A Life That Matters (21 page)

Terri’s room was at the back of the building. You couldn’t see it from the main road—this to discourage crowds from gathering at the front. A policeman guarded her door at all times, and we had to show our ID and leave our cell phones and purses with the policeman. I felt like I was entering a maximum security prison.
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Nobody was allowed to visit unless they were with us, so what was she being protected from? Her family?

Terri’s room was stark. It at least had a window that let in the sun, and I was able to decorate the room with pictures. But the staff was rude—and her care was appalling.

At Woodside Hospice, at least Terri was presentable. Her hair was combed, she wore a dress, she was clean. While the senior staff, nurses and administrators, were generally hostile, several of the certified nursing assistants went out of their way to be kind, both to us and to Terri; at Park Place, the CNAs were different. Terri looked like she had been discarded. Her hair never seemed to be washed. She wore terrible clothes supplied by the facility—that is, when they changed her out of her hospital gown at all. Sometimes they wouldn’t put her in her chair, but they didn’t know how to sit her up in bed, so she eventually developed bedsores and had to be taken back to Morton Plant. When she
was
in her chair, they moved it to a dark corner away from the window. Why? Because they didn’t want people looking in, they explained. Into a fourth-floor window at the rear!

For the past fourteen years, calling every day to ask about Terri’s condition was part of my routine. When Terri was at Sabal Palms and Palm Gardens, I’d often get a tidbit of information, at times enough to put my mind at ease. At Woodside Hospice, I’d call and get a polite “Sorry, I can’t tell you anything about your daughter.” But when I called Park Place asking for information, they were not as civil. I was given the runaround. It was like shouting into a void. It made me sick. Once, Terri was taken to Morton Plant because her feeding tube had fallen out. We found out about it only because we saw that Terri was still wearing the hospital bracelet on her wrist when she was back at Park Place. I had called that day as always and was told she was fine. Fine? She was at the hospital. Another time she experienced a bout of vomiting. I asked what had caused it. The staff told me they couldn’t give out information. Michael’s orders. His control at Park Place was as absolute as it was at Woodside.

In February 2004, Suzanne quit as a stockbroker for TD Waterhouse. “I felt like I was chained to my desk,” she told me. “There was just so much going on that I couldn’t handle my life. I was having anxiety attacks. I couldn’t breathe. Something had to go—my job.”

Bob had stopped working in 2000. Bobby was still teaching at Tampa Catholic. I was tempted to leave the Hallmark store but chose not to. For one thing, we needed the money; for another, I had flexible hours, letting me spend as much time as I wanted with Terri. Besides, the store was a refuge where I was able, briefly, to not worry about what was happening to Terri.

On one of his early visits, in January 2004, Bobby saw that one of Terri’s teeth was broken in half, and she was in pain. Years earlier Pat Anderson had brought up that Terri’s teeth were being neglected. Now her teeth were rotting, and Pat brought up the matter to Judge Greer to no avail. A short time later, Bobby ran into Terri’s doctor. “What’s going on with her teeth?” he asked. The doctor said he had contacted Michael about it. It wasn’t until April—April!—that we got a letter from Deborah Bushnell telling us that Terri had five teeth extracted.

Each day, we reported on Terri’s care on our Web site. People, outraged, started calling the Agency for Health Care Administration, and they sent investigators to Park Place. What happened? Nothing. They found Terri well groomed, her charts in good order.

It seemed that the facility had put on a facade for the inspectors. As soon as they left, Terri’s care reverted to warehousing. We were told that some of the nurses and administrators couldn’t understand that we didn’t want Terri to die. And those who had come over from the hospice resented the crowds we had drawn and the bloody nose the press gave them. One local radio station had been reporting accurate information about Terri almost daily. One morning, they had Pat Anderson on, and our lawyer lambasted the hospice and its cruel treatment of Terri. Suddenly, the station began broadcasting ads for the Hospice of the Florida Suncoast all day long. The reporting of Terri’s story continued, but the live interviews ceased.

George Felos’s tactics up to this time were underhanded, unscrupulous, and cruel. But what he did next—and Michael must have approved—was evil.

On the evening of March 29, a Monday, a local CBS reporter called Suzanne. “There was nothing particular going on with Terri,” she says. “It was quiet.

“‘Have you guys seen what’s coming over the wire?’ the reporter asked.

“‘No.’

“‘Mr. Felos sent out a press release accusing your mom and dad of harming Terri. Have you any comment?’

“I was stunned. ‘Gotta go,’ I mumbled, and hung up on him.”

Suzanne told us the news. We had no idea what “harm” Felos meant. Bob found out almost immediately.

“The CBS guy called me up,” Bob says. “Extremely friendly. Claimed not to be looking for an interview. ‘I just want you to know what’s going on. That you’re being accused of trying to inject Terri with some type of foreign substance. The implication is you’re trying to kill her.’”

The press release read as follows:

Schiavo Puncture Wounds Found after Parents’ Visit

Dunedin, Florida, March 29, 2004. Immediately after a forty-five minute visit from her parents, Theresa Schiavo was found by medical personnel to have been the victim of numerous wounds, five of them apparently caused by a hypodermic needle. Mrs. Schiavo was found in a disheveled state, with her feeding tube wrapped around her back, and an allergy band pulled up very tight on her arm like a tourniquet. On one arm were four fresh puncture wounds, with another fresh puncture wound on her other arm. Also found were fresh scratch wounds over the puncture wounds, as if an attempt were made to conceal the puncture wounds.

What appeared to be a purple needle cap was found in Mrs. Schiavo’s gown, confirming the belief that the puncture wounds were caused by a hypodermic needle. It is not known whether something was injected into Theresa Schiavo or fluids were withdrawn from her. Mrs. Schiavo has been taken to Morton Plant/Mease Hospital for toxicology testing and other blood work.

A forensics team had examined the crime scene, and the Clearwater police are investigating.

Mrs. Schiavo’s husband and guardian had issued orders stopping all persons visiting his wife until the police investigation is completed.

For more information, contact Felos & Felos, P.A.—(727) 736-1402

Rage is an inadequate word for my feelings. Years earlier, two of the Palm Gardens nurses had said in their affidavits that they believed Michael had injected Terri with an overdose of insulin; perhaps this was his way of getting back at them. More likely, it was another fabricated incident created solely to bar our visits, thereby stopping the flow of information about Terri’s medical abuse. Whatever, the insinuation that we had deliberately harmed her blindsided me. When a smear is so blatant, there is virtually no defense.

“Needle Marks on Schiavo’s Arm Prompt Investigation,” blared one headline. “5 Needle Marks Present Mystery. How, and Why, the Wounds Appeared on Schiavo’s Arms,” screamed another.

We called Pat. She said that she wished they had called her first, as a matter of courtesy.
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Instantly none of us, not even Bobby and Suzanne, who were not “under suspicion,” were allowed to see Terri. I had no idea how long we’d be prevented from visiting. A lie walled us off. I felt as if I had run into that wall. The injustice was so immense I could barely breathe.

A criminal lawyer, George Tragos, agreed to defend us. The next day, there was a knock on the door. Two detectives from the Clearwater Police Department stood outside. I invited them in and called Tragos, who asked to speak to Bob.

“Tell them to get out of your house,” he told Bob. “Don’t you or Mary open your mouth to them.”

Bob was very polite to the police. “My attorney says you should leave,” he said. “And we’re not allowed to answer any questions.” “Fine,” they said mildly, and left.

On Wednesday, we met with the detectives in Tragos’s office. Bob and I were interviewed separately in Tragos’s presence. Both of us could only tell the truth: We had never, would never, inject Terri with anything. Yes, we had seen Terri on Monday, as we had on many Mondays. There was nothing special about the visit. Terri was the same as always. There was no elaboration, nothing to add.

Terri was released from the hospital that day. Every test came back clean. The doctor said that the marks on her arm were not fresh.
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Nevertheless, the investigation continued, and we were kept from Terri and she from us for over two months.

This was the first time in my life that I hadn’t seen one of my children for that length of time. Since we weren’t allowed in, I feared she wouldn’t be taken care of, and in fact she developed the bedsores that rehospitalized her. I pictured all sorts of calamities, imagined my girl lying helpless and ignored. I was sick to my stomach every day, barely able to function at work. She wasn’t being taken care of, and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. It was psychological and physical torment. It was hell. I prayed that she didn’t think we’d abandoned her.

The police report, issued after some sixty days, completely exonerated us. One of Michael’s lawyers, Deborah Bushnell, immediately questioned the report—we were still under suspicion, she said, and the ban on seeing Terri persisted, though we would be allowed in under supervision. (I’m not sure who the supervisor was supposed to be.) I would have been willing to accept the compromise, but Pat cautioned against it. She didn’t want it to seem that we
needed
supervision.

We went to court. Even here Bushnell argued that we were still a danger to Terri. But—a miracle!—Judge Greer ruled for us. I guess he didn’t want to contradict the unambiguous police report that said we were innocent.

From then on, whenever we visited Terri, we were hypervigilant. As we were getting ready to leave, we’d ask a nurse to check her carefully and made sure the police officer on duty heard her report. And the nurse would look her over: “Yes, she’s fine.”

Which, basically, she was. Although still unkempt, her bedsores had been cured and she was still responsive. I marveled again at her courage and her grit. There was no doubt about it:
My girl does not want to die.

CHAPTER 20

The Pope on Our Side

Pat continued arguing that Michael should be held in contempt for disobeying the 1996 court order that he disclose Terri’s medical condition. Greer rejected the motion, claiming that our contention that Michael withheld information was “hearsay.” And Judge Baird denied us the right to join with Governor Bush in defending the constitutionality of Terri’s Law, a move that would have added our attorneys’ firepower to his.

Still, on March 20, 2004, nine days before Felos’s accusations against us, we received support from the most powerful ally in the Catholic world: Pope John Paul II.

From 2000 on, people of faith—and not just the Catholic faith—had been sending faxes and e-mails to Rome trying to get the Vatican involved in Terri’s case. Similar messages were sent to the papal nuncio in Washington. Even we, who had been given the pope’s secretary’s fax number in confidence, wrote two letters on Terri’s behalf.
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We knew that the pope rarely speaks out on individual cases, yet still we encouraged the effort, asking people with powerful lay friends in Italy to join our cause. When Catholics approached us to ask what they could do to help, we’d say, “Get people to write letters to Rome.” If someone with religious faith sent an e-mail from Colorado, or Hawaii, or Timbuktu, our answer was the same: “Write to Rome.”

There was a family who knew the pope personally. Their daughter was about to receive her first Holy Communion, and the pope himself had agreed to perform that sacrament. During their time at the Vatican, they told John Paul about Terri, but neither they nor we thought he would say anything about her.

Well, he didn’t mention Terri by name, but in his March 20 address, he made it indisputably clear that we must never deny food and drink to patients in a vegetative state. “I should like particularly to underline how the administration of water and food, even when provided by artificial means, always represents a natural means of preserving life, not a medical act. Its use, furthermore, should be considered, in principle, ordinary and proportionate, and as such morally obligatory. The sick person in a vegetative state, awaiting recovery or a natural end, still has the right to basic health care (nutrition, hydration, cleanliness, warmth, etc.), and to the prevention of complications related to his confinement to bed.”

No human being ever descends to the status of a “vegetable” or an animal, Pope John Paul said. “Even our brothers and sisters who find themselves in the clinical condition of a ‘vegetative state’ retain their human dignity in all its fullness. The loving gaze of God the Father continues to fall upon them, acknowledging them as his sons and daughters, especially in need of help.”

Bobby found out about the statement during a Google search for Terri, something he says he does “a thousand times a day.”

“It sounds like he was talking directly about Terri,” he told us. “It’s as clear as clear can be. There’s absolutely no gray area.”

The pope’s statement seemed a blessing from God, and we felt humbled, thankful, awed, and wildly excited. “It’s new evidence,” Pat exclaimed when we contacted her. By the time of the statement, we had befriended several high-powered attorneys,
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and they all agreed with Pat. Michael was denying Terri, a devout and pious Catholic, her constitutional right to practice her religion. “With all the things we’ve brought before the court, they can’t deny us this one,” Pat said. “It’s one of our fundamental civil rights.”