Schools ponder role as child nears death

Chicago Tribune ^ | December 9, 2007 | Jeff Long

[Sopater]

As the school bus rolled to a stop outside her Lake County home, Beth Jones adjusted the bright yellow document protruding from the pouch of her daughter's wheelchair, making sure it was clearly visible.

In bold letters it warned, "Do Not Resuscitate."

The DNR order goes everywhere with Katie, including her 2nd-grade classroom at Laremont School in Gages Lake. The school is part of the Special Education District of Lake County, where an emotional two-year discussion ended this summer when officials agreed to honor such directives.

Now, district officials find themselves in the unusual position of having planned the steps its staff will, or won't, take to permit a child to die on school grounds. Although DNR orders are common in hospitals and nursing homes, such life-and-death drama rarely plays out in schools, where officials realize how sensitive and traumatic the situation could be for nurses, teachers and students.

Katie's brain was deprived of oxygen before birth. She can't walk, talk or do anything for herself. She is fed through a tube in her stomach and has an increased susceptibility to infection. Violent choking and coughing spasms have signaled a turn for the worse in her condition.

A Do Not Resuscitate order is a doctor's directive, issued with the consent of the family, that cardiopulmonary resuscitation will not be used if the patient suffers from heart or breathing problems. It can also prohibit using such devices as a defibrillator or an intubation tube. The new DNR policy puts Katie's school district at the forefront of a growing national debate about severely disabled and chronically ill children whose lives have been extended by medical advances -- and whose parents must face heart-wrenching decisions about the future.

[Froufrou]

Why not?

It’s certainly more useful socially than learning about tolerance for sexual preferences, assuming sex is allowed to remain an activity that is not included in the curriculum.

Student predatory teachers notwithstanding, of course.

[imjustme]

Pam I understand your yelling in your post. I am floored by some of the comments here.

Getting a severely disabled child to school everyday is not always easy. Especially if you have been up and down all night with the child. Changing and feeding them, bathing them, dressing them, and getting them ready for the school bus can be draining. Then spending the day washing all their bedding because their diaper leaked and their pillows because they drooled during the night. Not counting having to still function on lack of sleep and be a mom to the other siblings and still get housework done and the list goes on.

It is physically and emotionally draining.

Yes my daughter is such a blessing to us in my family. Reality is reality though. I spent part of this morning trying to get my daughter to eat some breakfast. Just two bites and some fluids. I ended up just holding her and crying.
After some bouts of seizures she regresses and that includes forgetting who to swallow her food. Things we take for granted she forgets.

[VirginiaConstitutionalist]

So if my conscience tells me to teach your kids how to use a condom and that Harry and Steve should be married, “my conscience informs me (it) is the right thing to do” you’d have no problem with that.

There’s nothing scarier than people who think they should raise everyone else’s kids.

[OffBelay]

I’m impressed with the deep love and concern expressed by this little girl’s parents. They were dealt a tough card in life, and are doing their level best to give their child the best they can.

Having some experience with life/death decisions, it probably wasn’t easy to come to this. I’m sure they weighed each item many of us are bringing up.

Hard decisions are that way because there are good/bad aspects to each.

I suspect it would have been easier to just keep her home or in some care center. But these fine parents wanted the best for their child, and in their estimation, it wouldn’t be found there.

[georgiagirl_pam]

As I said, I was not in any way commenting about the DNR.
Pam

[Anonymous Rex]

It’s also not fair to the teachers or any other adults in that school.

My mother tutored a little girl who was terminal when I was in middle school. It took her a long time to get over that and she knew what she was getting into.

I can’t imagine being that little girls teacher or principal and having to wonder every day if that was the day I was going to have to watch her die.

[Osage Orange]

A DNR is often more moral than resuscitation at any cost.

Yes, and until you've broke the ribs of a 97 year old lady...while doing CPR compressions..one might never understand that.

I could go on, and on.....

I do realize that....this particular case is unique..and without more info..I'd be hesitant to make a definitive statement one way or another.

[Ignatz]

If she dies on school grounds, they will have succeeded in their mission to show the other children that human life has no value.

[wideawake]

You have no right to tell parents they have no right to make a decision for your child because it offends you.

This sentence is confusing, to say the least.

But I will repeat: no one has the right to compel me not to help a person who is dying in front of me.

I do not care if the would-be compeller is the dying person's parent, or friend, or warden, or slavemaster or gardener.

My conscience is my own.

[Melas]

Thank you.

[najida]

As SoftballMominVA pointed out, she’s in a school for the severly to profoundly disabled.

Which changes the scenario bit....they’re used to sick kids and they may have and other kids die in their charge. It goes with the territory.

[4Godsoloved..Hegave]

And....Hug her, kiss her, rock her. Those are the things children like her enjoy. Much like a perpetual 2 month old.

It is the parents right to demand the education system take care of her 180 days of the year. Many parents execute that right some do not. I love my little man too much to put him in such a system daily just because we can.

I can’t imagine ever not reacting to anyone coughing, choking or gagging and just let them die. To try and force members of society to go against that which is natural is absurd. Yet we see these type of situations occuring more and more all the time. The frog is in the water and it is getting hotter by the day.

[Kozak]

WHY THE BLEEP IS THIS CHILD IN A PUBLIC SCHOOL????

Because it's the (idiotic) law.

"If the law supposes that,” said Mr. Bumble,… “the law is a ass—a idiot. If that’s the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is that his eye may be opened by experience—by experience.”
CHARLES DICKENS, Oliver Twist

[frogjerk]

There are circumstances in which a DNR makes sense. When a person's condition is incurable, it makes no sense to revive them if they're not going to have a semblance of an existence. I'm not saying a DNR is appropriate in every case. Its a very complex situation. Parents know more than any one else what its like to lose a child. Its heart-breaking and the death of a loved one is never a good outcome. Nevertheless it is a part of life.

Agreed.

[Melas]

As a tax payer would you be concerned if your taxes rose all of a sudden because of the institutionalizing of all severe and profound students? Care facilities for this type of disabilities would break small districts even if they had fewer than 5 kids.

You misunderstood me. I meant care facility as in long term care facility, ie, nursing home. This child should either be with her parents, or in a nursing home payed for by her parents.

[VirginiaConstitutionalist]

And it’s that application of conscience, to the point where you use it to control other people, that should frighten people.

What you are preaching, that you have a duty to make decisions for others because their actions offend you, is the very foundation of liberalism.

[LukeL]

I am a recent highschool grad and can say that all through my school years severly disabled children who were baisically in a PVS were in school. The schools have become a way for parents to get a break from their kids.

[ga medic]

Magisterial? Why else would this little girl be dying if it wasn’t God’s will?

If you know that intubation is unpleasant, then why on earth would you say these parents were killing their child? Is it not acceptable for a parent to spare their child many painful interventions that would result in the same end? You condemn these parents in every post.

I do understand your point of forcing these teachers to violate their conscience, but it doesn’t really apply. I would imagine if the teachers that are working with this little girl truly felt they were required to resuscitate her, that they would have spoken out. If my employer was forcing me to do something I believed was morally wrong, I would request a diffferent setting, or quit. These teachers seem willing to do as the parents request, though they find the idea difficult. (I wouldn’t let my kids go near a teacher that didn’t find this difficult)
No one is “forcing” them to do anything.

[frogjerk]

Sorry, I don't agree with anyone on this board that this is horrible to have a DNR order.

That is not the issue as I see it nor as most on this thread. The issue is that the parents are dragging everyone else into their moral choice not to resuscitate their child, whether it conflicts with their set of morals or not.

[wideawake]

So if my conscience tells me to teach your kids how to use a condom and that Harry and Steve should be married, “my conscience informs me (it) is the right thing to do” you’d have no problem with that.

You seem to be obsessed with sodomy, and to be confused between giving a child a lecture and watching them die.

I send my children to well-vetted private schools - paying good money - to insure that they are not taught to do evil things like sodomize people or let people die without helping them.

There’s nothing scarier than people who think they should raise everyone else’s kids.

This conversation has absolutely nothing to do with raising one's own children or those of others. It is about letting a child die.

I repeat: a child's parents have no moral authority to force one person to watch another person die.

If they want to make sure their child dies without anyone lifting a finger to help her, then they are going to have to make sure that everyone around her voluntarily agrees to do the same.