I have a personal insight into the Terri Schiavo controversy that I wanted to share with you, my friends and readers. Both of you.

If you were reading my blog last August, you'll recall that my father passed away three days before his 79th birthday. In 2003, he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer which had metastasized into bone cancer. He was given a brief series of chemotherapy treatments, but the diagnosis was that the bone cancer was ultimately untreatable and would end up being fatal.

Dad didn't spend much of his life being sad. I'm happy to say that's one of his admirable traits that I appear to have inherited. He wasn't a worrier. If something is out of your control, you're just wasting time worrying about it. Better to enjoy what you have. You know, the whole "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade" thing. Also, his strong faith in God and submission to His will made him unafraid of death. It wasn't something he sought, but he didn't try to hide from it, either.

Dad executed an Advance Directive, often called a Living Will, stating that he didn't want extraordinary medical intervention to keep him alive. He knew his time was approaching, and it wouldn't do him or, more importantly in his mind, his family any good to futilely and unnecessarily extend it.

While I had a passing familiarity about how these things work, I had no understanding of the nuts and bolts of how we deal with folks suffering from a fatal, painful ailment and who have stated that they don't want medical intervention to keep them alive. I don't know if Dad's case is typical, but I suspect it is.

About three weeks before he ultimately died, Dad started experiencing weakness and pain. His doctors examined him and told him that this was the start of Dad's final chapter, and gave him two to four weeks to live. With that in mind, they gave him medicine to alleviate his pain, and blood transfusions to strengthen him so he could make the trip home, where he would receive hospice care.

This was the plan: the blood transfusion would help Dad get around and feel better for a few days, but as time passed, its benefits would also pass, and Dad would first get weaker, and ultimately the pain would return. When that happened, Dad would be given sufficient painkillers (I think it was morphine, but the details escape me) to obliterate the pain. Unfortunately, that medication would also would render Dad immobile and unconscious, and keep him so until he ultimately died.

And that's how it panned out. Once Dad started feeling the pain again, he was given medication which relieved the pain and left him essentially unconscious. From that point, he received no food or water until he died. What was the proximate cause of Dad's death? Did the bone cancer kill him directly? I don't think so. I believe that Dad most likely dehydrated to the point that his heart was unable to keep working, and eventually gave out.

There are many, many differences between Ed Garrett and Terri Schiavo, but as Terri slowly progresses toward her death, I think there are significant parallels. As I understand it (and this is certainly in great dispute, I'll admit), in Terri's persistent vegetative state, she feels no pain. She feels no hunger. She feels no thirst. I suspect that the dehydration that I believe killed Dad will ultimately kill Terri Schiavo. I'm saddened by her passing, but I don't believe she's suffering, just as Dad didn't suffer.