Uncle Roger's Notebooks of Daily Life

The Zombie Lovers

Nearly ten years ago, my mother died. She said "I think I just had a stroke" and keeled over. In actuality, she had a massive ruptured aneurysm in her brain stem.

Basically, she was dead at that point. Paramedics were summoned, she was taken to UCSF, and they started doing their tests and scans and whatnot. But she was dead. They gave us the bad news and yet it was several days before we accepted it. You see, whatever else we are, we're a family of fighters. We don't give up easily.

What made it difficult was that it sure looked to us like she was simply sleeping, and that she could wake up at any moment. She even snored. Surely, we thought, she should be given a chance!

The doctors explained what had happened -- a blood vessel had burst and had wiped out all those connections between the brain and the rest of the body. It's as if someone cut through one of those underground fiber-optic cables with millions of connections running through them -- and had no idea how to reconnect them. Of course, by that time, oxygen deprivation had killed the brain anyway.

So what about those movements, the snoring, all that? Rudimentary activity not controlled by the conscious brain. Mind you, I'm not a doctor, so I may not be completely accurate here, but as I understand it, it's like the lights glowing on the computer even after you've ripped the motherboard out. So the body was okay, but the brain -- the person -- was gone.

It was hard to accept that, I'll admit. It took us a few days before we agreed with the doctors that there was no hope. Eventually, however, we understood the reality of the situation and set about dealing with what came next. Some of her organs went to help others and we arranged for her funeral. She was buried at the big cemetery in San Bruno because my father was (briefly) in the army.

Given this experience, I understand that it is difficult for Terri Schiavo's parents to accept her death. Nonetheless, she died a long time ago. What irks me is that there are a lot of kids out there who need loving homes and there are a lot of people putting a lot of money and effort into "saving" this one person.

I heard a woman on the radio saying that we should not be letting people die simply because they are disabled. I agree completely. Terri Schiavo, however, is not disabled. She is dead. I hate to be so blunt about it, but that's the fact. You can take the word of people who see a video and make a decision based on relating what they see to other (non-analogous) situations, or you can base it on the reports and findings of medical experts who understand what they are seeing, in the context in which they are seeing it.

Just as I decry tax money misspent, I cannot approve of the otherwise noble energy being spent on this issue. Let Mrs. Schiavo go and focus on issues where you can actually do some good -- volunteer in a school, fight for free health care for all children, visit a nursing home.

Related Links Golden Gate National Cemetery

[ Posted: 20:00 | home | print ]