The right to live

Have you ever thought much about it? I haven't until this case in Florida and I will not mention her name on here because I don't want this post to come up when people look for her. Let me start off by saying that I do not agree with withholding food from her. She isn't in a coma people, she is awake and she knows people when they come to see her. I think if she had some physical therapy she would be so much better. She isn't a vegetable. Her husband just doesn't want the burden of caring for his wife. Well fine then sign over your rights and let her parents care for her. This is the craziest thing that I have ever heard. He keeps saying that she wouldn't want to live like that, well apparently she does have a will to live buddy if not she would have died long ago. It's not like she is on life support not able to breathe or open her eyes, she can't eat. Is feeding someone considered life support? If so maybe we should stop feeding these old people in the nursing home that can't feed themselves. Where does it end?

This case is so close to me because a few years ago, probably closer to 10 now, a woman that is very close to my family was involved in a car accident. Everyone else in the car with her including her husband and 2 grandchildren (one of which is my neice) was fine. However her airbag deployed and her seatbelt did not catch and it caused her to hit her head on the dashboard. This rather large hit on the head, put her in a coma. The doctors did all sorts of tests on her and said that she would never wake up. Her husband should say his goodbyes and unplug her from the life support that she was on. Her husband instructed the doctros to not speak to him about her condition in front of her, hearing is your very last sense to go. Many doctor's believe that comatose people can hear even when we think they can't. Well imagine everyone's surprise when she opened her eyes. Then the doctors advised him to pick out a nice nursing home for her to spend her days in since he wouldn't just let die. Well a nursing home really wasn't an option either. He refused to be away from her. He would only leave the hospital during the day to go home and shower and change clothes when someone else was there to stay with her. He never spent a night away from her during all of that. So he inlisted some family members and a nurse to come to the house to help him care for her needs. He refused to give up on her and she has made great improvements. No she will never run a marathon or drive a car or speak again, but she is mobile and she does communicate with everyone. After she was released to go home she had to be fed with a feeding tube because she had to learn how to chew and swallow again, but once she learned that in her therapy she can eat.

After living through all of that (trust me that is the abbreviated version) and seeing how someone can make a comeback after the doctors have said there is no hope I just don't see how her husband can give up hope and just move on with his life. Apparently he has done that, and that is fine, but should he be able to kill her and withhold treatments from her just because he doesn't want the burden of caring for her? If he doesn't feel that her life or quality of life is worth being sustained by a feeding tube then he should relinquish his rights to her and divorce her and let her parents take care of her. I do not want to be kept alive by machines if something should ever happen to me, but if I have brain function enough to know my family for Christ's sake don't stop feeding me! When does it stop being about life support and become murder? How can this man sleep at night knowing that he is petitioning the courts to kill his wife?