[lit-ideas] Re: Right to Life, Right to Die

From: "Andy Amago" <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 19:55:50 -0500
Karen Carpenter also died of an eating disorder induced heart attack at 32.

  


> [Original Message]
> From: Robert Paul <robert.paul@xxxxxxxx>
> To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: 3/25/2005 1:58:38 PM
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Right to Life, Right to Die
>
> Carol Kirschenbaum wrote:
>
> Veronica, the situation is much, much more complex than you present
> here, though this is pretty much all the media has reported. Terri Schiavo
> did not receive the medical care or the rehabilitative care during the 
> first
> few years after her injury. Indeed, the cause of her heart stopping is
only
> a guess.There's no medical history of her supposed eating disorder; that 
> was
> something the media seized upon over the last two years.
> -------------------------------------------------------
> Some passages relevant to this from from 
> http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1351061/posts:
>
> [Part of a 'time line']:
>
> February 1990? Terri suffers cardiac arrest and a severe loss of oxygen 
> to her brain
>
> May 1990? Terri leaves hospital and is brought to a rehabiliation center 
> for aggressive therapy
>
> July 1990? Terri is brought to the home where her husband and parents 
> live; after a few weeks, she is brought back to the rehabilitation center
>
> November 1990? Terri is taken to California for experimental therapies
>
> January 1991? Terri is returned to Florida and placed at a 
> rehabilitation center in Brandon
>
> July 1991? Terri is transfered to a skilled nursing facility where she 
> receives aggressive physical therapy and speech therapy
>
> [and]
>
> The cause of the cardiac arrest was adduced to a dramatically reduced 
> potassium level in Theresa's body. Sodium and potassium maintain a 
> vital, chemical balance in the human body that helps define the 
> electrolyte levels. The cause of the imbalance was not clearly 
> identified, but may be linked, in theory, to her drinking 10-15 glasses 
> of iced tea each day. While no formal proof emerged, the medical records 
> note that the combination of [Theresa's] aggressive weight loss, diet 
> control and excessive hydration raised questions about Theresa from 
> Bulimia, an eating disorder, more common among women than men, in which 
> purging through vomiting, laxatives and other methods of diet control 
> become obsessive. Also relevant to questions about the cause of Terri's 
> collapse is the lawsuit that Michael brought on Terri's behalf against 
> Terri's doctors. The premise of that early 1990s lawsuit was that the 
> doctors committed malpractice by failing to diagnose Terri's bulimia and 
> that her bulimia led to her cardiac arrest. The case was tried to a 
> jury, which ruled in Michael's favor, finding that Terri had bulimia, 
> that her bulimia caused her cardiac arrest, and that the doctors were 
> negligent in failing to diagnose the situation. The verdict was 
> appealed, and before the appellate court could rule, the parties 
> settled, with Michael recovering approximately $750,000 for Terri and 
> $300,000 for himself.
>
> After this case gained national attention in 2003, Gary Fox, the lawyer 
> who represented Terri and Michael in that suit, wrote a stirring column 
> concerning Terri's bulimia and how the tragic effects of that disease 
> have been lost in the hoopla surrounding this case. The St. Pete Times 
> still has that column online, and you can read it here.
>
> The significance of the medical malpractice lawsuit can be seen in a few 
> ways. A jury agreed that bulimia caused Terri's collapse. The defendants 
> were her doctors -- one might think that they, of all people, would have 
> been able to show that Terri had been beaten or strangled if that was 
> what had occurred. Also, to believe that Michael caused Terri's collapse 
> by beating her is to believe that Michael initiated a lawsuit against 
> someone else for causing her collapse, opening the whole matter to 
> serious inquiry and greatly increasing the risk that someone would 
> discover his role.
>
> [I would urge those whose grasp of the history of this case is mostly 
> derived from the popular media to read this blog in its entirely.]
>
> Robert Paul
> Reed College
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[lit-ideas] Re: Right to Life, Right to Die

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