Stroke victim’s kin split on food tube
Karen Weber’s descent into limbo began on Florida’s Turnpike in November. She and her husband of 34 years, Raymond, had driven to Orlando International Airport to pick up her mother.
On the way home to Okeechobee, happy talk about Gracie, the new baby in the family, ended suddenly when Karen had a seizure. Her husband drove quickly to a hospital.
That seizure and a second one led to a paralyzing stroke and now, seven months later, Karen, 57, lies in a nursing home as family members battle over whether to remove the feeding tube that keeps her alive, a circumstance similar to the Terri Schiavo case of 2005 . . .
Tatro said she and Raymond had discussed her daughter’s quality of life but she was stunned when he sought an order to move her to hospice care and remove the feeding tube.
“I couldn’t believe it,” she said. “Karen was not that disabled.”
She looked for a lawyer. “No attorney here would take the case, so I filed myself,” she said . . .
Tatro-Manes, Karen’s sister, contacted several right-to-life organizations to find a lawyer. The Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund agreed to take her case . . .