Posted on 03/12/2010 8:39:11 AM PST by BykrBayb
The way you said, "Yes!" made it seem like you are cheering this decision, is that correct?
the child wasn’t brain dead...he might have been given medicine for seizures etc that would depress these reflexes.
as a doc, I sympathize with both sides.
a child’s brain is “plastic” and can recover (regenerate) after a brain injury. So that is an argument to continue treatment.
but Catholics say that extraordinary treatment is optional. So you can stop respirators even if the person is not brain dead.
traditionally catholics said the same for feeding tubes, until the pro death people started taking them out with the object to kill people...often from folks whose feeding tubes were placed for staff convenience in the first place, and who could swallow.
that’s why the bishop backed Michael Schiavo, and other cases, but John Paul II, seeing how the pro death people were manipulating these cases, put his foot down on removal of feeding tubes.
In the most severe cases, (e.g. terminal alzheimer’s or Parkinsons disease) the feeding tubes don’t prolong life, they only make it more comfortable...ironically, one example is JP2 himself, who had a feeding tube for the last few weeks of life but died of infection.
Oh, yeah I was just jumping up and down in my chair. An exclaimation point does not necessarily mean happiness.
I don’t have any feeling one way or another in this case. I can only relate what my family went through. It was the most agonizing gut wrenching decision my husband and I ever made. There are no words.
I just find it interesting that some folks who never has had to make that kind of choice can sit here and make judgements. So when a story like this comes along and I read some of the comments, yes I do get a bit excited about it. I have been there. I know what it feels like to have to say goodbye to your baby.
The nurses dim the lights and you are standing there at the foot or the side of the bed watching the breathing machines breath for your child. You stand there and take their little hands and they are so cold, begging for them to wake up!!!! that mommy’s here. You know time is running out.
Then you realize that you have to let them go home to God. You climb in the bed and hold your child close to you in your arms, and signal the nurse to turn off the machine. In some ways now that I look back on that precious moment I was given a gift, although I did not realize it at the time. It took many years 17 to be exact to hold on to that memory of guiding my little boy into God’s loving arms.
No, I am not cheering what has happened here. But I feel a kindred spirit with the parents.
How do you know who has been faced with the choice between right and wrong and who hasn’t?
Every time I look into my husband’s eyes, I know I made the right choice. I don’t know how others face their demons, but I’m glad I don’t have that problem.
“How do you know who has been faced with the choice between right and wrong and who hasn’t?
Every time I look into my husband’s eyes, I know I made the right choice. I don’t know how others face their demons, but I’m glad I don’t have that problem.”
I am sorry did I miss something? Can you explain? Are you saying that I made the wrong decision? I don’t know. I am just telling my story. Peace Out.
He passed about 10 minutes after we turned off the machines. He will forever be two years old.
I love you Timmy.
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