Death with dignity

[captain queeg]

I posted recently about a friend who is dying from prostate cancer. Just thought I’d do a follow up. He’s terminal and has already aquired the prescription to end his own life. I figured I’d go up and visit and say my goodbyes. I booked a hotel for a couple nights but ended up staying almost a week. He can get up and move around a little with a walker. I took him to Costco when I first got up there that really seemed to cheer him up. He lives alone and I’m sure sitting there by himself is very depressing. He has local friends that stop by and bring him stuff.

When I offered to come up he told me he’d talk to me out on the porch for a few minutes but when I got there he invited me inside we didn’t talk long since I’d just driven for 8 hours and had to go checkin at the hotel. He looked terrible, lost all his hair and 35 lbs since I saw him in the summer. When I’d talked to him a couple weeks ago it sounded like he was ready to pull the plug. The third day he was drinking and was being obnoxious. I was trying to be supportive but after awhile I just left. I checked out of the hotel next morning and stopped to see him on they way out of town. He wasn’t openly apologetic nor did he ask me to stay. That’s his personality, but I could tell he really wanted me to hang around so I booked another place and stayed till Sunday. I’d go over a few hours per day. He had really turned around by the time I left, back to his old self. He’s a fighter. Has already tried all options and has lasted much longer than anyone imagined. The doctor got a new chemo treatment approved. When I got there he said he wasn’t going to do it and had everything lined up to end his life but by the time I left he said he would try the new chemo.

I certainly made no effort to talk him into that. I admire how he’s facing things. But as bad off as he is I don’t think the cancer will kill him for a month or two. He’s on pain pills but still living alone. I’m pretty sure when he can’t live alone at his own house that he’ll pull the plug. He’s already been on hospice twice. By the time I left I had the feeling I’d see him again. When I first got there I thought it was a last goodbye.

I’d talked about this in an earlier post it’s just something I’ve thought about lately. My brother died earlier this year from ALS and where he lived there was no option for medical assistance to end your own life. I’ve read that only about 20% of people who received the dwd drugs ever used them. For myself I could see the comfort of knowing you could use them if you chose.

[Walleye]

1. I've gotten used to living alone. I can't imagine how horrible it is with a terminal disease

You are doing good things taking care of him like that.

[slightlv]

2. I can appreciate your friend's wish to die on his own terms

I wish we had that option for ourselves, too. Frankly, I think that ought to be everyone's option, given that they're of sound mind. IMO, it's just one more way in which religion intrudes upon our lives in a country in which we're suppose to be religion-neutral. Condolences on the loss of your brother. Strength and power to your friend - and to you, captain.

[Lucid Dreamer]

3. Death with Dignity info and orgs

Long before the internet my father and I talked philosophically about end-of-life preparations.

He was born in the '20s and I was born in the '40s. Our discussions were based on shared military experiences. He was in WWII Pacific and I was in RVN. We shared experiences of perceived imminent death. Under certain circumstances we agreed that voluntary termination of life would be appropriate.

At that time, we did not have much published material.

From an envelope postmarked 6 June 1972 [8 cents postage]
Euthanasia Educational Fund
250 West 57th St., NY, NY 10019

There was a short document to be attached to a will.
Briefly, it starts out:

If the time comes when I can no longer take part in decisions for my own future, let this statement stand as the testament of my wishes: --- I'll add the blah-blah in later posts.

On a trip to my father's home in California 1985 he gave me a brochure from
The Hemlock Society, now known as Compassion and Choices.
I can't find that right now.

Acording to Wikipedia there is still the associated
Hemlock Society of San Diego
PO Box 34237
San Diego, CA 92163

I'm interested if any of you have any sources of Right to Die or Death with Dignity information.
Please share here.
I'll do some more digging from current web-based info sources myself.
Help me out if you can.

[captain queeg]

4. I don't know much about it, but my friend always used the term Death with Dignity

So that’s what it must be called in WA state. ORhas something similar too, I’m sure you could find them on the internet.

To complete my thread I got a text the day after thanksgiving that he’d done the procedure the previous day. I was t surprised, I figured he’d do it soon, but when I left from my visit he seemed in pretty good spirits. But he’d told me at the beginning of the week he’d been approved for a new chemo treatment. Then he told me he wasn’t going to do it. I knew then he was going to pull the plug.

[Lucid Dreamer]

5. Ex-lawmaker dies using medical suicide law he helped pass nearly a decade ago

Ex-lawmaker dies using medical suicide law he helped pass nearly a decade ago

A former Vermont lawmaker died last week using a medical aid-in-dying law that he helped pass nearly nine years earlier, before his terminal diagnosis. Willem Jewett, D, who served two years as House majority leader from 2013 to 2014, died Jan. 12 at his home in Ripton, Vt. He was 58.

Jewett's palliative-care doctor confirmed to the Vermont-based digital news outlet VTDigger that he died using a prescription obtained through Act 39, also known as Vermont's Patient Choice and Control at End of Life Act. Jewett was diagnosed last year with mucosal melanoma, a rare but aggressive form of cancer, according to his obituary.
...
State Sen. Dick McCormack, D, who voted for the original 2013 law and is the lead sponsor of the current amendment, recalled Jewett's commitment to Act 39 even as it faced opposition in the General Assembly.
...
In the days before his death, Jewett had lobbied for an amendment to Act 39 that would make the law easier for patients to use. Jewett told VTDigger in an interview that he found some of the law's restrictions and barriers "completely meaningless."

"If anyone wants to suggest that I, or anyone else who's gotten to this stage, hasn't thought long and deeply about this, and if they've made the request, hasn't done it with information, or at the end of the day, conviction - they're crazy," Jewett said in the interview, which was published the day he died. "What do people think we do when we're sick in bed? There's a lot of time to think and figure things like that out."

Vermont is among nine states and the District of Columbia where terminally ill patients can obtain prescriptions to end their life. Consideration to amend Vermont's current law comes as at least three states - Delaware, Massachusetts and New York - consider enacting similar legislation.

The amendment to Act 39 that Jewett lobbied for would eliminate barriers he faced in his final weeks, Jewett said in his last interview with VTDigger.

Under the Vermont law, patients over 18 who have a terminal condition that could kill them within six months and who can make independent medical decisions can request a lethal prescription from a doctor. But patients must undergo multiple waiting periods throughout the process and seek the approval of at least two doctors.

Vermont's proposed amendment would eliminate a final 48-hour waiting period, provide immunity from state homicide laws for nurses and pharmacists to help a patient and would allow for patients to consult with doctors via telemedicine - a provision McCormack said was crucial in a state where many rural residents are otherwise forced to make painful and inconvenient trips to the doctor while terminally ill.
...
"He was indignant when he saw people who had arguments that didn't make sense," McCormack said. "When an issue was controversial and he was advocating for something, he was a scrapper. He wouldn't let you off the hook if you said something stupid."

The Vermont Senate is expected to take up consideration of the amendment as early as Friday.

[captain queeg]

6. I got a all the day after thanksgiving that my friend had used the prescription

I’d seen him a few days before that and he was going to see his doctor to see if he was accepted for a new chemotherapy. He did get accepted but told me he wasn’t going to do it. I knew then he had made up his mind