When it falls

I sat next to a lady who referred to herself as being a mad scientist. Turns out that she is trying to cure cancer by injecting plants with human DNA. She mentioned something about the protein the plants produce using the human DNA and about how that is being used to try and cure cancer. She got rather scientific on me, but freshman year biology was flashing back with some of her terms so I sort of understood it. I have never met someone who is working on curing cancer. Obviously we got to talking and it turns out that her dad died when she was 23 from colon cancer. Clearly we had a lot to talk about. It's nice to know that someone is working for the cause. My brain does not operate in scientific mode, if it did, I would have asked her if I could internship with her. The ironic thing about her research is that the plants that they use are tobacco plants. Apparently the cause of some cancers might also be part of the cure. Odd.

The case of Terri Schiavo is one that is causing a lot of debate. I am not one to hold back my opinion so here I go:

I can personally see both sides of the case.

The legal side being the husband is the legal guardian and therefore the overseer of life/death for Terri. He wants to move on and not let her suffer anymore.

The emotional side being a family refusing to believe the inevitable and wanting to try everything in their power to try and get her back to some kind of life.

I have issues with both sides of the case. For one, I think that the husband, who has already moved on and is with another women, should just divorce her if he really wants nothing to do with her anymore. I have a sneaky suspicion that the money they received from a malpractice lawsuit is part of the reason he is sticking around.

I also think that the family is wake up to the fact that she will never be the way she was. She has been like this for 15 years. She has been in that room for 15 years. How do you think that makes her feel? Even though you can't handle the thought of living without her, sometimes its not about you.

Where I get fuzzy as to what to actually do is the fact that she is breathing on her own. I would be more for letting her pass form this world into the next if she had been on a respirator for the past 15 years. Since she can still breath on her own, I do feel that she is more able to recover. I have read reports that state that she will never be able to recover, but I have also read reports saying that the husband has never really tried to help her recover. This is the family's main argument. They want there shot at helping her. Rumor has it that the husband has not allowed the family to actually spend time with her. The family did sneak in back in 2001 and take photos and talk to her though. So now I am leading more towards the family getting rights to her.

I flip back over to the husband though because of personal experience. My dad was on a feeding tube and essentially chose to go off of it which lead to his death. It wasn't the feeding tube that most think of when they hear that term. We didn't blend up what he had for dinner and pour it through a spout. His version, and I am not sure if this is what she is on or not, was a bag called TPN. It was a very large pouch that was filled with a white milk looking substance. We had to inject vitamins into the bag and then hook the bag up to a permeant tube coming out of his chest. We would then attach a monitor to the bag and it would regulate the flow the of liquid. The liquid was basically like Ensure. It had 2000 calories in it, which was to maintain his body weight. The doctor told us that people have lived for years off of TPN and have normal lives in the process. My dad only lasted for 3 months before he would start to take the bag off at night. It was basically his way of saying that he was ready to go. It was a quality of life issue at that time. Not being able to eat is degrading, especially to my dad who valued eating. It is a basic right of living.

This women has been in a bed for 15 years with monitors and tubes all over her. She has brain damage and cannot recover. As much as I want to believe that she can recover and that the family should be able to try to help her. But I think that my final choice is that the family not the husband, should pull the plug. She isn't living, all she is right now is being. There is no quality of life. The more they see her in this state the more it hurts them. It is hard to see someone who was once so full of life lay in a bed all day not being able to feed themselves, go to the bathroom by themselves and not being themselves. While I hate giving up, I wish the family would think about what is right for her. Letting go is hard, but it is a lot easier knowing that they are in a better place.