"Sandwiched Between Feeding Tubes"

This is a marvelous piece written by a mother of a daughter who has lived for almost a decade in a vegetative state. The writer also has a mother who has been kept alive by feeding tubes for almost a year. She has a lot to say about people in this condition and I recommend reading this article. It will touch your heart with both the tragedy of her situation and the beauty of her response to the two dear family members whom she visits and tends to daily.

An excerpt:

Our Claire has a perfectly flat EEG. From what I can determine, Terri Schiavo is higher functioning than our Claire. Yet each morning when we touch the bottom of her shirt to prepare for her shower, she closes her eyes in anticipation of that shirt coming over her face. She clinches her teeth if you put a washcloth to her face because washcloths mean a good mouth cleaning and she, like all 3-6-month infants (Claire's developmental age) wants no part of that. She turns her head when you say her name. Claire's smiles come mostly in response to her mother's and her father's voices.

She goes on:

They feel, they flinch, they startle, they turn, they moan, they react, they have some memory, and no one truly knows how much gets through, what is serendipitous, and what is a real response. When in doubt, doubt the doctors. Spirituality engulfs the vegetative. Be afraid. The life that exists in these struggling frames has had the judicial imprimatur of "So not worth it" placed upon it and the plug (tube) pulled. Yet the life that resides in these bodies so ravaged by immobility scares the livin' daylights out of me. If you already believe in a god, these souls will confirm your faith. If you don't believe, well, I have seen atheists and agnostics humbled, silenced, and in tears as they stumbled upon a spiritual experience that caught them unawares. These are the very elect of beings.

Jennings also makes some excellent points about vegetative human beings having even less rights than pets and how absurd that is.