Just an general point about Hospice care

I can tell you from having a mother who went to hospice, feeding tubes are not allowed. No lifesaving measures. They keep the patients comfortable and allow death to occur naturally and with dignity.

If in fact it was Terry Schiavo's wish to not have a prolonged life using any sort of life support, the I think he is a very brave man for standing by his wife and making sure her wishes were carried out.

Michael Schiavo's aunt and uncle. I thought the feeding tube was strange too since I know of several people who have been in hospice care.

My mother also was in hospice care, and it was just as you described -- no feeding tubes or any other assistance. They just let people die as painlessly as possible; they are medicated as necessary, but otherwise nature takes its course. Many of the people in hospice care could be kept alive (if you want to call it that) almost indefinitely with machines and tubes, but the people and their families don't want that. I wouldn't have wanted to see my mother kept technically alive for months and months; but then, she was quite elderly -- so, is the Terry Schiavo case different only because she's not old? When would she be old enough that it would be OK to let her die? 70? 80? I haven't heard any of the wingnuts go all ballistic about old people not being kept on feeding tubes. Can we call this age discrimination, then? Or are the hospices going to be shut down next?

after she popped into the present just long enough to say no to a permanent IV catheter. She'd alread turned dialysis down.

I went home to take care of her at the end. Hospice provides families with a "comfort pack" of drugs ranging from antinausea meds to sedatives to pain killers. I doled them out frequently and I know the end was peaceful. I was there.

Hospice is very good at what they do. If there is any part of Schiavo's brain which is still capable of registering discomfort, she will be sedated out of it.

When my father was dying of bone cancer of the spinal column (which is terrifically painful), the goddamned hospice worker was stingy with the morphine because she was afraid he'd become addicted. God forbid he spend the last few weeks of his life addicted to morphine.

That was ten years ago, and I'm still a little ticked at that stupid whore.

to Hospice until they had less than 6 months to live. Is this an incorrect assumption? Why is she even in Hospice? The fact that she was moved to Hospice seems to be a statement all on its own.

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she was in the last stages of Alzheimers and had actually forgotten how to swallow. So no feeding or liquids were administered except morhpine that eased her into death peacefully. She would have died anyway and keeping her alive artificially wouldn't have improved her quality of life.

care can be renewed every six months as long as they live