Monday, April 04, 2005
Schiavo v. Jacov
nvariably, Yacov responds to my inquiries about Marsi with expressions of thanks for the progress that has been made and hope for future progress. Last week, Yacov was moved to write about Marsi to the Jerusalem Post, in response to a series of articles about Terri Schiavo and the Jewish approach to such situations. Subsequently, CNN picked up the story and interviewed the Tabaks and aired a three-minute segment on them.
Over the last seven years, Marsi has learned again to swallow and to stand with the assistance of a walker. Each of these achievements — i.e., the performance of the most routine, everyday actitivies — has been hard-won, the result of months and even years of effort by each family member and various physiotherapists. As a result of Marsi and her family's efforts, she accompanied her daughter to the chuppah, and on Purim her son read the Megilla to her, as he does every year. Yacov describes communication as "very challenging, but possible, and very rewarding."
Yacov hopes that the brilliant woman he married will again be able to converse freely with him, just as Sarah Scantlin, a Kansas woman who had been in PVS for twenty years, began to speak well this past February. Whether or not that happens, however, he will have no regrets about devoting himself to her improvement. "To witness my wife struggling today with her challenging physiotherapy while standing in a walker is to understand what the will to live really means," he writes.
Over the last seven years, Marsi has learned again to swallow and to stand with the assistance of a walker. Each of these achievements — i.e., the performance of the most routine, everyday actitivies — has been hard-won, the result of months and even years of effort by each family member and various physiotherapists. As a result of Marsi and her family's efforts, she accompanied her daughter to the chuppah, and on Purim her son read the Megilla to her, as he does every year. Yacov describes communication as "very challenging, but possible, and very rewarding."
Yacov hopes that the brilliant woman he married will again be able to converse freely with him, just as Sarah Scantlin, a Kansas woman who had been in PVS for twenty years, began to speak well this past February. Whether or not that happens, however, he will have no regrets about devoting himself to her improvement. "To witness my wife struggling today with her challenging physiotherapy while standing in a walker is to understand what the will to live really means," he writes.
