Courage of the highest order.

[bigvalboy]

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/10/07/young-san-francisco-woman-with-brain-cancer-plans-to-end-her-life-on-nov-1-brittany-maynard-oregon-compassion-choices-assisted-suicide-death-with-dignity-oregon/

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http://www.people.com/article/Brittany-Maynard-death-with-dignity-compassion-choices

[wisconsinguy]

Courage is the only word to call it. This right should be a national law. Animals have it! Lovely lady.

[armadillo]

RIP Brittany.

I don't blame her at all, especially when facing death from brain cancer. That disease has the potential to rob you of your mind and personality before it kills you, so you're not even you anymore. She chose to go out as herself, on her own terms.

[+ Chris Eisenhower]

I think the mistake so many observers of this case have made is labeling Brittany Maynard as "suicidal." If anything, she's the opposite. While I know what it's like to be affected by cancer, I do not know what it's like to be dying of cancer. To tell someone like Brittany—who has been diagnosed as being terminal—that she's making a mistake because "there's always hope" is rather insensitive, IMHO.

 

I'm sure that the last thing someone wants to hear is that their God "has a plan" for them and that's why they have cancer, but you know... God may decide at the last minute to reverse His course and let them live another day after all. The human body gives out. It's as simple as that. We take meds to ease pain and suffering all the time, and I'm not sure why this course of action is any different.

[+ deej]

I think the mistake so many observers of this case have made is labeling Brittany Maynard as "suicidal." If anything, she's the opposite. While I know what it's like to be affected by cancer, I do not know what it's like to be dying of cancer. To tell someone like Brittany—who has been diagnosed as being terminal—that she's making a mistake because "there's always hope" is rather insensitive, IMHO.

 

I'm sure that the last thing someone wants to hear is that their God "has a plan" for them and that's why they have cancer, but you know... God may decide at the last minute to reverse His course and let them live another day after all. The human body gives out. It's as simple as that. We take meds to ease pain and suffering all the time, and I'm not sure why this course of action is any different.

 

I agree. I admired that my mother had the guts to call off treatment and call in hospice when it was clear she was losing her battle with cancer. The doctors would have gladly continued the fight, even though it was clearly a losing fight. She just wouldn't have it.

 

You know, cancer patients have a joke:

 

Q. Why do they nail coffins shut?

A. To keep the oncologists out.

 

I just wish she'd had the option, should she choose it, to skip the last month of absolute hell on earth. Knowing her, she might have chosen that route.

 

This should be a personal right. Oddly, those that typically bluster and yell about "personal responsibility" are usually the first to deny THIS personal responsibility.

[armadillo]

You know, cancer patients have a joke:

 

Q. Why do they nail coffins shut?

A. To keep the oncologists out.

 

This is why Doctors practice medicine.

[+ honcho]

We have respected members of the forum who are physicians. Some sensitivity please!

[gallahadesquire]

I agree. I admired that my mother had the guts to call off treatment and call in hospice when it was clear she was losing her battle with cancer. The doctors would have gladly continued the fight, even though it was clearly a losing fight. She just wouldn't have it.

 

You know, cancer patients have a joke:

 

Q. Why do they nail coffins shut?

A. To keep the oncologists out.

 

I just wish she'd had the option, should she choose it, to skip the last month of absolute hell on earth. Knowing her, she might have chosen that route.

 

This should be a personal right. Oddly, those that typically bluster and yell about "personal responsibility" are usually the first to deny THIS personal responsibility.

 

We have respected members of the forum who are physicians. Some sensitivity please!

 

Honcho, lighten up. Physicians need a good whack upside the head now and then. I really liked that joke. A friend of mine is the Chair of Radiation Oncology,

and he's one of the nicest, most caring physicians I've ever met, present company included.

 

As for me, and I am unanimous in this: From the time I was close to graduation from Medical School, my mother asked me

to make sure that, when it was time, I'd prescribe something that would do her in. "I can't do that," I told her, "but I'll

ask your doctor to give you a prescription that, if you take all of it, it will kill you." "Oh, THANK YOU!" she said.

 

Her death was sudden, but we surprised everyone by being unanimous. "What do you want us to do?" "Thank you for

what you've done," said I, "but don't do anything else." "Oh. That's what your step father said." "And he would be right.

Don't do anything else." They were surprised by our vehemence.

 

Our country is SO backwards with respect to "Right to die" and "Dying with Dignity," it disgusts me. At least some of

the press, regarding this young lady's decision to end her life, said that the entire Cause will come back from its ennui.

I certainly hope so.

 

I think the [expletive deleted] who want "Everything done" are on the decline; and those who "don't want to be a burden"

are getting to be more expressive.

 

If anyone wants more of my opinion on this matter, please PM me.

[+ purplekow]

Nearly 1/2 of the total monies spent on medical care are spent in the last year of life. Years of parental neglect are replaced with misguided notions of miracle cures and prolonging of life which in many cases is prolonging of death. As a physician, I have advised patients with terminal illnesses to spend their last months living and not dying but almost invariably, they opt for the protracted death rather than the shortened life. I should make it clear, the patients are given full advice including the option of doing little or nothing and when there is a substantive chance for meaningfully life prolongation, I advocate for that. But when life expectancy extenstion for toxic treatments is measured in weeks or months, I make sure that patients are aware that doing nothing is doing something.

One of the saddest encounters I have ever had with a patient occurred soon after the death of her husband from pancreatic cancer. The cancer was far advanced, inoperable and the life expectance was measured in months. Asked for my opinion, i advised a long delayed vacation and no further treatment. The toxic nature of further treatment was explained. After much soul searching, they opted for ongoing treatment. After his death, 6 months after this meeting, his wife came to tell me how much she regretted not taking the advice to vacation. She related the tortuous nature of his treatment and its inevitable failure to add any significant useful time. She ended with: Perhaps if we had chosen to go on vacation I could think of him as living his life in those last months, instead of running from dying.

When my wife was ill with terminal cancer, we spent time in Saint Thomas and at Disney. Those three weeks, just two months before her passing, are responsible for some of my best memories of that year and our time together. Deciding to delay treatment for disease metastasized to the brain until the after our trip, was difficult but I am sure it was the right decision for her and for me. Disney is the Happiest place on earth and it is so even when you are living with terminal cancer. Saint Thomas always held special sway with us and reliving our first vacation together as a last vacation allowed us to talk about our lives, our love and the battle hard fought soon to be lost.

[+ poolboy48220]

My first exposure to this kind of thought was the old movie "Arthur", the Dudley Moore version. When Hobson is in the hospital and Arthur is sneaking gourmet meals into his room, the orderly tells him "You're killing him with this stuff". Arthur replies "I don't want his last meal to be Jello".

 

My mother spend the last week of her life on a breathing tube, unconscious. It wasn't overagressive doctors, the tube was supposed to be a temporary thing until she could recover from a respiratory infection, but she was never able to start breathing again on her own. She would have been horrified if she knew that was the way she'd die.

[+ quoththeraven]

I'm not sure whether to blame doctors or patients' families for expensive, often painful, and ultimately futile treatment of the terminally ill. It takes courage to say "no more." Sometimes it's said by inaction; I knew someone who put off getting a second opinion on a relatively rare cancer that typically moves quickly long enough to make another round of chemo moot. I think that was easier than telling her (adult) children that she didn't want another round of chemo because they would have thought she was throwing in the towel.

 

The husband of a former co-worker of mine was convinced by a well-known NYC hospital specializing in cancer care to authorize aggressive treatment that did nothing to prolong her life and made her final days a misery instead of a time to enjoy what little time she had left with him and their two young children.

 

For whatever it's worth, the very few terminally ill people I've known who stopped aggressive treatment and started hospice (i.e., palliative) care more than a week before their deaths were people of deep religious faith and conviction. It seems as though they and their families are the ones who don't feel guilty about abandoning aggressive treatment because they know medical science doesn't have the answer to everything.

[wisconsinguy]

I have cared for terminally ill patients, including children and babies. In their homes for over 40 yrs. Working in critical care, I was signaled out to care for the trauma patients that were deemed donors. Actually, the nurses in these situations care for the family. In ANY of these situations it is so important for care givers, family members to try and be honest with each other. It sounds like such like a simple principle. But, the end of life is about the person that it is happening to. I have been thinking about getting duel citizenship in either Washington or Oregon. I have a nurse friend who does home care in Wash, and tells the system works very well there. We have came a all way in 40 yrs to relieve human suffering, but most of the time the individual needs an advocate.

[armadillo]

I I have been thinking about getting duel citizenship in either Washington or Oregon.

 

I thank you for your caregiving Wisconsinguy.

 

However, you do NOT need to get citizenship for another State here in USA, just residency.

[wisconsinguy]

So true!