Existing Between Life and Death
* Re “Out of a Coma, Into a Twilight,” Jan. 2: Two and a half years ago my wife, who was a top advertising executive in Los Angeles, suffered a massive brain hemorrhage at the age of 43. This left me and our 11-year-old daughter involved in a situation similar to that of Rose Wendland and her children. My wife seems to be in a situation similar to Robert Wendland’s, unable to eat, talk, move or walk and left with little short- or long-term memory. She will not recover.
When my wife suffered her stroke I was out of the country. During the emergency, the hospital finally reached my wife’s kin to ask whether they should attempt to save her life. They were told by the surgeon that it would probably be better to let her go because of the amount of brain damage that had already occurred. If she lived, she never would be the same. To me, that was the day my wife died. My daughter doesn’t see her mother as “the same mom” any longer. But her shell still lies, day after day, in a God-forsaken nursing home, waiting for redemption while a little girl needs resolve.
One cannot fathom the difficulties and issues that arise unless it becomes part of your personal life. I find some of Lisa Williams’ comments particularly naive (letter, Jan. 3). Yes, life does have an inherent value. These situations are a tragedy. But we as people deserve more compassion and sense of a continuing spirit rather than to live in a body at all cost. We as humans have speech, understanding, aspirations, dreams, freedom of choice and many other special human traits. When one is left without any of these things, but only a feeding tube prone to infection; left lying in urine and feces half the day; left with contracted limbs; left with the likelihood that pneumonia will cause a slow and painful death, what remains? “Thou shalt not kill”--give me a break. Didn’t the doctors who “saved” my wife use their individual powers over life and degrade the value of her life from what it was before? Now, the medical community ignores the person it “saved.” At least Robert Wendland has his wife as a compassionate advocate.
If my wife, or Robert Wendland, had at least left legal documents stating what her or his wishes would be in such situations, many sufferings might have been avoided. That is one lesson I’ve learned: not to put what’s left of my family into purgatory if I am left in a similar situation.
KEITH SKELTON
Los Angeles
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I read with great interest your article and relate very well to Robert Wendland’s experience. On April 20, 1996, I lapsed into a coma after suffering a respiratory arrest. Doctors and the ethics committee at the hospital were urging my parents to agree to harvesting my organs before they deteriorated. My family and friends prayed for my recovery, and after three months I woke up. The specialists who were treating me made up their minds that I would end up in a persistent vegetative state and never lead a normal life. The Times’ story “ ‘I Think She Was Touched by an Angel’ ” (Oct. 5, 1996), about my experience, proved them wrong.
Although I am confined to a wheelchair and slowly relearning how to walk, I thank God and my parents for my life and being here to appreciate the many blessings we sometimes take for granted. It was my parents’ persistence and faith that kept me alive. I can only pray that Rose Wendland will have a change of heart and remember her marriage vows of “in sickness and in health, until death do us part.”
THERESA DeVERA
Los Angeles