To Die or not to Die

I'm having nightmares about this media frenzy on Shiavo's destiny. I thought I nimbly glided through in making my decision together with my 7 siblings, to disconnect my mother from the respirator which was keeping her alive after a massive brain stem vascular event. She was comatose when I arrived at her bedside at the Mother Seton Hospital in Naga City, Philippines on December 18,2004 . She had a respiratory arrest after her stroke and was on a ventilator to support her breathing. As each one of us, her 8 children began to arrive from various parts of the USA, we are confronted with the question of what to do in the situation. I noticed we made the decision by attributing it as our mother's choice. We eased our discomfort by convincing ourselves that this is what our mother would do herself, that she would never let it be that she'll be maintained alive in a vegetative state. It helped us in our decision that she was unresponsive, that she never emerged from her coma. There were moments when she responsed reflexively with movement when stimulated and that was excruciating to see, because it made me doubt my decision. It made me question whether I'm making the decision for her or for my benefit. I was aware throughout of the time constraints. I have limited leave days from my job and I have sent invitations already to more that 100 people for Johnny's first death anniversary memorial prayer and brunch on January 1. I felt the pressure to return to the States before the date so I can prepare. Even as I contemplated mama dying after the ventilator is disconnected and I began to make funeral arrangements, there was the possibility that she could maintain breathing and live in a coma for an indefinite period of time. She will require complete nursing care and so simultaneously we are making arrangements for 24-hour nursing care and wondering how the 8 of us can supervise her care living in the USA. The last siblings arrived on the 21st but we had to postpone the decision when we were told that one of us had to pull the tube off from mama ourselves. The act of doing it completely destabilized all of us. That was a very horrible thing to face. I was told by a friend that that's not how it's done here in the States. And after Minda volunteered to pull the tube, we had to make decisions on every detail of her dying which we were not prepared for at all by her doctors or anyone else from the hospital. My friend again told me that that's not how it's done here in the States. There is a protocol in place that is activated after the family makes a decision to withdraw life support which eases the burden of the decision for the family. The Sisters of Charity running the Mother Seton Hospital is devoid of mercy. We were barraged with wrenching questions at every turn. It's time for her medications, should they continue giving it? Should they draw blood for monitoring acid-base balance? Should they continue the IV infusion? Should they feed her after the IV bag is empty? It was agonizing. I felt like I was being made to suffer for making the decision. And mama lingered for 30 hours and we watched her with labored breathing and then she just took one more and she was still. That was December 24 at 5 PM. I wasn't there when she took her last breath. I was just arriving at home when the message reached me that mama had died. I rushed back to the hospital and although we've been waiting for death to claim her, when it did, it was like a surprise, it was like I regretted making the decision to hasten it and wanted her alive. Shiavo's case brings all these back to me. It makes me angry that Bush and Congress are meddling with this issue. Nobody has any right to say anything about this unless he/she had been through the same thing.