BellaOnline Forums Beauty and Self Body Image Terri Schiavo Case

An excerpt from Wikipedia website http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terri_Schiavo

[color:"purple"]"On the morning of February 25, 1990, around 5:30 a.m., Mrs. Schiavo collapsed in her home in St. Petersburg, resulting in irreversible brain damage due to a loss of oxygen. According to her discharge summary from Humana Hospital, [2] (http://www.terrisfight.org/documents/Humana%20Discharge%20Summary%20050990.pdf), Terri suffered cardiac arrest and anoxic brain damage, accompanied by hypokalemia (abnormally low levels of potassium in the blood), seizures, respiratory failure, and an injured knee from the fall. The cause of her cardiac arrest was undetermined, but the low potassium was suspected.

In 1992, a medical malpractice suit was brought against Terri's medical care providers, at which a jury concluded that Schiavo suffered from bulimia, which caused her chemical imbalance and subsequent cardiac arrest. Florida's Second District Court upheld the finding that Schiavo suffered a cardiac arrest as a result of a potassium imbalance." [/color]

[color:"brown"] I really hope and pray that people who are suffering from eating disorders are paying attention to this case. Is it really worth starving yourself and binging and purging to risk going thru what this poor woman is going thru and what her family is going through? [/color]

This case scares me a little because I am Anorexic, and when I was in my lower weights I would have low Potassium and frequent seizures. I was in treatment for a year, but am quickly headed on a downward slope recovery-wise. I just keep thinking "that can't happen to me", but I know that it can. Somehow though, I'm so sick that even knowing about the Terri Schiavo case, I still feel that I have to do what I am doing (restricting my food intake). It's one of those illnesses where you just block out everything else.

Bjork

Bjork, honey, if I could I would reach out and give you a great big hug. It can take years and years of therapy, both Cognitive (cognitive means thinking) and Behavior Therapies. I am majoring in Psychology in college and my main focus was going to be helping abused woman because of what I have gone thru in my life but the more I speak to people with eating disorders and self-esteem issues, the more I am thinking of changing my focus. A lot of people think like you do, Bjork, that these things won't happen to them. That is just the menality of the general American Society right now. In my opinion, that is why AIDS has spread so rapidly especially among drug users who share needles. But it can happen to you. I know it is hard to change your thinking and the habits you have now. Have you done any research on the effects of anorexia? They are pretty scary and it sounds like you have had some scary incidents already. PLease don't think i say what I do to be mean or that I am judging you. I just don't like to see people hurting.

I wish I could understand it. A couple at work are very close to loosing their teenager daughter to anorexia. They have already lost their savings, and have at least one more mortgage out on their home to pay for treatment, in-house, out of state.

Their hearts are breaking and the worst part is as a parent you are supposed to help your kids, teach them. In this they are helpless, there is nothing they can do.

People look at me funny for being overweight, yet they never seem to worry about a highschool full of girls who don't even weigh 100 pounds.

" I really hope and pray that people who are suffering from eating disorders are paying attention to this case. Is it really worth starving yourself and binging and purging to risk going thru what this poor woman is going thru and what her family is going through?"


My neice is anorexic and my sis in law has been besides herself. They have worked up huge medical bills for therapy and hospitals (4 years now). She is still in therapy and takes all kinds of medicine. She's not allowed to go to the bathroom alone after eating. She's blunemic (spelled wrong) now. This all started when some boys at school teased her about her weight.

My own daughter keeps telling me that she's not hungry all the time. We tell her does she want to end up like her cousin and she says no and will eat something then. I am heavy after having kids and have the hardest time losing weight. I tell her that she is young and it's eaiser for her to lose the weight. All she has to do is watch what she eats and walk. She makes her dad take her for walks and she's eating better. Mainly since I got rid of the chips and most of the junk food in the house. I buy fruit and sugar free ice creams. She feels better about herself but at times, compares what size jeans I wore at the age of 20 to what she's wearing now. I tell her I was heavier than her at her age and I thinned out as I grew. She's 13 and around 120 pounds.

I overheard my boss at work talking about the Terri Schiavo case. He was incredibly insensitive, saying "well, she deserves it; she did it to herself by puking her guts out every day of her life". If he only knew what having an ED was really like. I suffered from bulimia for several years and am almost recovered from it, mostly because I saw what it's done to my aunt. She's anorexic and has been for probably about 17 years or so. She has 6 kids and is pregnant, but of her kids: 1 has type I diabetes, 1 has had 3 fractures before his 5th birthday, 1 has juvenile onset MS. All of the problems were traced back to her being malnourished during pregnancy. To me, it's not worth that. It also wasn't worth obsessing over every little thing I ate, being freezing cold even when it was summer time, etc. I hope anyone who has an ED gets treatment for it before it controls your life.

I reread my initial post about this and I must apologize. I think I might have sounded a little like I was accusing her of something I wasn't. I have been researching eating disorders for months now and I may have sounded a little insensitive in my first post. I have made so many wonderful friends through this website and writing here and many I talk to have an eating disorder. My point in the post was to hopefully make the point that I always stress the an eating disorder can lead to so many complications and, as we saw from this ladies case, death. I apologize if I offended anyone in any way.