Dave Foulk Internet Flyer

A nurse walks into a hospital room and says “Mr. Jones, I have some bad news.  Your HMO won’t pay for an enema so I’m just going to have to slap it out of you.”

A preacher gets the first house of his own after living in parsonages for years.  He buys an old lawn mower from a man down the street.  It’s one of those two-cycle jobs.  The preacher winds and cranks and winds and cranks.  He’s getting hot in the June sunshine even before he starts to mow.  A little boy comes by and says “Mister, that used to be my daddy’s lawn mower.  You have to cuss it before it’ll start.”  The preacher responds, “Son, I;m a minister and I don’t curse, and I don’t think I would even know how.”  The kid on the bicycle says “Just keep cranking preacher, it’ll all come back to you.”

I have been in this business 36 years, and I have seen my share of tragedy.  There have been young people gone- way before their time- because of youthful indulgence or poor judgment, adults who have died because of hatred, passionate jealousy, or downright evil, and those who have died from accident or simply being in the wrong place when something happened.

Now, it seems the yellow crime scene tape goes around a scene almost the moment the first officer arrives on-the-scene.  They want to “preserve the scene” as the textbooks say.  Years before that tape was invented, curious reporters and photographers were allowed right up to the scene of the crime.  Most of us had the good judgment not to touch or move anything.  Those who didn’t were usually yelled at by police, and quickly learned their lesson for next time.

That close proximity gave me an unfortunate ring side seat to scenes of people dying. I can tell you, the human body fights and fights to stay alive.  The brain closes off blood supplies to places that do not need blood in order to keep the body alive.  I believe it’s the limbic system that controls our very effort to breathe, and I have watched as badly injured people fight even for that last breath. Aside from the spiritual aspect, I believe our bodies want to live, and they will try anything within their power to keep us alive.

Paramedic friends of mine work hard to save those who are in such dire circumstances.  I am always careful what I do and say around such scenes.  Hearing is the last sense to leave us, and I have read of too many out-of-body near death experiences not to believe that they are real.

So what does this have to do with anything?  Terry Schiavo.

I have seen people badly brain damaged, and looked into their eyes, and seen nothing was there.  Machines breathing for them, fluid hydrating the body, but nothing is there. But there is something very worrisome to be about saying that this woman is in such a state.  Her eyes seem to follow objects, and she is making sounds. Are they simply sounds of her body exchanging air? They might be.  Even dead people can make sounds.  But are we sure that is the case here.  Has a brain-wave EEG been conducted lately? What do physicians independent of the case have to say?

Do we err on the side of life and think that this woman has some brain activity and some kind of life left in her?  Would she want to stay alive in that condition?  Or do we disconnect the feeding tube?  And if we do, is their pain and suffering for her in the throes of death by starvation or severe chemical imbalance?  We are treading a fine line in this case either direction. 

And my opinion is:  I don’t know.

I do know that we should all have written and witnessed advance directives on what we want done with us if we are ever in that unfortunate state.  Doing otherwise is tough on the family, tough on the physicians, and unfair to everyone- even you.

One thing I am sure of- the world-wide media attention given to this woman in
Floridamight be hurting the effort to a legal resolution.  When congress convenes at midnighton behalf of one individual- you know the cameras must be rolling.

-Foulk