This was a reflection paper our Critical Care Nursing professor asked us to submit. This is an ethical dilemma most health professionals encounter in the hospital setting. A battle between life and death in the face of paternalism. The Terri Schiavo Case.

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp058062

Upon reading the article above, certain questions made me wonder whether what happened deserved to happen.

To preserve or to let go?

Terri is a vegetable. Her incapacity to rationalize like a normal human being makes her dead beyond the aid of ventilators and machines yet her right to live remains intact. Preserving her under the aid of expensive equipment would be like a hungry dog being tied six inches away from infected food. Though the act of saving the dog from eating infected food seems noble, tying the dog in front of the food and having nothing to feed the dog in the first place, sounds more like torture. Just as Terri’s family wants to keep her from facing death, keeping her alive without the whole essence of living may seem selfish, and senseless. On the other hand, letting her go would sound a lot like murder. Which is more painful? In this case, I may have to acquiesce with John Rawls’ philosophy of accepting the lesser evil in the face of having no good option. Letting her go would seem more considerable if I were asked. Holding her back from death is like holding her back from salvation. It is selfish and by all means as the court have decided and as the husband heard her once state, she does not want to be kept alive on a machine, she wanted to die a natural death in God’s time. She had a predisposed perspective about being chained to a machine and that is good enough to view what she would’ve wanted.

Who deserves the right to decide for Terri?

The husband is a blabbing moron. Deciding for her wife and fornicating with another woman. All this cheating while his wife lives the sad life of a wood piece. He doesn’t have a right to stand up and decide for her. She wouldn’t want his say on this if only she was faking her condition on a reality show to expose her cheating husband. The family members on the other hand, as the author of the article said, are selfish. They wanted to keep her breathing because they are too weak to let her go. The Florida Supreme Court was the only competent persona for paternalism.

What would Terri have decided?

Terri due to her critical medical condition could not sign a DNR sheet nor tell everybody “Hey, keep me breathing.” But if she were awake for even 15 minutes and can fully understand her condition, what could she have chosen?

It is not for me to guess what runs in Terri’s mind, if there was something at all, seeing everybody debating over her life. All I can say is that, Death is inevitable. It is something that comes either suddenly or gradually. It’s the last thing every living creature experiences yet the thought of it as the end of everything gives more essence to living. Death is always unexpected because only God knows the time for everything. Human as we are, if we have the power to save lives, we must also have the courage to let go and trust that we’re freeing somebody from worldly pain into eternal happiness.

The other night I dreamt of climbing stairs in a huge coliseum. I climbed the stairs, just continued climbing as I tried to look for something I cannot recall anymore. And as I looked back, the path I have been trudging turned into a dark labyrinth. I then looked at the floor I stopped in. The place was like a 5-star hotel with the whole glossy wood-yellow light feel. Then it dawned on me. I wanted to go home, and there’s no other way home than to go back down. The huge crazily creepy labyrinth was something I won’t even dare enter and so I tried to ask for other directions. I wondered if there was an elevator somewhere or a switch to light the stairs. I talked to an adult woman who was wearing a business suit who came walking briskly towards the stairs where I was. I asked her for directions. She was obviously going downstairs but she told me she has no idea how she got there in the first place but she was also clueless how for several times already she manages to go downstairs, down to where certain evil entities may be suspected to be gallivanting around.

Creepy dream with an open-ended question: Did I decide to stay on that floor or go down that horror downstairs to go home? I have no idea whether anything happened after, maybe I woke up, or I simply forgot. But what did it all mean?

I told my friend about that dream and he answered me right away. The ‘climb’ represented me soaring high from the confines of mediocrity. This one final college year I decided to run for President in Women’s Club, volunteered leader of our duty group, and tried to be a better person. I wanted so much to make up for the mess I made during my last year in High school. The ‘floor’ I was in represented my dream. The high society has always been my dream destination. The feeling of ‘wanting to go home’ may be a call to go back and live in the present. It may also mean an invitation to humility that despite the wonderful place before me, I still yearned to go back home, that despite the responsibility, I wanted to live an ordinary life. The ‘dark labyrinth’ behind me represents an unwanted past, which holds me back from being consistent in the present. It may mean that instead of evaluating how much I am moving towards the future, I keep on comparing myself to who I was in the past. And that definitely scared me from going back to the ordinary Me.

The lesson here? As Mr. Robinson said, “Keep moving forward.” and as I move forward, memories and lessons from the past will continue to inspire me, my dream will continue to push me.

The greatest feeling even better than success or the climax during sex is the ability to stand smiling after being pushed, stepped on and bullied, and say, “If you seriously think your pathetic ability to annoy people made me miserable, think again.”

He’s never an ordinary guy in class. He always gets attention. He’s got girls all around him. He may be the class clown. He may even be the teachers’ favorite. But one thing definitely is not right. He’s a bully.

I’m an ordinary girl in class. I get occasionally good grades. I have a position in a college-based organization. I may have the looks to die for. I may even have the greatest friends in the world yet beneath the wretches of being ordinary, I feel bullied.

No it’s not a scene where I am punched or tripped or given a toilet facial. It’s a story about his unique fondness of making fun of others, being simply irritating and arrogantly annoying. He seems to not care about anything. It’s all fun and games to him and sometimes wanting to get all the attention every time, he tends to get into people’s nerves.

I used to date one of his friends. His friend and I simply kissed and made out a little and now he’s creating a scene calling me a non-virgin when I haven’t really given my woohoo to anybody yet. There’s a lot of crap about being judgmental when you seriously have no idea what really happened. And then the modern dance competition. The level president talked to me and asked me to start the auditions. And so I assumed the coordinator role. A week later when I happen to decide who the members would be he suddenly started laughing at me. He told me I wasn’t the assigned coordinator and that I was proud enough to assume the position. Later on I realized that president sucked because he gave me a task I wasn’t supposed to do in the first place. And what he did, it ridiculed me. And now that I’m not anymore a member of the dance troupe, because a friend chose another student instead of me during the auditions because she is so just and fair, he continues to step on my pride. Even without words, his mere presence continues to mock me. I never wanted revenge my whole life. I wanted some Criss Angel mojo to lift him high in the air and slowly tear his guts off.

I’m human. I make mistakes. He doesn’t have a right to shove up to my face the wrong I have done. Hell he has no reason to do so. I haven’t done him wrong and he has nothing to do with it in the first place. I just wonder why the hell he loves making a huge buffoonery out of people’s tragedy. It has been said that putting others down won’t get you any higher but he doesn’t give a damn. Torturing people’s psyche is like a drug to him. A day won’t be complete without someone being insulted or someone being made fun of. Since I have no capacity to step down his level and torture him back, I think it would be best to just wish him good luck. Good luck that he may survive whatever karma has for him.

Now I have reconciled with my personal frustrations. I emerge stronger with every downfall and now I understand why he tried to make me miserable. Maybe he hates his life. Maybe he’s got a family problem. Maybe it’s a coping mechanism because people won’t take him seriously.

It’s not because he’s better nor am I a loser. Maybe he’s just a sad clown.