When Will They Be Coming For Ryan?

In February 1991 our son Ryan suffered a severe brain injury. He was in the hospital for 6 months, and has never regained the ability to walk or talk. He cannot answer Yes or No by any means. He is totally dependent on our care. When he came home from the hospital, he had a feeding tube to his stomach just like Terri Schiavo does now. Through a lot of repetition he learned how to eat and drink again at home, and since we didn't need the feeding tube we removed it and the hole in his stomach healed quite well, quite naturally. He likes to be around people, and he watches a lot of TV.

In short, Ryan's pretty close to the level of functioning of Terri Schiavo, as far as I can tell from the news reports about her. And now her husband, Michael Schiavo, is very close to having her feeding tube removed and having her starved to death. It's at this point I hear the words of actress Frances McDormand as Fargo's Police Chief Marge Gunderson in my head: "And for what? A little bit of money." A little bit of money. The hundreds of thousands Michael Schiavo got to help her, he now stands to receive when she is starved to death. So he can continue on with the other woman he now lives with, and their children. The honorable thing would be for him to simply walk away and let Terri live, but I guess precedent-setting case law is not often set by honorable men doing the honorable thing.

So Terri Schiavo is about to die of a court-ordered thirst, to be starved to death. Ironic, isn't it? In this country a condemned man gets a Last Meal of whatever he wants --  steak, lobster, you name it. So the only thing you can conclude is that mass murderers have more rights than Terri Schiavo. But that's not the worst of it. If a demented disk jockey were to attempt to stage a wacky radio stunt that involved starving a bunch of small rodents, he would be run out of town on a rail. In this country, even gerbils have more rights than Terri Schiavo.

Right now the chess game in the courts continues. And when Terri Schiavo is put to death, you all will feel bad about it for a while, but it will slowly fade from memory as you move on to other things. But for us, a haunting question will remain: When Will They Be Coming For Ryan?

UPDATE: Patrick over at My View of the World was kind enough to post the mp3 audio file of WTMJ's Charlie Sykes reading this post. Thanks, Patrick! And thanks too who wrote in and said all those very nice things. Contrary to what your teacher may have said, you are a joy to have in class! :-)

Comments

[firq krumpl]

wow, tom.

speechless.

love, prayers, and empathy.

[none]

Umm. Just why would anyone be "coming for Ryan"? Do you think that there's some slavering hord waiting to take away your son's feeding tube? Maybe you should start worrying about something real like how many more billions of dollars are going to be sunk into Iraq for no good reason.

Speechless as well but for clearly different reasons.

[Roz]

You have a beautiful son. And you're not so far wrong. Terri wouldn't be a burden on the state, she has loving parents eager to care for her, Michael has transgressed the law for proper conduct as a legal guardian, and yet the courts insist that his determination to withdraw water and nutrition proceed unhindered. We all are right to be concerned about the implications.

[Jody]

Why would they be worried about someone coming for Ryan? Because there may come a time when Ryan's parents aren't there to protect him, and just like Terri, Ryan could be deemed "worthless"... So you worry about the billions of dollars being spent in Iraq. We will worry about a life that God gave and no one should have the power to take away.

Great post, Tom. I usually don't comment on comments made, but I had to say something!

[Pattie]

I cannot believe how an innocent life can be murdered all for the love of money. Michael Schiavo is bad bad bad EVIL! He is supposedly Terri's husband who is committing ADULTRY and wants to murder his wife? If Terri is murdered by her husband, I sure wouldn't want to have his black soul when he has to answer to GOD on his judgement day. We in Ca. are praying for Terri.

[Sunnye]

Tom,
Read my blog about our son at www.sunnyeside.blogspot.com. In addition to that son, we have another who was born severely retarded/autistic/with temporal lobe epilepsy. He has very little speech and his problems are many. I'm sure you understand how deeply he has blessed our lives.

Your fears are being addressed just now in a filing before the court today -- the one that has effectively postponed Terri's case another 48 hours. In it the petitioner, a Mr. Watts, filing as "next friend" to Terri, points out the dangerous precedent this court would make if it continued along the destructive path it has been taking.

As I said in my post "Waiting, Watching, Praying" at sunnyeside.blogspot.com, I would have thrown anyone out the hospital window who had suggested killing my son. I'm sure Terri's Mom would have done the same if she could have gotten at him! And you would do the same as well.

Bless you and your dear family!

[Lisa]

Im sorry that people have to be so cold. My son is like Terri also except he cannot eat yet like yours. He laughs at apprpriate times like Terri and he is a little delayed unless we talk about his Dad snoring. He is also at my house. If you ever want to tak write to me. Ian is our only child and we are the only ones that care for him. I wouldnt change a thing except to take his injury away.

Lisa Lloyd
ILVIAN@aol.com

[Maven]

Tom, I too am moved by your post. I think the problem many of us have is we have no idea how we can make a difference. This is wrong, so wrong, and yet we are strangers in this case, and we let others do the fighting.

If someone told me something positive I could do, I would do it.

[John Potter]

God be with you and Ryan. God be with Terri and her parents. And may God be merciful to all of us who pass by on the other side of the road. (Luke 10:30-37)

[NWJR]

I keep telling people...eventually, these folks will come after someone you love. Or you. It's just a matter of time.

Great post.

[Erik Grow]

I emailed the comment below to you Tom before noticing the comments section, so feel free to disregard the email. Thanks!

Hello Tom. I stumbled on your blog, and thought I would comment. I'm not sure why you and so many others (particularly on the right), seem to be utterly ignoring the core issue in the Terri Schiavo case, which is that there is a dispute about her wishes, before she was incapacitated, to be kept alive indefinitely in a vegetative state or not. The case does not have anything to do with whether someone can arbitrarily decide the fate of an adult that cannot decide it on their own, and no amount of slippery sloping that argument is going to make me think it could realistically pertain to the case of your son (I of course commend you for being such an apparently attentive and hard-working father for Ryan.) I realize that there is some poetic license used there on purpose to make it more dramatic, but it makes your argument sound as ludicrous when I hear some people say, "Well if you can marry someone of the same sex, what's to stop them from marrying an animal?" I digress… Of course if you are a strictly practicing Catholic then that is another thing entirely, because then you probably believe that people should be kept alive indefinitely no matter what the circumstances are, and no amount of argument on my part to the contrary will modify your views on it. If you do believe that there are situations where there is a "right to die" though, I would put that up for your consideration that you are seeing this a bit too much as your version of a good vs. evil struggle and not enough a dispute over Terry's own wishes.
-Erik

[Maven]

Actually Erik, if Terri had left something showing her desire to be taken off life support in this sort of situation, things would never have gotten to this point. Instead we have a single individual who states that this is her wish, but has no evidence. So yest, in this case someone is attempting to "arbitrarily decide the fate of an adult that cannot decide"

With no evidence to contrary (and in light of others who know her stating the opposite of her what her spouse says), we must err on the side of caution, and not finality.

[Busy Mom]

A wonderful post, thank you. Ryan looks like he is a joy.

[Tom McMahon]

Yeah, he's a great young fellow with an infectious laugh. It comes through just a little bit in the picture.

[firq krumpl]

many have commented
and none is foolish

[Thomas]

Maybe you should learn the whole deal with Terri and her husband before you decide that it is all about money for him. Has he not rejected not only 1 million dollars, but millions more to sign over his rights? What did he do? He rejected the money for the sake of his wife. This is nothing more than the conservative right wing trying to play God...how dare you! Only God can play God and right now he is trying to take one of his flock and you people are preventing him from that. That is a major sin and you will be punished in the after life for that.

[Tom McMahon]

Punished in the after life . . . wow, this blogging is really a high stakes game, eh?