Terri Schiavo Still a Person, Friends Say

PINELLAS PARK -- Diane Meyer can recall only one time her best friend Terri Schiavo really got angry with her. It was 1981, and it haunts her still.

The recent high school graduates had just seen a television movie about Karen Ann Quinlan, who had been in a coma since collapsing six years earlier and was the subject of a bitter court battle over her parents' decision to take her off a respirator. Meyer told a cruel joke about Quinlan, and it set Terri off.

"She went down my throat about this joke, that it was inappropriate," Meyer said. She remembers Terri wondering how the doctors and lawyers could possibly know what Quinlan was really feeling or what she would want.

"Where there's life," Meyer recalled her saying, "there's hope."

Twenty-two years later and suffering from brain damage, Terri is now the subject of a similar debate -- and so is the question of just what choice she would make about her life and death.

She has not been fully conscious since collapsing in 1990 at age 26 from what doctors have said was a potassium imbalance that stopped her heart.

In contrast to Meyer's recollection, her husband, Michael Schiavo, and members of his family have said Terri told them she would not want to be kept alive artificially if she were incapable of getting better.

Michael Schiavo petitioned in 1998 to remove Terri's feeding tube. The courts have ruled Terri is in a persistent vegetative state and last week approved the request. But after six days without food or water, the tube was restored Wednesday by order of Gov. Jeb Bush, who acted on a bill rushed through the Legislature.

Amid the swirl of court filings and the cries of protesters, family and friends say people seem to have forgotten that Terri is a person. That before people became obsessed with whether she should die, she had a life.

A SHY GIRL

Theresa Marie Schindler was born Dec. 3, 1963, to a well-to-do family in the Philadelphia suburbs. The oldest of three children, she was always shy and retiring.

Her mother, Mary, said Terri would spend hours in her room, arranging her more than 100 stuffed animals into a private zoo. Always heavy, Terri hated sports, except horseback riding, which fed her love for animals.

Terri never said anything about her weight, but her mother always sensed it bothered her.

"She cried a lot when she went to get clothes," Mrs. Schindler said.

Terri didn't go to school dances, not even her senior prom. Instead, she and her friends would go to the movies. Meyer remembered they went to see "An Officer and a Gentleman" four times in one day.

Terri has always been very tenderhearted, especially when it came to animals.

When her yellow Labrador collapsed, Terri performed mouthto-nose resuscitation on him, her mother said.

"She was puffing away for all she was worth," she said. "He died in her arms."

Her junior year, Mrs. Schindler took Terri to the doctor to ask about her weight, which had ballooned to more than 200 pounds on a 5-foot-3 frame. The doctor told her Terri would lose the weight when she was ready.

After graduation from Archbishop Wood Catholic School, she was ready. On a structured diet program, she got her weight down to 140 to 150 pounds initially.

FALLING IN LOVE

Terri enrolled in Bucks County Community College with the goal of working with animals, and there she met Michael Schiavo. Mrs. Schindler said Terri went head over heels.

"It was the first guy who ever, ever paid any attention to her," she said.

Meyer said Terri talked about how gorgeous Schiavo was and how he was always telling her she was beautiful. He was the "Officer and a Gentleman" to a chubby girl who had lived vicariously through Danielle Steele romances, Meyer thinks.

After a little more than a year of dating, the two were married in 1984.

By a year later, Terri had gained a little of her weight back. Meyer said Terri told her that Schiavo had seen her high school graduation picture and warned her "if she ever got fat like that again he'd divorce her."

"I said, `He's probably kidding,' " she said. "But it was upsetting to her."

MOVING TO FLORIDA

In 1986, the couple moved to Florida. Schiavo managed restaurants, and Terri got a clerk's job at an insurance agency.

Mrs. Schindler said Terri began complaining that Schiavo never wanted to go anywhere. When she would go visit her parents or a friend from work, Mrs. Schindler said, Schiavo would check the mileage on her car.

Jackie Rhodes, who worked and socialized with Terri, said Schiavo would frequently call his wife at work and leave her in tears. She said she and Terri had each discussed divorcing their husbands and moving in together.

But Scott Schiavo, Michael's brother, said he wasn't aware of any trouble in the marriage.

And when the couple went to his grandmother's funeral, Scott Schiavo said, Terri told him she would not want to be put on a respirator, as the grandmother had been.

"Terri turned around and looked right in my eyes, and I can still see her sitting there on my lefthand side," he recalled, repeating testimony he gave in court. " `If I'm gone, just let me go.' "

Bobby Schindler said his sister began talking about leaving Schiavo in 1989. "She said she wished she had the strength or the energy or the know-how to get a divorce," he said.

By this time, Terri's weight had dropped below 120 and Mrs. Schindler said she confronted her daughter about how thin she was getting.

Terri's reply: "I eat, Mom. I eat."

Potassium disorders and heart failure have been linked to anorexia, but the family doesn't think Terri had a real eating disorder. Doctors have never been able to say with certainty what caused the collapse.

The day before she collapsed, Terri had complained to her mother that she was having menstrual problems, and that she wasn't satisfied with her doctor. Mrs. Schindler said they'd get together after the weekend and find her a new one.

They never got to.

IN THE HOSPICE

Terri is 39 now, living in a hospice in Pinellas Park. After working so hard to come out of her shell, she spends most of her days alone in a single room.

Her family says she laughs when they play John Denver for her and follows them with her eyes. Doctors say those are unconscious responses.

Michael Schiavo, who has since become a registered nurse and has a daughter with his girlfriend, could not be reached for comment. But Scott Schiavo said his brother is merely trying to let Terri die with dignity.

"When it sunk into Mike's head, Mike decided to stop being selfish. `I can't bring her back, and I've got to grant her wish.' " he said. "The bottom line is that Mike never wanted this to be a side show."

Her family and friends say they love her, too, and think she can get better with therapy. And they are just as convinced that she would not want to be let go.