On Wednesday night, Marlise Munoz' husband, Erick, and her mother, Lynne Machado, sat down with Anderson Cooper for their first national interview since a Fort Worth hospital had the good sense to remove Marlise from life support after two months. It would have been far sooner if not for Marlise being pregnant--and the hospital claimed Texas law required them to keep her hooked up even though she had let it be known to her family that she didn't want to be kept alive artificially. Never mind that she had been pronounced brain dead on November 28, only two days after being rushed to the hospital--and was therefore legally dead under Texas law.
Watch the whole interview here. Erick said that he knew not long after doctors began caring for Marlise that in all likelihood, she wasn't coming home. He saw a CT scan of her brain, and based on his experience as a paramedic (as Marlise was), he knew it didn't look right. Machado, who has no medical training, said that she could tell Marlise was gone. But then they found out about this arcane law--a development that hit everyone, including the doctors, from somewhere around nail level on the floor.
Marlise's family members were preparing to say their final goodbyes in the ICU the day in November when doctors showed them that her heart kept stopping and that her brain was swelling.
But then suddenly, the situation changed: a doctor told them they couldn't disconnect the machines.
The family says they were shocked, and that even the doctors seemed surprised.
"I thought, there must have been a miscommunication in some way. We said 'No, no, no. That's not what she wanted. She wanted never to be on life support.' They said, 'Well, but she's pregnant.' And then, you know, it went from there," Machado said. "We knew we weren't going to let this rest, because it wasn't right. It was not honoring her wishes."
That's why the family went to court and kept fighting, she said, even as the going got tough.
Even as it became clearer every day that the woman they loved had slipped away.
Even as her skin texture changed -- becoming like a mannequin's, cool and rubbery.
Even as the air in her hospital room started to smell more like death than life.
Wow. When I first heard about this story, my initial picture was that the attending physician was a rabid Christianist who refused to disconnect the machines. But according to Machado, the doctors all knew Marlise was gone and were ready to pull the plug. In an earlier diary I posted on this, Blugrlnrdst, who is a doctor, suggested that one of the nurses or CNAs working with Marlise snitched to JPS brass. Based on this account, this scenario seems more likely--especially based on how gobsmacked the doctors seemed to be. And apparently they refused to budge even those Marlise was decaying on the bed.
And yet, if some people have their way, the law would be rewritten so that women like Marlise would have to stay on life support. Indeed, all four GOPers running for lieutenant governor of Texas think Marlise should still be on life support. At least two, and maybe three, of them indicated they would support changing the law to require even brain-dead women to stay on life support if they're pregnant. In other words, these people want to make it legal to desecrate a corpse. That doesn't sit well with Erick at all.
"I feel that's unfair on their part. They're not the family. I can't take the right away from you to do something with your loved ones. I don't feel they should, either," Erick Muñoz said. "I feel they're using my wife, unfortunately, as a stepping stone, as an argument for their debates. They want votes. And I tell them, 'That's wrong.' ... They are using her as a political argument."
Both sides of Marlise's family want other families to have the same conversations that they had with Marlise. Both Erick and Machado were adamant--end-of-life decisions belong with the family, not politicians.
To add insult to injury, Erick says that he's gotten medical bills in the mail just as he's getting a chance to mourn. This after JPS agreed with Erick's legal team that Marlise had been brain dead since November 28--a tacit admission that any life support treatment was futile. It is unconscionable that any hospital would admit that it knew this treatment was not only unwanted, but unnecessary--and then send the patient's family the bill. Erick said that he has no intention of paying. He's still considering whether to sue the hospital. If I were Erick, the only way I'd even consider not suing is if JPS stated that he and his family won't have to pay a dime for this travesty. Sign this petition telling JPS that Erick must not have to bear any financial responsibility for a travesty for which the hospital is partly responsible.