Terminal brain cancer patient fulfills bucket list before her "scheduled death"

[suspiciousmind]

http://m.brisbanetimes.com.au/lifestyle/life/brittany-maynard-scheduled-to-die-this-saturday-fulfills-bucket-list-wish-20141030-11dzdh.html

I personally think this is beautiful. We should all be able to choose how we die if the choice is between extreme suffering or peaceful escape.

This drudges up Kevorkian style ideas for sure.. What do y'all think?

[Dustbuster]

Live and let live. Her life, her style, her choice.

[K191145]

It's not my place to judge her, I think it would be cruel to force her to suffer in agony just for a few weeks or a month. That's not living, just existing.

[btq96r]

I applaud her clam approach to how she wishes to end her life and hope I would have the same conviction of beliefs if in a similar situation.  Like Brittany, there is no way I would want to be in the position to watch myself deteriorate, and be a burden to others, but there is no way to do anything but guess at how one would act in that situation.

 

Hopefully the dignity she has presented herself with will help reduce the stigma attached to her choice.  She's a very courageous lady in my eyes.

Edited October 31, 2014 by btq96r

[bersaguy]

Some of you folks know I fished bass tournaments for many years and just quit about 2011 and turned the Skeeter bass boat over to my Son in Law. During the many years of fishing I met some wonderful people but there was on angler in particular that I developed a friend ship with and even though we were fierce competitors while on the water we became the best of friends on dry land. His name was Ray. Now Ray was known to take a nip of two or three.......lol and my glass was never empty while I was with him in the parking lots of boat ramps visiting with other anglers after a tournament.

 

Ray always had a smile on his face and he would normally keep folks laughing with his and Stumps fishing escapades over the years. Ray and Stump won a lot of tournaments over the years. He always told folks it was because they always used my baits that I made special for him and he and Stump did buy a lot of my baits but that is for another time.

 

Back in 2009 Ray was informed by his doctor that he had a tumor close to the size of a ping pong ball causing his headaches and that he needed to have it removed. Well, after some thought Ray decided that he was not going to have an operation and asked the doctor how long he had.

 

The doctor said well Ray, there is really no way to put a time on death but I can promise you the pain will get worse before you die. Ray looked at him and said Well Doc, that is were you come in. your job will be to keep my pain as minimum as possible with what ever medications you can use by law and I will do the rest with Jack Daniels. At one of the Bigger Tournaments that came up that next weekend Ray told all of his friends what his plans were for his future. He told everyone that he didn't want any pity and didn't want any one to treat his any different and we didn't

 

That was I think in March of 2009. Him and Stump fish as usual and Ray cut up and had folks laughing as usual and he rolling bar was open as usual at every weigh in. Stump was designated driver of both boat and truck by then and under the cover in the back of his pick up was the bar. We all could see him going away a little more each time we all saw him. In July he and Stump fish the PBF Inc Trail tournament on Old Hickory lake and in their usual fashion they won it and everyone was glad for them and the bar was open after the weigh in.  Ray took me aside for sort few minutes and he told me that he was not going to be fishing any more and he did not want me to come and visit him any more and he requested that i remember his now and how he is now. I promised him I would do as he requested.

 

The bass fishing industry lost a great angler and a bunch of us lost a wonderful friend on I think it was September 10th 2009 Ray did as this young lady is doing. Ray did it "HIS WAY"

[runco]

In my roll at church, I have had the experience over the years to see people suffer from disease and be in their presence when they pass away.  I have lost a many family members to cancer and heart disease.  I am not scared to die, for I absolutely know my fate.  However, the process of dying does scare me.  I believe all life is precious and is very scared.  For me to make a decision to end my own life regardless of circumstances, personally, socially, economically, or illness, I cannot phantom that thought, it goes against my DNA of who I am, and what I believe, but I do believe people are charged to make a positive difference with someone up to their last breath, regardless if that is their last breath is in peace or in agony.   The positive impact could be with a nurse at the hospital, a doctor, ambulance driver, a neighbor, a friend, a loved one, a story in the newspaper to thousands, a post in internet, or who knows.  

 

The promotion of murder (to me suicide is murder) regardless of mercy or not, should never be in the public eye.  The promotion of all life is scared from inception to the last draw of breath, is what mankind needs, should protect and above all be thankful for!   Be a positive inspiration, or shut the pie hole!

 

My :2cents:

Edited October 31, 2014 by Runco

[satalac]

Personally I don't agree with suicide, but I don't agree with telling someone they can't end their life. I'd strongly discourage it, but it's their life, not mine.

[10-Ring]

I first read about this young lady a couple of months ago and have thought about her often.  Saddest damned thing I've hard in a long time.

[K191145]

I have experienced horrible pain before when a snapped my femur into back in 86 but I new then that that would eventually go away, I can't imagine having that level of pain knowing it will never go away and even get worse, also knowing it will definatly kill me soon anyway.  Personally I think it would be cruel of me to ask someone going through that to continue to endure horrible pain because of my personal beliefs, I wont go into the religious aspects of it. Like I said, it's not my place or anyone elses to judge or decide for them. Even the animals know when it's time, they will go off and lay down and quit fighting when their time is up so one can argue it's natural to let go of this life when it's time.

[bersaguy]

I have seen death in many different ways from auto accidents to war and battle fields and everything in between. I think any form or Cancer has got to be one of the worst ways of all to die prematurely or before old age. I have seen a few friends that fought cancer hard going through all the processes doctors can offer to treat it. I won't go through it either should the time come that I am diagnosed with it. I have already made it clear to my doctors and it is in my Living Will  that I won't do anything to treat the issue. If that is what GOD has decided for me so be it.

 

My family and friends already know my feelings and have no issues with my decision. Like Ray my doctors orders are just keep me as comfortable as possible and let me go in peace with my dignity intact. I had another angling friend that was teamed up with his son and we all fished together. He was diagnosed with cancer and at his families request he chose to fight it and he fought it like Hell and went through all the programs of Chemo and Radiation treatments. His last year of life he was so weak he could not do anything except stay home most of the time. His son fished with a new partner at his fathers request. His father told his son that he wished he would have not fought the cancer and took the treatments and he could have fished with him some that last year. 

 

I do hear of many cases where people are cancer free after taking the treatments or the cancer is in remission but that just means dormant but not gone. I also did some research on this and in about 90+% the patient is under age 35 and relatively in good health when it is discovered. Age plays a very important factor in my opinion and I am 66 so my decision was a gimme. I hope to live many more years but not so many that I become a burden on my family. I trust GOD will grant me the wish that i ask of him each night..........................jmho

[runco]

I don't agree about who are we not to tell someone they can't end their life.   With anything precious, we should do all that we can do to protect it, even if it is not ours.  People need to help people, not ignore people.  Society places to much emphasis on judging or the perception of judging. 

 

Suicide is the most selfish act anyone can ever do, with absolutely no regard to loved ones, friends, and people in their lives. 

[bersaguy]

I don't agree about who are we not to tell someone they can't end their life.   With anything precious, we should do all that we can do to protect it, even if it is not ours.  People need to help people, not ignore people.  Society places to much emphasis on judging or the perception of judging. 

 

Suicide is the most selfish act anyone can ever do, with absolutely no regard to loved ones, friends, and people in their lives. 

I am not sure where your coming from when you speak about people committing suicide. If your calling a choice to not treat an illness that you know if going to take your life suicide then you need to research what Suicide is. Shooting your self in the head, hanging your self, deliberately taking a major overdose of a sleeping pill prescription, jumping off a tall building, stepping in from of a train, jumping out of an airplane with not parachute on are some of the ways a person can commit suicide. Refusing to treat an illness that in many cases will end up taking your life anyway and torturing your body and making your last days miserable is not suicide. That is allowing nature to take it's course as GOD will have it be.................jmho

[Omega]

Though I will fight with all my strength to beat any condition set upon me I feel its a personal choice that should be respected if you wish to end it.  I could understand wanting to counsel those who are depressed, or even mad at the world, from wanting to commit suicide, but a terminally ill patient that has already put their affairs in order and has nothing but pain to look forward to has the absolute right to choose to not to go through that.  To me, its not a selfish act; its a selfish act to want to make someone go through all that because of your beliefs or to delay the inevitable so as not to want to go through the loss.

[K191145]

Though I will fight with all my strength to beat any condition set upon me I feel its a personal choice that should be respected if you wish to end it.  I could understand wanting to counsel those who are depressed, or even mad at the world, from wanting to commit suicide, but a terminally ill patient that has already put their affairs in order and has nothing but pain to look forward to has the absolute right to choose to not to go through that.  To me, its not a selfish act; its a selfish act to want to make someone go through all that because of your beliefs or to delay the inevitable so as not to want to go through the loss.

 

Exactly.

 

Back in mid 2007 I stayed with my dad for his last several months, he had in his living will not to be hooked up to any machines or tubes or respirator and didn't want to be imprisoned in a hospital or nursing home. He had emphsema and I drove him everywhere to the doctor and just rides in the country, maintained his oxygen machine and bottles and administered his breathing treatments, made him vitimin milk shakes when he couldn't eat anymore and for the last two weeks it was a 24 hour job. My mom who was 79 at the time didn't have the strenght to do all that. When he died he was in his bed in his own room in his own house with all the family there. He may have lived another month or two in some noisey sterile hospital hooked up to tubes and a respirator with strangers around him but I have no regrets keeping him at home and taking care of him, I know he was happier to have it that way. I would however have a huge regret if I were to make him stay in some nursing home forcing him to live in misery for just one or two months, it tore my heart out to loose him but I couldn't force him to live for such a short painfull and miserable time more, that would have been selfish on my part if I did.

Edited October 31, 2014 by K191145

[hipower]

I am of very mixed feelings on this one.

As a cancer survivor, I see it from the young lady's point. Although I in no way suffered what she has and will; it was a devastating time in my life.

Not just for me, but for all my family. In fact, the stress I caused them was worse than what I endured. That caused me a lot of sleepless night thinking about their feelings and it was just almost too much to see.

I also had a friend, one of my doctors in fact, who had a form of malignant brain tumors that finally took his life after a 16/18 month battle. I saw his wife and sons in such terrible misery. Knowing that time was running out, and his pain was increasing rapidly.

This fine gentle soul did resist til the end. It was not in his nature to give in or shrink from anything. It was not a gentle passing.

Is it right or not in either case? I feel that we were made to bear a lot. I have been there and can attest to it.

But...we were also given free will. To make choices for ourselves. Wrong or Right...we make them every day.

And we pay the consequences of those decisions.

Will the Lord consider this and the willingness to spare family from more hurt? I don't know.

I guess I'm trying to say that I don't know what I would do in her position. Blessedly, I didn't have to make that choice.

I won't shame or condone for either one. It's not my place. Edited October 31, 2014 by hipower

[btq96r]

In my roll at church, I have had the experience over the years to see people suffer from disease and be in their presence when they pass away.  I have lost a many family members to cancer and heart disease.  I am not scared to die, for I absolutely know my fate.  However, the process of dying does scare me.  I believe all life is precious and is very scared.  For me to make a decision to end my own life regardless of circumstances, personally, socially, economically, or illness, I cannot phantom that thought, it goes against my DNA of who I am, and what I believe, but I do believe people are charged to make a positive difference with someone up to their last breath, regardless if that is their last breath is in peace or in agony.   The positive impact could be with a nurse at the hospital, a doctor, ambulance driver, a neighbor, a friend, a loved one, a story in the newspaper to thousands, a post in internet, or who knows.  

 

The promotion of murder (to me suicide is murder) regardless of mercy or not, should never be in the public eye.  The promotion of all life is scared from inception to the last draw of breath, is what mankind needs, should protect and above all be thankful for!   Be a positive inspiration, or shut the pie hole!

 

My :2cents:

 

As long as that stays a personal conviction, I'll simply disagree.  But when people with similar beliefs (not implying you personally, just people in general) think they have the right to enact those beliefs through legislation, trying to deny someone the ability to make their own choice with assistance in a situation like Brittany is in, I will be there in opposition to such laws.  In my eyes, it's her life and she has a right to end it if she wishes.

 

Also, as long as there is division on the issue and legislative involvement (she has to do this in Oregon for a reason) it very much belongs in the public eye.  Unpleasant things shouldn't be off limits for debate just because they aren't easy to talk about.

[Dolomite`s Breezy]

I would not want to burden my husband or child with having to take care of me.Its an emotional and financial burden.If I knew that I was going to die a death that is painful and lingering,I would do the same thing 

 

My father committed suicide when I was 2. It hurt a lot of people and I never got to meet him.There are many issues I still to this day cant find closure for.But I understand why he did it. And I dont fault anyone who is in such pain to end their own life

 

I can understand her for wanting to do this. Its a personal choice.And I respect that. 

[Oh Shoot]

Like most thorny issues, I tend to default to individual freedom. Obviously anyone can off themselves whenever they want, but without benign help the methods are generally either iffy or rather gruesome, certainly far from a peaceful end.

 

Seems to me it's pretty simple at least in the case of terminal illness. State should require maybe a couple of diagnoses in agreement, and then allow a doc to prescribe a painless way to go for the individual to avail when he chooses.

 

So far, the "individual freedom" thing has swung the balance, to my mind,  in most every complicated issue I've contemplated -- save one, that being abortion, where I still remain just about perfectly ambivalent.

 

- OS

[Caster]

I have no issue with it at all. Her life, her choice.

The church perpetuates this anti-suicide rhetoric to the point of stupidity. They cannot substantiate it with anything other than thou shalt not kill. Bah! The Hebrew bible reads more along the lines of "shall not commit murder" . Big difference in ending life and murder.
Personally I think the church was always so solid on the matter as a means of control, and the fact that dead people don't fill offering plates.

I have nothing but respect with a person who chooses NOT to be a burden on their family or society. The decision should NEVER be taken lightly though. Its pretty morbid to force a person to live when the future only holds pain and torment.

[LagerHead]

I truly can't understand people who tell others who are in immeasurable pain that ending that pain is immoral. Disagreeing with their choice is one thing, but condemning it...meh, I'm just not nearly smart enough nor have I been through anything like that. But hey, the great thing about freedom is it allows us to do things that other people find deplorable.

[runco]

I am not sure where your coming from when you speak about people committing suicide. If your calling a choice to not treat an illness that you know if going to take your life suicide then you need to research what Suicide is. Shooting your self in the head, hanging your self, deliberately taking a major overdose of a sleeping pill prescription, jumping off a tall building, stepping in from of a train, jumping out of an airplane with not parachute on are some of the ways a person can commit suicide. Refusing to treat an illness that in many cases will end up taking your life anyway and torturing your body and making your last days miserable is not suicide. That is allowing nature to take it's course as GOD will have it be.................jmho

Do you brush your teeth?  Why not let nature take its course?  Obviously, a littly silly, but life is precious, and we should as individuals protect it to the best of our ability!

[Caster]

Do you brush your teeth?  Why not let nature take its course?  Obviously, a littly silly, but life is precious, and we should as individuals protect it to the best of our ability!

 

 

Even when the quality of life is so poor that the life being protected is begging for the end?  I've seen the pain cancer causes and before I suffer that fate, I will greet death like an old friend.

[runco]

I knew I would take a lot of criticism from my response, but I just believe that life is special and very precious.  As society looses this concept, and hides, yes hides behind I respect choices, and who am I to judge others, the precious human life becomes more distant and grows cold with value.  We already murder children before they are born by no fault of their own, we are already on the path to let terminally ill people kill themselves and we promote it as if that was honorable and respectful.  Oregon already allows medical help to help qualified terminally ill people end their life.  What is next?  Let people die because its too costly to treat the medical conditions, murder mentally ill people because their quality of life and society cannot be compared, people with certain religious affiliations, legalize all illegal drugs so people can do what they want, get rid of people with red hair, people who are fat, people who smoke, people who don't wear motorcycle helmets, and so on.  Once we take away the sanctity of life, where does it stop.  All life is precious and deserves protection.  

 

Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness was once just a dream.  I guess that should be changed to just Liberty and pursuit of happiness............... :2cents:

[Joe357]

I knew I would take a lot of criticism from my response, but I just believe that life is special and very precious.  As society looses this concept, and hides, yes hides behind I respect choices, and who am I to judge others, the precious human life becomes more distant and grows cold with value.  We already murder children before they are born by no fault of their own, we are already on the path to let terminally ill people kill themselves and we promote it as if that was honorable and respectful.  Oregon already allows medical help to help qualified terminally ill people end their life.  What is next?  Let people die because its too costly to treat the medical conditions, murder mentally ill people because their quality of life and society cannot be compared, people with certain religious affiliations, legalize all illegal drugs so people can do what they want, get rid of people with red hair, people who are fat, people who smoke, people who don't wear motorcycle helmets, and so on.  Once we take away the sanctity of life, where does it stop.  All life is precious and deserves protection.  
 
Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness was once just a dream.  I guess that should be changed to just Liberty and pursuit of happiness............... :2cents:

Everything he said... Thanks be to God!

[Caster]

"I" wasn't criticizing you. I respect your opinion and your right to have it.

I think, I could be wrong....but I think you may be confusing personal choice with euthanasia. The line must be CLEARLY drawn at 'personal choice' and anything more is beyond contestation. Sans a living will or power of attorney, NO ONE should EVER have the authority to make the decision for you. Not EVER. It's why I am a firm beleiver in having a last will and testament and where applicable, living wills and DNR's.