dissent from one side or the other. I DO NOT, however believe that these decisions are suitable for the government/politicians to make. I think that Terri's situation is a very delicate one, as she has been in her current state for so long, is obviously not what one might call "brain dead" (that is, she is awake, she appears responsive to some degree, she responds/withdraws to stimulus) and she can also breathe independently. Therefore, removing a feeding tube so as to allow for a slow and, in my opinion, quite inhumane death by starvation might not be the right answer. I can't presume to know what is.

Bottom line is, I don't know ONE human being on this planet who would tell their loved ones, "Look, if I ever become severely brain damaged and exist in what essentially amounts to a vegetative, very dependent state of being, one where my quality of life is little to none, I WANT YOU TO KEEP ME ALIVE NO MATTER WHAT." I'm sorry folks, but nobody would say that. Nobody wants to suffer. Nobody wants to be miserable. Nobody wants to be a helpless, incapacitated shell of their former self. We may not know what Terri would REALLY want, but I can honestly say, after spending years working with patients facing her exact same conditions, that I myself would NOT want to eek out a survival in that way. I can only hope that MY parents would make a decision reflective of that, rather than selfishly trying to hang on to some false sense of hope they've created.

It is important for everyone to have a living will and a medical power of attourney, so that you and/or your loved ones will not find yourselves in this type of situation. It is MUCH more common than you could ever imagine.