disconnect.......

ok, so there seems to be a disconnect between the pulling of a feeding tube and the dying from starvation...or at least with those to who(m) this issue has been discussed of late......'i believe that the husband has the obligation to have the tube pulled if his wife said she didn't want tubes,...but i think it is wrong that she is starving to death....'........that is how this works, gentle readers.....without hydration or nutrition....the body starves.....but that is what would have/could have/should have happened 15 years ago when she was declared brain dead......she would have slowly starved.....because that is how death occurs when one lacks the swallowing reflex......ironic, when i read that there are right-to-lifers who have been arrested trying to sneak into schiavo's hospice to give her water......she has no swallowing reflex.....and she would just basically drown if someone were to give her water by mouth.......when people with cancer die, they don't actually die of cancer.....they die of the pneumonia that comes from the weakened immune system...or from the starvation that comes from the poor appetite secondary to medical treatments....or from organ shut-down ...the death certificate may say cancer......but it is never the cancer that did the deed in the end.......the disconnect is always there........and so i think these days about watching my dad slowly starve to death.......in the v.a. hospital....when my mom opted to not insert a feeding tube when he could no longer swallow.......it was unnerving to watch my dad dwindle slowly........it took at least 2 weeks.......but better that than a half-life of feeding-tube limbo.......i applaud my mother for this choice....based on her intimate knowledge of what my dad would have wanted.....it never occured to me to challenge her decision in court....as schiavo's parents have done over the past 15 years.........when one marries, one's life is now in the hands of one's spouse.....for better or for worse........and let no man, court or congress put that sanctity assunder.....