Terry Schiavo passed away this past Thursday bringing to a close the highly publicized and contraversial debates surrounding her case.
I don't have any interest in rehashing any of the aformentioned debates, but did want to bring attention to an article in the Daily News discussing how and why she became brain damaged. Ms. Schiavo was a severe binge dieter for many years and ultimately became bulimic.
The Daily News reports:
Her bulimia nervosa became so severe that the purging deprived her heart of potassium. An executioner's lethal injection does the opposite, flooding the body with potassium, but the effect is the same. A cellular reaction known as the sodium potassium pump is disrupted and the heart can no longer beat.
The paramedics got Terri Schiavo's heart thumping again, but not before she suffered irreversible brain damage. The video of her in a persistent vegetative state can be seen as a kind of an after-after picture.
Religious right/s groups, Congress persons and the President all became involved in the case of Ms. Schiavo and her right to life after she was in a vegetative state. But almost nobody was voicing outrage over the social pressures that landed Schiavo in a persistent vegetative state in 1990.
Well we are expressing outrage! I think it is interesting, that the right is willing to congregate around quality and right to life after a women can not be helped. What was going on, when she could be helped? What was her husband doing then? Did he notice that she had a problem? And what about other women that suffer from severe bulimia? Who is rallying around them?
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Well, Michael won a successful suit against her doctors for not diagnosing her bulemia, which leads me to believe he was trying to get her help before her collapse.
The whole side of the story concerning her bulemia is something that was largely missed. If it got any attention at all it was along the lines of lamenting the impact of a culture that values looks over substance or some such point-missing tripe.
It seems to me that bulemia is a complex psychological disorder that results morew from a person's family dynamics than simply comparing oneself to fashion models in Vogue.
What was the dynamic in Shiavo's family that led to her disorder? Is it related to the extreme behaviors displayed by her parents (particularly her father and brother) during the last few weeks?
Was there something dark in her family history that manifested both in her eating disorder and in the unreasonable (and patently dishonest) actions of her parents?
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not to nitpick, but isn't the word spelled "bulimia"?
You are right. I had heard she had a heart attack and wondered "at the age of 26?" WTF? The news that it was bulimia that caused it is rarely mentioned by anyone and NEVER mentioned by those who fought to "save" her.
SAD.
I also have wondered about her family of origins and its dynamics. Mom and Dad sure fought hard to keep her here; were they using her physical presence as a way to torture Michael? (I wonder what their falling out was all about. Something major because reports have them all living in the same house for a few years after the initial brain damage.) I also am amazed that as Christians they were so afraid of her death. Seems to run counter to everything I've ever heard mature Christians say about death - it isn't the end and there is nothing to fear.
Odd.
Molly--
Sadly but maybe not surprisingly, some of the animosity b/t the Schindlers and Michael Schiavo seems attributable to money issues, another aspect of this matter that was underreported:
"On Feb. 14, 1993, this amicable relationship between the parties was severed," Greer wrote. "While the testimony differs on what may or may not have been promised to whom and by whom, it is clear to this court that such severance was predicated upon money and the fact that Mr. Schiavo was unwilling to equally divide his loss of consortium award with Mr. and Mrs. Schindler."
(from a usatoday article quoting Judge Greer's 2000 opinion re: removal of the feeding tube).