A Life That Matters (6 page)

During this time, Michael told Bobby that Grieco had mentioned the possibility of instituting a medical malpractice lawsuit. We shelved this notion in the back of our brains. Michael didn’t.

In early April of 1990, Terri’s medical condition had improved so much she was transferred from the intensive-care unit to a progressive-care unit. Almost immediately a new crisis emerged, which did not affect Terri’s health but was traumatic to us nevertheless. Terri was a full-time employee of Prudential at the time of her collapse, so its health insurance arm, PruCare, covered most of her hospital bills at the beginning. By the end of April, PruCare served notice that it was withdrawing her medical coverage and advised Humana Northside to begin preparations for her release.

We made sure the local media got the story. PruCare became embarrassed at the attention, and we were able to negotiate a transfer for Terri from Humana Northside to College Harbor nursing home in St. Petersburg. But it was only a momentary respite. A financial burden loomed before us, and we could only guess how large it would become.
²

Indeed, in June 1990, Prudential terminated Terri’s coverage for good and pressured College Harbor to release her to our care.
³
We would have welcomed such a move with happy hearts, but a better alternative presented itself: Dr. David Baras, the medical director of the Bayfront Medical Center’s rehabilitation facility, who had examined Terri when she was at Northside, announced she had improved from her initial deep coma, and recommended she begin a rehabilitation program at Bayfront, also in St. Petersburg. She moved there at our expense.

Her improvement was gradual, but we saw signs of it every day. She squeezed our hands harder. She tried to sit up on her own. We kept comparing notes with Michael: “Did you see her move?” “Terri tried to say ‘Michael’ and ‘Mom.’” “She tried to get up from her chair.” I remember my own surge of hope. My daughter would come back to me. With rehabilitation, I thought, it was possible she would walk again, talk again, once again become my Terri.

In August, Terri had advanced enough that we were able to continue rehabilitation and therapy for her at home. We had rented a three-bedroom house in Vina del Mar so that Michael could live comfortably with us.

What joy it gave us to have her with us! To be able to hold her and kiss her in a room that smelled like home instead of a hospital, uninterrupted by nurses and loudspeakers blaring for a doctor’s attention. To bathe her, to clothe her, to take her outdoors. Now there was no question of PVS. This was an injured girl, not a comatose one. Terri was responsive to everything around her. She would laugh at our jokes, smile when we sang to her. She was a
presence
in our lives, interacting with us as best she could.

She loved going to the mall. The county paid for wheelchair transport; all we had to do was put her in the chair, and they would pick us up and take us back. When she was tired, she’d start fidgeting, and her groans would tell us it was time to sleep. Through the use of a Hoyer lift, we were able to get her in and out of the hospital bed donated by one of our friends. When she lay in it, she was connected to a G-tube in her stomach through which we fed her formula, a lot like Ensure, which kept her robust; it was the only tube to which she was attached. (A feeding tube through the nose was judged too dangerous because it could so easily become infected.) The nurses at Bayfront had told us how to care for her but hadn’t warned us that the G-tube would sometimes come out and have to be replaced at the hospital. Frantic calls to the EMTs were the result.

Bob worked as a mechanical systems designer for Raytheon Engineers during the day, so Michael and I divided the custodial duties. We had to be careful that Terri didn’t choke on her own phlegm. Michael, who was taking nurses’ training courses, insisted it was his “job” to use the suctioning device provided by Bayfront, and he became expert at it, as well as using the G-tube. Terri was up most of the day and often slept through the night, but Michael and I took turns staying with her at night just to make sure she was okay. It made us feel better, knowing she was never unattended.

Michael and I became very close during this period, treating each other as partner and friend. Michael never talked about his feelings or about his childhood, but he fought hard for his wife and was tireless in her care. A bond grew between us, which was not the case between Michael and Bob. In fact, Michael said in a deposition years later something to the effect that Bob “didn’t want to participate in helping Terri,” an accusation that stung because it was so obviously untrue.

Still, by October, Michael and I decided we could care for Terri no longer. There had been too many trips to the hospital to have the
G-tube reinserted, too many calls to the paramedics when Terri had coughing fits we did not know how to stop. All the goodwill in the world couldn’t substitute for the sheer physical burden placed on us both. In retrospect, we had probably moved Terri home too early.

It was always our intention to bring her home permanently at some point, to make her part of our family again—that was essentially what our battle with Michael was about—but this was not the time. Much of the hope that had washed over me when she was at Vina del Mar was replaced by blackness. I held firm to our conviction that Terri would live with us again; still, there seemed a long journey ahead, and there were nights when, exhausted, I came close to despair, only to revive in the morning.

In the fall of 1990, Michael’s sister-in-law, a nurse living in Philadelphia, called with exciting news. Two doctors, Yoshio Hosobuchi and Charles Yingling at the University of California at San Francisco, were experimenting with a new kind of brain surgery aimed at curing people with Parkinson’s disease or traumatic brain injuries, people who had suffered lack of oxygen to the brain. (The medical term is
anoxia
.) We were electrified. Was there a chance that Terri . . . ?

At our urging, Michael contacted the university hospital to enlist Terri in the program. The procedure involved putting a stimulator in the brain, very much as doctors routinely put a pacemaker in the heart. Technically, Terri didn’t qualify for the program, since her doctors didn’t know the cause of her injury—she may or may not have suffered physical trauma, and she certainly didn’t have Parkinson’s. But in December, they agreed to accept her, and our spirits were lifted higher than they’d been at any time since her collapse. The doctors would speed her recovery. Perhaps she’d even learn
to talk again, walk again—even live on her own, just like Bob’s brother.

I didn’t go with Michael and Terri because by then I had to take care of my mother at the nursing home. Michael was angry; he didn’t want to go alone. Still, Michael reported the results. They were mixed. The operation didn’t work as well as expected, but there was still noticeable improvement. Further rehabilitation was prescribed.

In January 1991, as a major part of Dr. Hosobuchi’s prescribed follow-up program, Terri was admitted to MediPlex rehabilitation center in Bradenton, Florida. There, her admittance chart notes that she was saying “No” and “Stop” and “Mommy” because of the pain of her physical therapy.

Later, people said that Terri was in a persistent vegetative state from the moment she collapsed. The MediPlex notes are objective evidence that this isn’t true. More, they gave us ample reason to believe that with rehabilitation, including speech therapy, she would have been able to say more, interact more. Tell us she loved us.

Because Terri was so obviously in pain during her therapy, MediPlex ordered a total bone scan on March 5, 1991, to determine its cause. The scan, which we only found out about some ten years later, revealed Terri had once broken her right femur, had suffered an “unusual” amount of rib injuries, and had sustained multiple other abnormalities to her skeleton. To the best of our knowledge, MediPlex did not investigate the radiologist’s conclusion of trauma. We’ll never know why they didn’t report any of these findings of abuse to law enforcement authorities. As a guess, maybe they were afraid they’d be blamed for the injuries.

Why didn’t Michael report the scan? He had to know about it, because on each of his visits he’d scrutinize Terri’s medical charts. If he believed MediPlex was at fault, we believe he’d have sued them. But to do that would have meant making Terri’s bone scan public. If we’d known about the scan when it was taken, we’d no doubt have been less trusting of Michael.

Another major element of Dr. Hosobuchi’s follow-up program was for his associate, Dr. Yingling, to come to Florida to examine Terri. He determined Terri was improving and prescribed advanced rehabilitation. He recommended to Michael the Shands facility in Gainesville. We were ecstatic at Yingling’s evaluation. I barely noticed the one-year anniversary of Terri’s collapse. My spirits were good. Our Terri was going to get better.

Money remained a problem, especially during the fall of 1990. Michael was living on Terri’s Social Security disability payments, and Bob was working, though not at the same financial level as in Pennsylvania, so it was a precarious existence. We were living from paycheck to paycheck and dared not think of what would happen if Terri suffered another cataclysmic event.

We might not have been able to care for Terri financially if the St. Petersburg community hadn’t come to our rescue. Fund-raisers were held on Terri’s behalf, not only by our neighbors but also by Terri’s co-workers at Prudential. There were bake sales, a Valentine’s Day dance in her honor, a Terri Schiavo Day. Over Christmas, a mile-long line of candles placed on sandbags was set up along the seawall, and people could buy the bags as well as pray for Terri. Beyond the formal events, individual donations arrived from dozens of citizens, many of them strangers.

And here, publicly, we are finally able to thank everyone for their generosity, financial and spiritual. They sustained our efforts for Terri in a difficult time.

Altogether, some $50,000 was raised, money we used to pay for the plane trip to California, nurses, and other medical expenses. In the spring of 1991, we discovered that Michael had acquired a safe-deposit box at a First Union bank in St. Petersburg, in which he placed $10,000 in cash. We figured it probably came from the money raised in St. Petersburg, but Michael never said anything about it. From then on, we never got an accurate accounting of what he spent either on himself or on Terri.

According to Humana Northside’s medical records, the doctors were mystified about the cause of Terri’s collapse that horrible February 25, 1990. Like the paramedics, their first thought was a drug overdose, but the toxicology tests were negative. A congenital heart anomaly was ruled out by an echocardiogram, which registered normal. A heart attack was considered, but no, Terri’s enzymes weren’t elevated. The only thing out of the ordinary was a low level of potassium in her blood.

Based on Dan Grieco’s suggestion, Michael decided to investigate the possibility of suing Terri’s ob-gyn, Dr. Stephen Igel, and her GP, Dr. Joel Prawer, for not having detected that Terri was in danger. Michael and I went together to the law firm of Woodworth and Dugan for the first of many conferences on the feasibility of a suit.

Glenn Woodworth hesitated, particularly since Michael’s lawsuit against Prudential had failed (the suit was brought by a different lawyer in Woodworth’s office). “There’s no malpractice suit. There’s nothing,” he concluded. “Well, something
happened to Terri,” Bob said when we reported back. “Somebody did something wrong.”

Woodworth called Gary Fox, a malpractice lawyer in Florida, and the two men came up with a strategy based on the presumption that Terri was bulimic. In November 1990, nine months after Terri’s collapse, Woodworth filed a $20-million lawsuit against the two doctors on Terri and Michael’s behalf. The sum was based on actuarial figures, which Woodworth later presented to the jury, that estimated the cost of Terri’s medical and neurological treatment for the rest of her life, along with her rehabilitation.

Prawer and Igel had never tested Terri properly, Woodworth claimed. They’d been negligent. Neither Michael nor us nor any of Terri’s friends had ever seen any sign of bulimia in Terri. Yet, as Bob said,
something
happened.
Somebody
was responsible.

What was to ensue broke my heart. The time I spent working with Michael to help Terri improve would soon seem a facade. What Michael wanted was to favorably influence the malpractice jury that he was a dedicated husband. When I realized this, I cried so much I can still taste the tears.

The case went to trial in November 1992. Its outcome signaled a 180-degree turn in our relationship with Terri’s husband. From being the closest of allies, united in our love for Terri and our desire to give her every chance at the best life possible, we became sudden enemies, bitter opponents in “The Schiavo Case” that divided the country as it divided Michael and us.

CHAPTER 6

Medical Malpractice

Q
(Glenn Woodworth): Why did you learn to become a nurse?

A
(Michael Schiavo): Because I enjoy it and want to learn more how to take care of Terri.

Q:
You’re a young man. Your life is ahead of you. When you look up the road, what do you see for yourself?

A:
I see myself hopefully finishing school and taking care of my wife.

Q:
Where do you want to take care of your wife?

A:
I want to bring her home.

Q:
If you had the resources available to you, if you had the equipment and the people, would you do that?

A:
Yes, I would, in a heartbeat.

Q:
How do you feel about being married to Terri now?

A:
I feel wonderful. She’s my life and I wouldn’t trade her for the world. I believe in my wedding vows.

Q:
You believe in your wedding vows. What do you mean by that?