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CINCINNATTUS, NY---Ted Stith Sr. left his Cincinnattus farm to visit a friend in Florida.
He probably won't return home alive.
As of Monday afternoon, he'd been seven days without food and water, a decision made by his son who left his father to die in Florida and returned home.
Monday night, it couldn't be ascertained if Ted Stith Sr. was alive. Fawcett Memorial Hospital in Port Charlotte where he had been hospitalized said he had been discharged.
And one of his best friends who has been by his side for the past week had been barred from visiting him.
Ted Stith wanted to live. He apparently had no advance directive, no living will. But even though he declared his will to live in front of a patient advocate, she said it was just a reflex and the efforts to cause his death continued and may have been hastened.
Contacted Monday evening at his home in Cincinnattus by The North Country Gazette and asked about his father's condition and his responsiveness, Ted Stith said "It's none of your business lady" and slammed down the phone, denying that his father had demonstrated any type of responsiveness.
But how would he know? He'd apparently left his father to die in Florida seven days previous.
After Ted Sr. suffered a stroke, his son placed him in a hospice, agreed to withdraw all food and water and headed back home to New York, leaving his father to die.
In mid-January, Ted Sr. had traveled to for Florida with his sister and brother-in-law to spend a week. He suffered a stroke and was transported to Fawcett Memorial Hospital in Port Charlotte where he was admitted to the intensive care unit.
The 73-year-old farmer was used to working long, tedious hours on the farm, operating a tractor. He was a hard worker, a fighter, a strong man, according to one of his best friends.
He indicated to his long-time friend Kathy Vinson that he wanted to live. He was responsive, he was alert. But the doctors and family decided his time was up, something's that happening all too often throughout this country.
When Ted was first admitted to the hospital, his MRI showed a swelling of the brain. By the fourth day, the MRI indicated that while the swelling hadn't decreased, neither had it increased.
Upon learning of her friend's stroke, Kathy Vinson caught the next plane to Florida. Stith's son, Ted Jr. arrived from New York on the third day of his father's hospitalization. Vinson says that on the fourth day, the doctor suggested to the family that their father be placed in a hospice, saying that he wouldn't be a "complete man again" and that there was no chance for improvement.
"I questioned it", Kathy said. "I don't understand how something like that can be done so quickly. I said if he's not getting any worse, why can't we wait?"
She says that the doctor was "rather convincing. I said to her, if this was your father, what would you do?"
She said, "my father's dead and this is what I would do", indicating that she would place her father in a hospice to die.
Later during a consultation with the doctor, Vinson says the doctor asked her if she remembered asking her what she would do if it were her father, would she send him to a hospice to die. She said if it were her mother, she would wait to see if she recuperated because her mother was a fighter. Vinson told her then she should give the same consideration to Stith. Vinson said the doctor told her that she would make arrangements for another MRI the next morning.
But apparently the doctor's supervisors had other ideas.
"The next morning she told me that they couldn't do another MRI", Vinson says.
Vinson says she doesn't think the son "even fully realized what a hospice is, what was going on. It was a situation of well, this is what the doctor said, so we do it. Daddy goes to hospice, the next day the son gives him a kiss goodbye and takes off to New York".
Kathy said that Ted's sister "had him dead and buried five minutes after he had the stroke. The doctor says it, therefore it is". She says she thinks that's a common mindset with older people.
But as in the case of Terri Schiavo, where's there's life, there's hope and Kathy Vinson said that not only did Ted Stith Sr. have a will to live but he exhibited it, he demonstrated a will to live and although he was taking "baby steps", he was steadily improving everyday even though all nutrition and hydration had been removed from him four days after his stroke.
The last day he was in ICU, Kathy said Ted Sr. was trying to open his eyes and she realized he couldn't, because they were matted shut. "So I got a wet rag and he opened his eyes. The first day in hospice, that's the day Ted Jr. was leaving, I told him to get himself to the hospice, your father's got his eyes open and he'll be able to recognize you. If you don't change your mind about letting him live, at least let him see you and say goodbye. He stopped and questioned the doctor who said that's more than it'll ever be. When the doctor asked Ted Jr. if his father should be given, food and water, Teddy said yeah, and the doctor said well, that will just prolong things and so Teddy said no, don't do it".
Vinson said that when Ted Sr. was in ICU, he was receiving sustenance and hydration. Monday was his seventh day in the hospice and she had been there almost 24-7---that is until she was barred from visiting him because staff members claimed they had found pudding cups and drink bottles in his room.
"The man was responding", Vinson says, "it's baby steps but he was responding. He would take my hand if I told him to, he was responsive to commands. They allow you a swab to wipe the lips off--he would take it from my hand, put it in his mouth and suck for all he was worth. He could raise his hands, raise his legs, hold his leg up on command. At one point, someone told him to pick up his right arm which he can't do so he took his left arm over and picked up his right. One of the doctors came in Sunday morning and asked me how I am and I said well, you know at this point I'm not fine. He said what's the problem and I said this man doesn't belong here. He says why do you say that and I said because of all the things that he can do. He said, well, what can he do?"
"What would impress you", Vinson said to which the doctor responded, 'to hear him speak".
"They were claiming that he can't swallow, never be able to swallow, never be able to speak", Vinson said. "They said he wasn't responding, that it was just reflexes".
"I called a good friend of Ted's and said Ralph, I'm in the room with Ted and the doctor and I want you talk on the phone to him. I said speak slowly, speak clearly and kind of put a question in it. I handed Ted the phone and said, 'Ted, Ralph wants to speak to you' and Ted put the phone to his ear, clumsily, and when he got it there steady, he moved it around to where he could hear and he's listening to Ralph because you can see his eyes responding and then, he started making guttural sounds. I looked at the doctor and I let Ted do it a minute because I didn't want to be rude and I said okay, let me talk now and he handed me the phone and I said, 'thanks Ted, bye Ralph' and turned around to the doctor and said what do we do now?. He said 'nothing, you're not the person in power, you're not the power of attorney' and I said, my God, he did what you asked".
Vinson said she wasn't allowed to visit on Monday. She says the patient advocate told her Sunday night that she wasn't allowed in because "they say I was trying to feed him, they found pudding containers, drink bottles. I have a friend who came down Sunday to support me and she went with me Monday morning for a meeting. I wasn't allowed in to see Ted but she went in. When she said good morning, Ted, he took her hand. She reached over and gave him a kiss and said, Kathy's doing everything she can. He kind of looked away, like saying it's hopeless".
"So after the meeting, we're walking down the hall and this man is following us, like escorting us to the elevator and he says, did you go in and see Ted and I said no, I'm not allowed too. He asked the other woman if she did and she said yes, I went in and said good morning to him. He says, we found cookie crumbs on the bed. This is something I wouldn't have believed if someone hadn't of told me".
"I showed his sister all these things that he can do", Vinson said. "I was fixing his pillow and I was kidding and said, I wish you'd move up and he went and tried to raise and came up about an inch and I said, no, no I was just kidding. Unbeknownst to me he reached his arm down the side rail, grabbed the rail and pulled up about a foot".
"He's saying he wants water, he reaches for water, it's his own right to have water. If there was a dog in the yard reaching for the water bowl, I wouldn't deny a dog water, and he shouldn't be denied. He has a right to live".
"I said Ted, this important. Do you want to live. His eyes got big. I said if you want to live, squeeze my hand one time, and he did. The patient advocate, Martina who witnessed it claimed there was no response, that it was only a reflex".
As of Monday night, Vinson didn't know if her friend was alive or not. The hospital was saying he had been discharged. She says that as she and her friend left from the area of Ted's room Monday morning, she saw nurses "with tubes" in his room. She says she doesn't know what the tubes were for but is suspicious. "They didn't like it because I was stirring things up, that I was trying to help Ted. They didn't like all the attention they were getting".
Vinson said that four or five days ago, she had called Florida's Department of Children and Families (DCF), the agency statutorily mandated to protect the elderly and disabled from abuse, neglect and exploitation. She said she was told that if it was an emergency, to call the police.
She said she dialed 911 and two deputies from the Charlotte County Sheriff's Department responded. She told them that her friend was being "murdered", that he wanted to live. Vinson says the two young officers, whose badge numbers she took, shuffled their feet, acted very uncomfortable and said that they "don't go against the doctor" and that there was nothing they could do.
Feeling that her friend was in imminent danger Monday, she again called DCF and got a recording to call 911 if it was an emergency. She decided it was useless to continue with the call.
"It's a scary, scary situation. If I hadn't lived through it, hadn't seen it for myself, I would never have believed such a thing could happen in our country", Vinson said. "Ted wanted to live. He had a right to live. Why are doctors playing God?" 1-30-06
© 2005 North
Country Gazette
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