Thursday, November 08, 2007

Do you remember Terri Schiavo?

I remember very well the story of Terri Schiavo. She was a woman who was supposedly in a coma but her family and some caregivers say she was attempting to communicate with them and well aware of her surroundings. After an extremely lengthy legal battle, the courts allowed her feeding tube to be removed and for her to literally starve and thirst to death even though she had family members wanting to care for her.

A friend of mine from choir has a cousin named Tia in Florida. Tia is married to Ryan and Ryan has something called Frontal Temporal Dementia or Pick's Disease. He is young and is currently experiencing dementia and has been admitted into hospice care with less than 6 months to live. The nursing home providing his care does not want him there any longer. Problem is there is nowhere else for him to go. The nursing home is insisting that Tia allow them to put him into a medicinally induced coma and "allow" him to die of starvation or they will discharge him, by taxi if needed, to Ryan and Tia's home address. Tia is not willing to stand by and watch him be murdered and yet she can find no other placement for him and knows she cannot care for him at home. Thankfully she has the help of the Terri Schiavo Foundation and lawyers to work in the courts to not allow this to happen to her husband and the father of their still young children. Please pray for this situation. I hate the slippery slope that our country has stepped onto.

No comments: