Do you remember the girl who was brain dead but her family

Teri Shaivo? I can't remember the spelling. Her husband eventually won in court and was allowed to let her pass away peacefully. He had a long-term girlfriend and I *think* they got married. (At least I hope they did).

I will check and see if there is anything else. This was in Florida, right?

ETA en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terri_Schiavo_case

Is this the one?

Ah I remember her, too, but just vaguely. She was having her wisdom teeth taken out, right? Or tonsils?

Hi, you are linking right back to my post. (I don't know how you did that but show me ok? This is good info!)

Wasn't she moved to somewhere like San Francisco or somewhere else in California?

It happened in Oakland, CA and she was moved to the east coast.

I just read up on. Her family just celebrated her 15th birthday. She continues to have a machine breathe for her and is fed through a tube. She has not changed at all. Her heart still beats with the medical help.

Her parents have sued and want her declared still alive. Some thinking on this is there is a cap for damages on a dead person, but not a live one. The court has or is thinking about throwing out part of the lawsuit because a dead person cannot sue.

Her family and supporters are still in huge denial. They praise God that she lives.

Her body has not deteriorated according to what I read.

A sad situation all around.

and in many of the photos she has so wthing on her eyes, sunglasses, paper hearts, and other things.

Ok, so I went and read a little on the facebook page listed here. One post the mom says something in regards to people saying to take her over the vent but that there wasn't a vent in the picture and she was breathing on her own. Could the vent be in her trach? Then there was a post from some time back that said that she had started her period. Is that possible for someone to do if they are indeed brain dead?

Actually, we do know what we are going to do (we being my family.) The Terri Shivo case was right next door to me and the majority of my family so we saw reports almost daily of the 'fighting.'  We (my parents, brothers, sisters, etc) discussed our wishes in great detail in the event something like this happened to us. It is all written down in our wills and in our medical directives. It was horrible watching that family argue and not one single one of us wanted to leave our families responsible for having to make those types of decisions.

You know, I don't know. My ex-husband and actually sat down and talked about it and decided what we would do if something happened to one of the boys so there wouldn't be a disagreement between the two of us if we had to make a decision like this. When the kids were little, they weren't included in medical decisions, but as they got older they were and while they may not have been legally able to have a say, we allowed them an extraordinary amount of freedom to make decisions about their own medical care.

But I will also say that my ex and I don't argue at all about medical stuff-if one of feels strongly enough about something, we general go along with it. 

Don't parents make the decisions for their kids? 

This isn't even one of those "what would you do in this situation" issues. Sadly, the young girl was declared brain dead. She cannot and does not breathe without a ventilator. There are no photos of her where her neck is not covered with blankets. If she was really breathing on her own, every photo would not have her with blankets under her chin. Because she has been declared brain dead, we know that her pupils are no longer reactive to light, she has no gag reflex and no response to stimulation of any of the other cranial nerves. I strongly believe that the vast majority of people, once told their loved one is brain dead, would disconnect the ventilator.

The ventilator is through her tracheostomy (sp?) Which is the thing in her throat.

I think it's cruel for everyone involved not to let her go. The nastiest decision in the universe is the decision to turn off someone's life support. BTDT and it was horrible, but so necessary. Though it was a parent and not a child it was still agony. You always wonder if there was a shred of hope and you acted too soon; however, common sense and science tell you that you did the right thing. Is the family working w/social workers or people who can guide them and support them as they make the hard choices? Sounds like they're not in touch w/reality.