6 posts tagged “medicine”

I only got this today but it’s still Sunday in the US. So please join in this day of prayer for Lauren Richardson, the disabled young lady in Delaware. There are certain parties that want her feeding tube removed and for her to starve to death, even though she is breathing on her own and responsive.
   Lauren’s mother, who has guardianship over her one-year-old daughter, has refused to let the two see each other.
   Even if you do not see this blog post in time, your prayers would still be welcome.

Life for Lauren Richardson has dedicated itself to organize a 24-Hour Prayer Vigil for Lauren beginning Sunday, 2/10. We are asking people to sign-up to pray for Lauren’s situation at the same time every day. Any amount of time is appreciated in anyway you wish. This way, we will storm heaven to get Lauren safe at home where her family waits to love and take care of her. Please respond to this email, letting us know the approximate time you can commit to prayer. A schedule will soon be posted on the website below.
 
Please forward this on to anyone around the world who you know would be interested in helping Lauren. 
 
God bless you all for your generous support!
 
Randy and Melissa Richardson
For more information about our fight to save Lauren’s life, go to: www.lifeforlauren.org

At least the British don’t pull out feeding tubes.
   In November 2007, it was reported that a 23-year-old woman, Amy Pickard, who had gone into a coma after a drug overdose (sounds familiar?) woke up thanks to the use of a sleeping pill. The pill, Zolpidem, has various side effects for comatose patients. Ms Pickard has even managed to stand.
   This link comes from the Life for Lauren website and I hope that the courts recognize this, along with the testimony of Kate Adamson, who was once diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state. Today, Ms Adamson goes around the US as a motivational speaker.
   Ms Adamson, whom some of you may remember appearing on the news around the time of the Terri Schiavo case, was paralysed from the forehead down. She was operated on with insufficient anæsthetic and surgeons did not care, because they deemed her a vegetable and unable to feel. She felt everything they did.
   She was also starved for eight days after her feeding tube was taken out and recalls it was one of the most painful and inhumane experiences a person can have.
   It was only put back in because her husband, a lawyer who had given up his practice to care for her, threatened to sue everyone’s pants off.
   Her left side is not fully able but Ms Adamson is arguably more productive than many of us with what society deems healthy bodies.
   Lauren Richardson is in a better state than Kate Adamson was, able to respond to her father and her dog, according to a video that has since been removed from YouTube. Yet the courts are so far supporting her mother, who believes her daughter’s feeding tube should be removed.
   Edith Towers, Richardson’s mother, says her daughter told her and another relative that she would not want to live this way, after watching the Terri Schiavo case on television.
   Although this evidence is hearsay—and weak at that—the court in Delaware is giving Towers considerable authority over Richardson’s rights. Her father is fighting that judgement.
   This blog also revealed in comments, which I repeat to save readers from searching, additional facts:

You can go to Lauren’s MySpace page and look to see where she states herself that she got along better with her father then with her mother. However, the verdict was based solely on her mother and her mother’s uncle stating that she had said she did not want to live “like that”.
   Not to mention, if Lauren did say those things in 2005 as told in court, she was on drugs and drinking when [she] made them, and she was not a mother. At the same time she allegedly made these statements one of the two witnesses had just gotten out of a mental institution and one was on drugs himself. These do not seem like they should be admissible to me.
   The week that Lauren “accidentally” overdosed, she had been hiding from her mother who was trying to force her to have an abortion. She had been clean for ten months! Her stuff was packed because that weekend she was going to move in with her dad, because she had asked him to help her with the baby.
   Several doctors have requested to see Lauren and try different treatments. Her mother has refused all of them. Her doctor, who is not a neurologist, told the family that she would not wake up, she would not move her body, that she would not respond to pain, that she would not breathe on her own again, that would not respond to people, that she would not show emotion. She does all of these things. She also can swallow and doctors have said with enough therapy she could eat on her own again. If she had gotten that therapy and could feed herself would we then hold her arms down so she cannot eat?

   Towers has even prevented Richardson from seeing her own daughter, to whom she gave birth last year. What sort of mother is that?
   I would have thought news like Amy Pickard’s would be celebrated. There is so much out there that says that Lauren Richardson is less “vegetative” than these other folks—who got out of far worse states than she finds herself in now.
   The courts do listen to “experts” but they also need to look at the strength of the testimony and subject it to the same rules as they might in criminal cases. We are talking about a human life here, and we can’t kill someone based on hearsay.

A very profound quotation appeared in Lifenews today on the Lauren Richardson case:

“The fight in this case is over whether she lives as a profoundly disabled woman or is made to die slowly over two weeks by dehydration—as Terri Schiavo did,” [attorney and author Wesley J.] Smith explained. “If we did that to a dog, we would go to jail. Do it to a disabled woman who needs a feeding tube and it is called medical ethics.”

   I should post the Life for Lauren URL as I have written two posts already on this subject: www.lifeforlauren.org. Please show your support if you can.
   And folks, this is about what the US should stand for, as a country that prides itself on helping the less fortunate. Cases like Lauren’s and Terri Schiavo’s open up the country to humiliating attacks by places like Red China. Next time the US criticizes Red China over its treatment of Falun Gong members or al-Qaeda for killing non-Muslims, they’ll just turn around and cite these cases. ‘See?’ they’ll say. ‘We’re not so different. We also believe in a Master Race.’

I thought there were some fishy things with the Lauren Richardson case and was interested to read the below, from VWarrior, in the comments. I have put in paragraphing and corrected some spellings and punctuation errors for clarity reasons.

This story is not what it seems. It may seem cut and dry to many, but there is a lot that the public does not know. Lauren Richardson’s mother is not mentally stable, she and her daughter did not get along. You can go to Lauren’s MySpace page and look to see where she states herself that she got along better with her father then with her mother. However, the verdict was based solely on her mother and her mother’s uncle stating that she had said she did not want to live “like that”.
   Not to mention, if Lauren did say those things in 2005 as told in court, she was on drugs and drinking when [she] made them, and she was not a mother. At the same time she allegedly made these statements one of the two witnesses had just gotten out of a mental institution and one was on drugs himself. These do not seem like they should be admissible to me.
   The week that Lauren “accidentally” overdosed, she had been hiding from her mother who was trying to force her to have an abortion. She had been clean for ten months! Her stuff was packed because that weekend she was going to move in with her dad, because she had asked him to help her with the baby.
   Several doctors have requested to see Lauren and try different treatments. Her mother has refused all of them. Her doctor, who is not a neurologist, told the family that she would not wake up, she would not move her body, that she would not respond to pain, that she would not breathe on her own again, that would not respond to people, that she would not show emotion. She does all of these things. She also can swallow and doctors have said with enough therapy she could eat on her own again. If she had gotten that therapy and could feed herself would we then hold her arms down so she cannot eat?
   Lauren’s mother waited seven months before stating that these were not “Lauren’s wishes.” And this was something that could have been said in the very beginning, before the fetus was viable. She had ample opportunity. It was only after Lauren seemed to be improving that she came forth with this information. How is that respecting Lauren's wishes? Lauren has never even seen her daughter, her mother will not bring her in drugs for Lauren.
   She went three months without visiting Lauren at all, and only because Randy was going to be granted custody and allowed to take her home, did she come in and see her so no one could claim abandonment. As it currently stands, someone from the Richardson side of the family is there 84 hours of the week at least, whereas someone from her mother’s side of the family is there for approximately 6 hours a week. This can be verified by visitors’ logs. She can come whenever she likes, she chooses not to because the Richardsons are there, evevn though she has been informed that they will leave whenever she wishes to visit.
   Now the Richardsons have been threatened with lawsuits if they continue to speak to the media and if they do not take down her website. If she has the freedom to starve her daughter (who is not a vegetable, not on a breathing machine, not in pain, not dying, and can swallow) he should have the freedom to talk about it with the public. In a country where we cannot legally help someone kill themselves when they are terminally ill and in massive pain, we are awfully quick to kill people who are not, and just based on hearsay.
   There was another group of people who used to kill disabled children and adults. Sometimes they used starving as a method as well. The Nazis.

Please call Governor Ruth Ann Minner and ask her to stop this from happening.

Wilmington Office: 302- 577-3210
Dover Office: 302-744-4101

I have been reading about Terri Schiavo again after learning of two new cases on the Jus Me Again blog.
   I was against the removal of Terri’s feeding tube. I’ll come right out and say that now. However, I did not believe Michael Schiavo should have been vilified the way he was by some people. I believe he did what he thought to be right and what he thought Terri had wanted. I do feel he might have been swayed by the medical “establishment”.
   Among my reasons is that medical science cannot give us any determination about a person’s spirit, although I know this inquiry is irrelevant to those in the field. Another major reason is not against medical science itself but against some who apply it. Healthcare is too often founded on monetary considerations, not about right and wrong.
   Before the technology that kept Terri alive had been invented, wouldn’t many families have prayed that they had something like that?
   And now that we do have defibrillators and more modern scientific technologies, we are ignoring them and saying, ‘Let them die,’ and getting courts to divorce themselves from the spiritual element.
   After Terri’s feeding tube was removed, she took another 13 days to join the Lord. That doesn’t sound a lot like someone who had just given up the fight and was ready to be outta here. And before I get criticized, I do know what it’s like to look after someone you love who is battling something that medical science regards is terminal.
   There are too many cases in my family where western medicine had given up on someone, but eastern medicine and prayer had not.
   The latter usually win.
   My grandfather’s advanced liver cancer was cured by praying and by quickly rushing him herbs from Hong Kong to drink as a tonic. The two weeks the “experts” gave him turned out to be 21 years.
   We hear of cases like this in my family regularly enough for me to place less faith in some of the medical judgements that are made.
   I accept that the cases I have confronted are different, but I believe my experience allows me to at least imagine what I would do more clearly.
   I commented today that having differently abled people in our lives shows whether we can be God-like:

There are a few ways to look at the disabled. The first is that they give us the opportunity to experience an element of Godliness. I purposely use the Father’s name here. He does not judge any of us and loves us all equally. Knowing people who society classes as ‘disabled’ or differently abled is a training ground for seeing if we can remove our prejudices and extend the same love to them. The second is to understand that on a spiritual plane they are equal to us. None of us can say that a disabled Christian is any less a Christian or has any less of the Holy Spirit running through him or her. This can be extended to other religions or to atheists as God views us all equally on that spiritual level.

   If we forget first principles and judge things on money, then we have already taken the wrong direction.
   Twenty-three-year-old Lauren Richardson in Delaware is facing a Terri-like situation. While the reason Miss Richardson lies in hospital is clearer—she had a heroin overdose—I am not here to judge her lifestyle.
   Her mother, Edith Towers, thinks that her daughter wouldn’t want to live this way and managed to get a court order, while her father, Randy Richardson, is fighting it.
   Ms Towers says that her daughter told her that she did not want to live like Terri Schiavo if she found herself in the same situation. Again, we cannot blame her for trying to carry out what she believes are her wishes. And we would again be wrong to vilify her as many did with Michael Schiavo.
   While in her “vegetative” state, Lauren Richardson gave birth to a healthy baby girl last February.
   I do not think it is right for Ms Towers to prevent her daughter from seeing her own child, which is what the press has reported. You never know what reaction a mother might have to her own child. Lauren Richardson needs to be given at least this simple chance.
   A pro-life video shows that Lauren seems to react to family members and her dog.
   Meanwhile, a Manitoba case involving an 84-year-old man who suffered brain damage is also being fought.
   Samuel Golubchuk suffered a brain injury after a 2003 fall. He contracted pneumonia in October. The medical staff want to dehydrate him to end his life.
   Mr Golubchuk is an Orthodox Jew and does not believe that his death should be hastened, so there is no doubt about what he wants.
   In January, he regained consciousness and his doctor recorded ‘Awake’ on his chart.
   The Manitoba College of Physicians and Surgeons has guidelines that say it’s not up to the patient or the family, but the doctor, so apparently we can forget Mr Golubchuk’s views and the fact that he is awake and alive.
   This Canadian case is ridiculous, in my view, and it seems that Canada is perfectly willing to introduce euthanasia. Germany started off with euthanasing the disabled in the 1930s. It grew from there.
   Please blog about this if you want to help either Miss Richardson or Mr Golubchuk. There’s no way in heck I’d let some doctors kill me off if I were in their shoes. And for the record, while my father has said it would be horrible for someone to be a vegetable, he is as spiritual as I am on these issues.

I feel for Jennifer Mee, the 15-year-old Floridian who has been hiccuping for three weeks.
   Being someone who suffers from hiccups that go on for three days, I can tell you that this young woman is going through hell.
   Mine were five to six seconds apart, but Jennifer can hiccup 50 times in a minute.
   You do not “get used to them”. Even at my frequency, they are annoying, and prevent you from working or functioning properly. Forget it when it comes to taking phone calls.
   And unlike me, Jennifer has seen experts, none of whom have been able to help her.
   I am sure she has tried everything. Some of my hiccups were burps as well, which I think helped expel some of the air. The only way I managed to stop hiccuping for my radio interview last week was to eat: during the meal I tended to stop. I have, consequently, put on some weight just in three days.
   I didn’t see the segment, but I heard that some guests on Fox News thought they had a gadget which would work on the diaphragm. I pray Jennifer will find relief from hiccuping soon.