Terri had had rough teenage years, her father said. She was a mediocre student, just "putting in her time" until she could leave high school, he said. Plus, she was overweight and passed over by the boys in school.
"In seventh grade, she just blew up like a balloon," Bob Schindler said. "She was heavy all through high school. It destroyed her social life, because guys weren't interested in her."
After high school, Terri got a part-time job and started a Nutri/System diet, her father said. Over several months, Terri lost what her father estimated as 40 to 50 pounds and kept it off.
She was a woman transformed. Chubby cheeks slimmed to reveal sparkling eyes. A hesitant smile morphed into an impish grin.
"It was after that that Terri really came out of her shell," said Diane Meyer of Doylestown Township, who had been friends with Terri since they both were 2 years old. "She blossomed, and the beauty that was within her became external. She was so much more confident."
With her new slim figure, she enrolled at Bucks County Community College. There, she met Michael, a fellow student. Diane said Michael was the first man who showed interest in Terri, and Terri responded.
"Adolescent boys don't see past the exterior, and he showed her the attention that for so long she didn't get," Meyer said. "Michael was very attractive. He was interested in her."
Meyer was in college at the University of Scranton then. Terri visited her the weekend after she had met Michael and couldn't stop talking about him. Meyer would meet him later, but she said they never really clicked.
"I was never a Michael fan. Our personalities were very different," she said. "But my take on it was, if Terri loved him, there had to be something good there. She was my best friend. I wanted her to be happy."
Meyer was in the wedding party when Michael and Terri married Nov. 14, 1984, at Our Lady of Good Counsel Church in Upper Southampton.
Terri and Michael lived in an apartment for awhile, but soon moved in with Terri's parents. When the Schindlers decided to move to Florida, Terri and Michael decided to go, too.
They settled into life in Florida. Michael worked in restaurants and Terri got a job with Prudential Financial. She lost even more weight. Around 1989, she and Michael moved to a new apartment. They had been there for six months to a year when she collapsed.
From the perspective of 13 years later, it's hard not to look back at the early morning darkness of Feb. 25, 1990, without foreboding. What happened that night left Terri where she is today.
Friends and relatives say she had gotten even thinner after she moved to Florida, perhaps encouraged by the bikini lifestyle. She had begun having abdominal pain and missing her menstrual periods in 1989. Her father said she went to a family doctor, who referred her to a gynecologist. Neither, he said, performed blood tests.
Around dawn on that Feb. 25, Michael Schiavo called the Schindlers and said he couldn't wake Terri up. She had collapsed on the floor; Michael said he found her coming out of the bathroom.
Paramedics arrived to find Terri not breathing and without a pulse.
As the seconds ticked by, different things were happening to Terri's brain, according to Dr. Elliott Mancall, who teaches neurology at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia.
A heart attack halts the flow of blood to the brain, depriving it of vital oxygen, Mancall said. Brain cells begin to die, but at different rates.
"There is a hierarchy of sensitivity," Mancall said. "The gray matter, the cerebral cortex, the part with which we think and feel, is quite sensitive to oxygen. Those cells are the first to go. The brain stem houses very primitive structures, and it's quite resistant to oxygen loss. Those cells are the last to go."
Terri eventually was revived, but her brain had gone without oxygen for at least five minutes, maybe 10, doctors would say later. Taken to a nearby hospital, she remained in a coma.
Doctors concluded her heart had stopped from a lack of potassium, possibly brought on by her diet. A drop in potassium, which helps regulate heart function, can lead to low blood pressure and a life-threateningly erratic heartbeat.
Malpractice suits were filed against Terri's family doctor and gynecologist for not testing her blood, which would have revealed the potassium imbalance. Michael Schiavo won about $300,000 for himself and $700,000 for Terri, which was put into a fund to pay for her care.
That care, though, soon fueled disputes between Michael and the Schindlers. The money, and the circumstances of Terri's collapse, would soon make a bad situation worse.
After Terri's collapse, she slipped into what doctors call a persistent vegetative state. It is different from a coma, in which patients' eyes are usually closed and show no response to any kind of stimuli, Mancall said.
Patients in a persistent vegetative state are deprived of higher functions of the brain, Mancall said, such as memory, thought, emotion. Yet their eyes may open and close, their limbs and head may move in response to stimuli, their heart beats on its own and their lungs breathe.
"Patients often demonstrate these signs of primitive brain function, but there's nothing beyond that, in terms of the person," Mancall said.
A few months after Terri's collapse, Michael brought her home from the hospital to live with him. Bob and Mary Schindler moved in, too, and together, the people who loved Terri tried to bring her back.
For years, Felos said, Michael took care of Terri at home, even studying for and earning a nursing degree so he could better help her. He now works as a nurse in Clearwater.
"He wiped the feces from her body. He cleaned her menses when she had her period," Felos said. "He brushed her hair and got her dressed. I don't know any other 29-year-old guy who is that dedicated to his spouse."
In November 1990, Michael flew with Terri to San Francisco for experimental brain surgery. Bob Schindler said electrodes were implanted in her brain that would send electronic signals to try to stimulate the brain.
Returning to Florida, Michael admitted Terri to Mediplex Rehabilitation Hospital for therapy, part of the follow-up care required by the experimental surgery.
Bob Schindler said the implants ended up failing. They didn't work for Terri or any of the other patients who got them, he said.
Michael and the Schindlers persevered, though. They lived together for about two years, focusing on Terri's rehabilitation. In fact, both families rallied around.
Scott Schiavo said he and Michael and their three other brothers, sisters-in-law, nieces and nephews made audio recordings of themselves talking to Terri. Michael played them on a Walkman his parents bought for Terri.
Her room was decorated with colorful posters.
For the first few years, Terri's medical care was paid for through a combination of donations, her health insurance coverage from a previous employer and her family. In January 1993, Terri and Michael received the malpractice award, most of which was earmarked for Terri's care.
The next month, on Valentine's Day, Bob Schindler and Michael Schiavo argued at the nursing home where Terri was then living.
Scott Schiavo, Michael's brother, said the argument was over the malpractice money.
"Bob Schindler went up to my brother and said, 'How much money am I getting?' " Schiavo said. "Mike said, 'You're not getting anything. It's Terri's money.' That's what this was all about. They wanted that money."
Schindler would not say what the argument was about.
"We had one hell of an argument," Schindler said. "Let's leave it at that."
Michael Schiavo and Bob Schindler have not spoken since that day.
Still, efforts to reach Terri continued.
An aide, Diane Gnomes, worked with Terri eight to 10 hours a day, six days a week, from 1994 to 1996, said Felos, Schiavo's attorney. Gnomes read to Terri, took her to museums, took her shopping. Bob Schindler has photos of Gnomes with Terri in her wheelchair at a mall.
At holidays, Bob said, Terri would come home for the day to celebrate.
It soon became apparent, though, that attempts at therapy were not working, Felos said. In May 1998 - more than eight years after Terri collapsed, and five years after the malpractice settlement money arrived - Michael Schiavo asked the Florida court for permission to remove Terri's feeding tube.
