Reply #39: I see it every day [View All]

[October]

My mother had a stroke during elective heart surgery a year ago. She has cognitive losses, but manages quite well despite her paralysis. She is 62. At the time of surgery, she was way overweight and a big time smoker with some clogged carotid arteries to boot. Not a good candidate for surgery at all. But after months in the hospital and whatnot, the doctors "saved" her. Saved her for a life of misery because she's well enough to know she doesn't want to be there. Yet her cognitive losses prevent her from leaving or coming to stay with anyone.

Anyway, every bed in her nursing home is full with stories like Terry Schiavo's. Some of the "parents" have seen their kids live like this for decades. Some wished their children were "let go" at the time of the tragedy...rather than "saved" by medical science to live in this horrific state. They resent that their children were "saved" by surgeons and the like only to live in such torment...and it's torment for everyone. And yet, for every parent who thinks like that, there is a parent who reads the Catholic Standard and Times, giving them hope that science can grow stem cells without "killing babies," and that a miracle will happen...and that science is close to fixing these things. They read what they want to believe, and disavow anything that is contrary.

Their "children" can do nothing -- they're in bed, on feeding tubes, ventilators, wheelchairs, etc. They can't move. These parents bring newborn family members (grandchildren) into the nursing home and take photos of them being "held" by their sickly aunt, etc. It is so sad.

I don't know if the woman has any awareness, but my husband and I always think it might be worse if she does!!!

My mother's roommate just turned 30. She cannot move, speak, eat, etc. Her mother dotes on her like an angel. The poor girl was hit by a drunk driver while a graduate student. She moans as if in pain constantly, cannot sleep with her eyes closed, cannot close her mouth or uncurl her clenched fingers. She looks horrifically uncomfortable...yet her mother goes on and on about how beautiful she is and how a miracle might bring her back. She looks nothing like her former self, of course. And it's been 8 years. It breaks my heart...there are stories like this in every room.