SOB... more Schiavo shiat

With the publishing of the autopsy results, the headlines are once again dominated by the Terri Schiavo debacle. Damn it. The most important point I can make here is that the whack job protesters and the fucking media should have LEFT THAT FAMILY ALONE. The family had been dealing with a tragedy for years. It wasn't the fundamentalists' business. It wasn't the media's business. It wasn't our business. The courts had already decided the matter through many appeals, and the doctors and courts involved knew a hell of a lot more about it than any of us did.

But to summarize the news that's almost impossible to avoid, here's an article about the autopsy. Main conclusions: Terri Schiavo was in a persistent vegetative state, was blind, had literally half a brain left that was missing vital functions, had pieces loosely floating around, etc.

Here's the full length text of the autopsy report.

Farker Flavivirus provided a summary of the report in a thread on Fark. Here's his summary:
i'm not a brain surgeon, but I am a resident studying neuropsychiatry. Of note, in the 'technical information' from page 1-34:

#1 - Terri's brain was 200g -less- than another patient who died in PVS, and less than half the expected weight of a woman her age.

#2 - there was marked atrophy (shrinkage) of the brain globally, to the point that certain areas of the brain that are expected to be 'packed together', were, in fact, loosely floating about

#3 - she had a thalamic stimulator installed (an electrical device designed to stimulate the brain) in an attempt to revive some of her function. This stimulator prevented the ability to do an MRI, due to overheating of the electrodes being reported in previous cases of MRI's on stimulators.

#4 - she had smaller than expected optic nerves, otherwise her cranial nerves were normal. Optic nerves are the nerves responsible for receiving optic information from the eyes and passing it to the occipital lobe, along with other lobes of the brain. The clinical implication of this is difficult to understand, but it is likely indicative of non-functioning eyesight/vision.

i'll post more if anything else jumps out at me... but i figured some translation could be helpful. -a lot- of the report is minutia. 90% of the information is descriptive of a normal death. It's exhaustive and complete, and overinclusive.

If you don't trust his summary, check the autopsy report for yourself.

Of course, the fundamentalists whackos are already claiming that the autopsy report changes nothing and that Terri was murdered. So much for admitting when you're wrong...

Now get this damn story out of the headlines already!