Free A Life That Matters by Terri's Family:, Robert Schindler

Pecarek stated firmly.
    “Case closed,” Penick declared, slamming his book closed, rising from the bench, and heading for the door.
    “Wait a minute, Your Honor!” Jim Sheehan shouted after him. “You haven’t even given me a chance to cross-examine him.”
    “It’s closed,” Penick said. “It’s over.” He walked out the door, Sheehan rushing after him to no avail.
    Sheehan filed for a rehearing motion, but Penick denied it. The judge was right. The case was closed. What’s more, the court ruled that all Michael’s legal expenses were to be paid from Terri’s medical fund, made up of the money he had won for her in the malpractice trial which he had pledged for her rehabilitation.
    We felt abandoned, trapped in a court system where a judge can overturn the findings of his own investigator without explaining why and without giving the other side a chance to appeal. I was utterly bewildered. It was like watching frontier justice at work in an old western movie.
    Some months later, we got a notice from Michael’s lawyer asking if we wanted to pursue the case further. We called Sheehan. “There’s nowhere to go with it,” he said, and the case was permanently closed.
    It was closed “with prejudice,” Sheehan told us, but it was only much later that we learned what the term meant. Not only could we not question Penick’s ruling ever again, but we could not refile, in any instance, to have Michael removed as guardian. 4
    We made so many mistakes in those first years! Lack of money was one reason: we simply couldn’t afford lawyers’ fees to pursue other avenues open to us. Optimism was another. Each time we went into court, or faced a hospital decision that went against Terri, we believed that justice would eventually triumph. After all, we were
right
—right to fight for Terri’s well-being, right to insist on our say in her care, right that she deserved the best care and legal consideration. I in particular
knew
that everything would come out well.
How could anyone hurt Terri
?
It was inhuman, inhumane, unthinkable.
    We were so naïve.
    Whenever we visited Terri at Sabal Palms, the nursing staff would complain to us about Michael’s behavior. Some of them told us he bullied them, and shouted at them when they did not obey his orders, to the point where the Sabal Palms administration tried to limit his access to Terri. Terry Russell, the administrator, had flatly refused to deny Terri medication, and we were led to believe that Sabal Palms had been inclined to join us in our suit against Michael’s guardianship. As far as I was concerned, Terri might have been comfortable at Sabal Palms, but Michael wasn’t. So in 1994, he moved Terri to the Palm Gardens nursing home in Largo, where he continued to warehouse her, and there was nothing we could do about it.
    I fluctuate in my feelings toward Michael (much more than Bob, Bobby, or Suzanne), for I think back to the time at the beginning when Terri shone with love for him. For a long time, he was simply my son-in-law, part of the family. But it seemed to me then, and even more so now, that this moving of Terri was unconscionable.
    Terri’s transfer to Palm Gardens ensured, in effect, that Michael could do with Terri pretty much what he wanted, could keep back any medical information we sought.
    Terri received no physical, speech, or occupational therapy at Palm Gardens during the five years she was there. She was washed, fed, dressed, put in a wheelchair in the morning, put down for a nap in the afternoon, put back in the wheelchair in the evening, and then put into bed for the night. I visited as often as I could. Most times, Terri would brighten when she saw me, grow dispirited when I left, but sometimes she gave no sign of recognition, made no movement to indicate she was aware of her surroundings. She simply sat passively, strapped to her chair, lost in a world no one could enter.
    Those times made my heart ache. But then she would revive, and she