- The former PVS patient who was almost killed, but later
recovered, Rus Cooper-Dowda, is being FIRED for speaking favorably of Terri
outside of a work setting, and on her own time!
-
- For her background, see Rus Cooper-Douda's astonishing
article, "When I Woke Up" www.rense.com/general44/woke.htm
-
- Old horned Hemlock strikes again. What a slithering snake.
We are lighting our candles not just for Terri, but for Rus and others
in danger.
-
- Dee Rohe
- __________
-
- Email from Rus Cooper-Dowda
-
- I am a Pinellas County, Florida exceptional education
teacher with disabilities. I teach middle school students with learning,
emotional and behavioral disabilities.
-
- I am in my 26th year as a teacher.
-
- On the day Terri Schindler-Schiavo's feeding tube was
removed this fall, I did a brief interview about the disabled community's
take on her possible death for being cognitively-impaired.
-
- It was very brief and done off school grounds on my own
time. The reporter agreed not to mention in any way that I taught.
-
- I said basically that as a Florida woman with disabilities
Terri's starving was very scary.
-
- The next day administration who had never talked to me
before made it clear that I no longer fit in.
-
- Then the book I wrote "When I Woke Up..." which
included my own Terri-like time in the 1980s, my coverage of her October
2002 hearing and a meditation I delivered as minister at a Terri vigil
hit my school campus.
-
- After that I couldn't get the most accepted basic support
like needed room supplies, memos about meetings, campus police help when
any of my kids needed to be removed for violence or assistance for students
hurting themselves regularly.
-
- Finally, I was given less than a day to hand deliver
a resignation for personal reasons or be fired for "not fitting in."
At the time I was home recovering from a student attack that could have
been prevented if I had only the support other teachers had.
-
- I physically could not get the letter in. I would not
have resigned anyway.
-
- How can a 26 year veteran teacher with disabilities "not
fit in" with students who have disabilities?
-
- In an effort to force me to resign I was threatened with
being fired on tv over and over through December and into January. The
administrator was threatening me with firing at the televised school board
meeting that is rerun until the next meeting.
-
- As a result -- on December 9th at 5 pm only 20 minutes
from The hospice where Terri remains in danger, I am being fired for "not
fitting in."
-
- And indeed, I will be fired many, many times in reruns
in between hours of new and old holiday student performances.
-
- My contract specifically prohibits being fired for the
reasons I am being fired.
-
- So, there you go.
-
- Rus Cooper-Dowda
- uudre@aol.com
-
- The teacher, "Rus Cooper-Dowda" is mentioned
in a 11/6/03 news
- article (linked below).
-
- At one time she was in what doctors incorrectly decided
was a
- vegetative state and planned to remove her feeding tube
too.
-
- http://www.newsday.com/news/health/ny-usschi023527678nov06,0,3738951.story?coll=ny-health-headlines
-
- Disabled Rally Around Terri Schiavo
- By Hugo Kugiya
- STAFF WRITER
-
- November 6, 2003
-
- Unable to speak and barely able to move, Rus Cooper-Dowda
could do little to prevent her death. Only 30, she had developed a serious
form of lupus that had left her in what doctors incorrectly thought was
a vegetative state.
-
- She knew the doctors and nurses had all but given up
on her because she could still hear. She said later that she listened to
them describe her prognosis as hopeless.
-
- They said that she would never live a normal life and
that if she took a turn for the worse, no extraordinary measures should
be attempted to save her life.
-
- Contrary to their expectations, Cooper-Dowda, now 48,
survived. Over the years, she recovered some use of her body, earned a
graduate degree and gave birth to a son who recently entered college.
-
- Doctors couldn't explain why her condition got so bad
18 years ago, nor why it improved so much, she said. Which is why she thinks
Terri Schiavo, the severely brain-damaged St. Petersburg, Fla., woman,
should be helped, not left to die.
-
- "People say she'll never fully recover," said
Cooper-Dowda, a writer and teacher from Florida. "My feeling is, 'So
what?' There is something between death and full recovery, and it's called
living with a disability."
-
- She is one of many disabled people who see Schiavo as
a cause mirroring their own, even if their medical circumstances differ.
(Cooper-Dowda was incapacitated for months, not 13 years like Schiavo.)
Individually, they have spoken out. Last week, they took a collective stand.
-
- "This is a real scary prospect for us, because there
are lots of disabled people who can't communicate verbally," said
Andy Imparato, president of the American Association of People with Disabilities.
-
- Imparato and association board members, with the blessing
of other disabled rights groups, released a written statement condemning
the court's decision to allow Michael Schiavo to remove his wife's feeding
tube. Such action should be confined, the statement said, "to those
situations in which an individual's condition is terminal, death is imminent
and any continuation or provision of treatment, nutrition and/or hydration
would only serve to prolong dying ... "
-
- "No one other than Ms. Schiavo, not even a guardian,
has the right to make assumptions about the quality of her life,"
the statement continued.
-
- While Schiavo's case has been seen largely as an issue
of the sanctity of life versus personal choice, of conservative against
liberal, of religious values against secular ones, the concerns of disabled
people are more nuanced and personal and do not depend so much on politics
or ideology.
-
- "To us, it's more complex," Imparato said.
-
- Although doctors disagree on her condition, a state court
determined that Schiavo, 39, is in an irreversible and permanent vegetative
state. After her husband received permission to remove her feeding tube,
her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, harnessing the momentum of public
outcry, convinced lawmakers and the governor to help. In less than 48 hours,
the Legislature passed a bill giving Gov. Jeb Bush the authority to order
the tube replaced, which he did Oct. 21.
-
- Michael Schiavo is fighting the law in court, charging
that it interfered with his wife's right to refuse medical treatment and
that it violated the state constitution by passing a law that defied a
court order.
-
- While she was incapacitated, Cooper-Dowda tried to communicate
by writing in the air with her finger. When she heard doctors discussing
the removal of life support, she tried to spell the word "no."
She even spelled it backward in hopes they would recognize it as a word.
Doctors decided her movement was seizure activity and sedated her.
-
- The more she moved, the more she was sedated. Finally,
a nurse became curious and put ink on the end of Cooper-Dowda's finger,
so she could write the letter Y or N, for yes and no.
-
- "It's still terrifying how close I came to death,"
Cooper-Dowda said, "because of all the assumptions someone else made
about the quality of my life. ... When someone says, 'I wouldn't want to
live like that,' it's believing it will never happen to you. When it does,
it's not a bad life or a useless life. It's a changed life."
-
- Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc.
-
- ___________________________________________
- Contact the Pinellas County School Board:
-
- Open to Public: Anyone can speak for 3 minutes by signing
a speaker's slip
- by 4:45 pm.
- Signs without sticks are permitted.
- Address: Pinellas County School Administration Building
- Conference Hall
- 301 4th Street SW
- Largo, Florida 33770
-
- Televised live with reruns on WPDS
- GTE Americast channel 14
- Time Warner Channel 14
-
- If you want to protest:
- Board@pcsb.org
- 727-586-1818
- Pinellas County School Board
- 301 4th St. SW
- Largo, FL 33770
-
- Members of the Pinellas County School Board:
- Dr. J. Howard Hinesley
- Superintendent
-
- Jane Gallucci
- Chair
-
- Carol Cook
- Vice-Chair
-
- Board Member most likey to be unhappy about this:
- Linda Lerner
-
- Rest of Board:
- Mary Russell
- Nancy Bostock
- Mary Brown
- Lee Benjamin
-
-
- We still have a lot to be thankful for! Let us hold
an
- attitude of gratitude and appreciation for all who are
- working to save precious lives! - Including Terri's!
-
- Terri's Links http://heavenlyhands.net/terrislinks.html
|
