A Life That Matters (14 page)

I stopped breathing. My heart was pounding so furiously I thought my chest would explode. We had the television on, Bay News 9, and Chris O’Connell broke in from the steps of the courthouse and said that Judge Quesada had just issued a temporary injunction. He ordered that Terri’s tube be reinserted.

We all started jumping around, cheering and hugging each other and crying for joy. Little Alex, then seven, ran to the bathroom and got a box of Kleenex, which she passed around to everyone. And then everybody went down on their hands and knees, and we said a prayer and we thanked God.

I didn’t quite believe what we had just heard, but for some reason, in my heart, I wasn’t surprised. I’d felt something good would happen, and it did.

I never thought Terri’s rescue that night was a miracle. Her life was spared because Cindi Shook was courageous enough to talk, because Pat Anderson and Jim Eckert understood the legal maneuvering necessary to get the case, at least temporarily, out of Greer’s hands, and because a wise and humane judge felt there was an argument to be made for Terri’s salvation. But as we knelt in our living room, we were all aware of the presence of God.

Bobby, who until Terri was saved was perhaps the most doubting of us, tells of a strange experience:

“A couple of days before Terri’s feeding tube was removed, someone at the school where I taught handed me a prayer card with Padre Pio’s picture on it to take in to pray with Terri.
⁴
And the day Terri’s feeding tube was removed, a young boy I didn’t know gave me medals of Padre Pio. They were nice gestures, but I thought little of them.

“So here’s what was really strange. Right after Terri’s feeding tube was reinserted, I went down to Pat Anderson’s office—she had become our lead attorney and coincidentally had moved into a new office. I walked in the door and there on the bookshelf was a picture of Padre Pio—a huge picture. And I said, ‘Pat, who gave you that?’

“‘Oh,’ she goes—and Pat is not of our faith—‘nobody. That picture was here when I moved in. I don’t even know who it is.’

“It was one of those coincidences, you know, that make you think for a moment.”

CHAPTER 12

Reality Returns

I want to say this clearly for the record: Bob and I were willing—no, eager—to pay for Terri’s care; it would have cost Michael nothing, not even the money left in Terri’s medical fund. We could have offered her at-home private nursing through contributions, which were beginning to come in regularly on our Web site, supplemented by Bob’s and my earnings.

In the two years following Terri’s collapse, we probably could have negotiated a monetary agreement with Michael regarding Terri’s care. Even right after he won his malpractice lawsuit, we might have been able to compromise. But we were friends, and negotiations seemed unnecessary, so the matter didn’t come up.

By 2001, compromise was impossible. Terri would live or Terri would die. Those were the stakes.

And the battle raged on.

Judge Quesada had issued only a
temporary
injunction prohibiting the removal of Terri’s feeding tube.
¹
Our job now was to make sure it was permanent. We needed fresh evidence beyond Cindi’s affidavit, and if we couldn’t produce it, Judge Greer’s February 11, 2000, death order would stand.

On the eve of Terri’s 2000 trial, while she was still in the Palm Gardens nursing home, Suzanne’s husband, Michael Vitadamo, brought a video camera into Terri’s room and made a tape of her moving, responding, interacting with her family. The tape was grainy, dark, and indistinct, but you didn’t have to be an expert on PVS to see that Terri was cognizant. It was presented to Judge Greer. Greer disagreed with the evidence.

Nevertheless, when shown on television, it was seen by the neurologist Dr. William Hammesfahr, a Nobel Prize nominee for his discovery of a revolutionary type of therapy for stroke victims.

Dr. Hammesfahr contacted Pat Anderson and submitted an affidavit saying categorically that Terri was not PVS (despite a decade of no rehabilitation). Furthermore, he asked Michael’s permission to begin the first phase of his recovery program on Terri. Five other doctors submitted similar affidavits, and Pat presented them all to Judge Greer.

Once again Judge Greer denied Pat’s request to overturn his ruling that Terri’s feeding tube be removed, and once again Pat turned to the court of appeals, claiming that Greer had not taken into account the “new evidence”—Cindi’s deposition and the affidavits of the six physicians. The appellate court ordered oral arguments to be heard on June 25, again before the panel of Judges Parker, Blue, and Altenbernd.
²

On July 11, the appellate court ruled that Pat could file a motion before Judge Greer requesting “evidentiary hearings.” On July 23, Felos struck back by requesting Judge Greer to issue an order immediately discontinuing Terri’s feeding tube even before he reviewed any of the evidence Pat had submitted. Greer turned down the request, though he did authorize a payment of $54,900 to Felos from Terri’s medical fund, bringing the total taken from the fund to some $300,000.

By this time, Judge Quesada had been transferred to family court, and the chief judge of the Sixth Circuit, David A. Demers, while keeping the suit against Michael for fraud in civil court, ruled that all matters having to do with Terri’s life or death be settled in Judge Greer’s court. If Greer ruled against Terri, it seemed, we would have no place to go. And my hope, which had begun to flower, died.

On August 7, 2001, Greer once again ordered Terri’s tube removed, and set August 28 as the date. He admitted he had not read the six doctors’ affidavits.

One of us—Bob, Suzanne, Bobby, or I—was in one court or another throughout the summer. Occasionally we heard good news: were Michael ever brought up on perjury and fraud charges in civil court, we believed we would be able to negotiate a settlement with him, freeing him from paying damages and freeing Terri into our care. More often the news squelched our hopes. Greer turned down motion after motion.
³
We could see our attorneys’ frustration, and it only increased our own.

We united as a family; I think that saved us from breaking down psychologically. Otherwise, the tension would have driven us mad. I’ve seen families torn apart under daily stress. Our bonds grew stronger.

Greer’s admission that he had not read the doctors’ affidavits gave Pat ammunition. At an August 16 news conference, she announced she would seek federal protection for Terri under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Terri’s civil rights as a mentally and physically disabled person were being violated, Pat claimed.

Evidently unwilling to have the federal court intervene, Greer granted Terri a stay of execution until October 9 to allow Terri “due process of law” in the court of appeals.
⁴
The appellate court called for yet another round of oral arguments, based on the doctors’ affidavits. On the basis of those hearings, they ordered that five doctors—two from Terri’s side, two from Michael’s, and one appointed by the court—examine Terri to determine whether she could improve. Essentially it meant a new trial—again to be conducted by Judge Greer—at a date to be determined.

“I was in Pat’s office when the order came in,” Bobby remembers. “It was another decision that again was either potentially going to save Terri’s life or mean the end of her life, and I was as nervous as I was when we waited for Judge Greer’s original decision, so when they ruled for us, it was huge.
Huge!

“It was an ecstatic moment. I think Pat, too, felt that we had turned a corner. She was overflowing with joy. We were all very, very happy that day. It was the happiest I’d been in a long time.”

I shared Bobby’s happiness. This was the first time that the three-judge panel had ruled in our favor. The doctors’ examination, whether they were our doctors, Michael’s, or the court’s, would surely see what I saw: A girl responding. A girl aware.

Naturally Felos sued to have the appellate court decision overturned. He was turned down. In November 2001, Greer held a “case management” hearing to establish procedures and time frames for Terri to be examined by the five doctors. When in December Felos, perhaps nervous about the outcome of the hearing, suggested an unbinding mediation between the two sides, Greer agreed to appoint a mediator—Horace Andrews, a retired judge.

I had doubts about mediation, but Bob and I agreed to go along with it. Maybe, just maybe, Michael would come to his senses, and we would be able to offer him enough in terms of money and peace of mind to let us have Terri back.

Two ground rules were established for the mediation: Bobby and Suzanne would not attend, just Michael, Bob, and me, and our respective lawyers. And neither we nor Michael were to disclose to anyone what was said between us.

We met in a room in the courthouse. Michael was hostile from the start. “Who are you?” he shouted at attorney Celia Bachman, Pat’s associate. “What are you doing here?”

Judge Andrews tried to calm him down and suggested that he and Bob meet in a private room with no lawyers present. “I think that Mr. Schindler and Mr. Schiavo should try to discuss their differences,” he said. “I’ll sit between them, and maybe they can settle this.”

Michael and Bob in a room together with only an eighty-seven-year-old judge between them? They’d kill each other, and the judge, I thought. “Absolutely not,” I said. “I’ll go in Bob’s place.”

“Is that all right with you, Mr. Schiavo?” Judge Andrews asked.

Michael shrugged. “Sure.”

I knew I could never negotiate an agreement between Michael and us; the lawyers could do that later. But maybe if we agreed on some small things, it would be a start. The atmosphere in the courtroom was so antagonistic that I’m sure all Judge Andrews wanted to do was to find some common ground on some issues. Anything.

When the three of us sat down, Michael kept his head averted, but I looked straight at him, feeling calm and in control. I tried to recall the time I thought of him as Terri’s husband and my ally—the good Michael, not the rage-filled man beside me.

This is how I remember the session going:

“Do you have anything to say, Mrs. Schindler?” the judge asked quietly.

“Three things,” I answered. “I’d like to get Terri’s wheelchair fixed. I’d like to be able to take her outside. And I’d like her to get rehabilitation.”

Judge Andrews turned to Michael. “Is that all right with you, Mr. Schiavo?”

Michael looked at me. All I could see in his eyes was fury. “Why do you want to get her wheelchair fixed?”

“Michael,” I said patiently, “she can’t go out. She can’t go anywhere.”

“You can put her in the Geri chair
⁵
and take her out.”

“It’s too unwieldy to take her to the mall. That’s where she loved to go when she lived with us. Remember, Michael?”

“The mall? You can’t take her there, anyway.”

I fought my own anger and switched gears. “You promised you’d get her rehabilitation. You’ve broken your promise.”

“She already had two years of rehab, and it’s not going to help her.”

“Michael, those were the first two years,” I said. “She hasn’t had any rehab for nine years.”

He glared at me. “She’s beyond help.”

I stayed steely calm. “I want to take her outside.”

“You can.”

“No, we’re never
allowed
to take her outside.”

He stood up suddenly. I thought he was going to attack. “Mr. Schiavo, I think you had better sit down,” Judge Andrews said.

He remained standing. “What about your son and daughter?”

“What does that mean?” I asked, bewildered. “Taking her outside has nothing to do with my son and daughter.”

“They never go see her. They never—” He stopped, perhaps remembering that for many months they were not allowed in the hospice. “Now all of a sudden Bobby’s the spokesperson for Terri Schiavo on television and all over, in the newspapers. Bobby this, Bobby that.”

He kept going on at me, repeating Bobby’s and Suzanne’s names. I didn’t understand what he was trying to say.

Judge Andrews did his best. “Mr. Schiavo, you’ve got to sit down. If we don’t talk about this quietly and calmly, we’re not going to get anything settled.”

“We’re not going to get anything settled, anyway,” Michael said, and stormed out of the room.

Judge Andrews and I sat staring at the door, saying nothing. Soon I got up, gathered Bob, Pat, and Celia, and left the courthouse. Although the mediation was supposed to be kept secret, the media were there and Felos was talking to them. I don’t remember what he said—probably that Michael was trying to come to an amicable agreement and we were stopping him. “I can’t believe what he’s doing,” Pat said to Judge Andrews. “He’s violating already!” Andrews just walked away.

Later, under the terms of the mediation agreement, I would write my version of the meeting, and Michael his. But nothing ever came of our statements, and looking at mine now, I remember how futile the day was. I felt sick. Mute. Hollow.

Abused.

CHAPTER 13

The Doctors’ Trial

Summers were always our favorite times. The children were home from school, we went to Corning or to the Jersey Shore, all of us had time to play. But the summer of 2002—like the ones immediately before and the ones to come—was filled with legal maneuvering, heated conversations with our lawyers, worry and fear. Bob reminded me recently that we hadn’t had a vacation of more than a few days since Terri collapsed. Every weekend we reserved a day to visit Terri, and before my mother passed away, we would visit them both. Bob says Mother’s Day was especially hard for him. “When most mothers were going to a brunch or dinner, Mary’s Mother’s Day was in a nursing home. But she never complained because that’s where she wanted to be.”

Still, by 2002, the daily pressure was almost too much to bear.

October 11, 2002, was the date set by Judge Greer for doctors to begin their testimony. It was nearly one year after the appellate court set a mandatory hearing on Terri’s medical condition. Essentially it was a trial to determine whether Terri was in a persistent vegetative state, not to determine what her wishes would be if she were ever in that state. I looked forward to it because I was sure it would prove that Terri was not PVS, and also because it might explain the reason for her collapse.