How To Die In Oregon

Brittany Maynard, a 29 year old woman who is terminally ill has been in the news lately for making the decision to pick up and move her and her husband to Oregon where she will utilize the Death with Dignity Act and take a medication that will kill her when she is ready to stop fighting with her illness. To be honest, I have always been unsure on how I felt about physician assisted suicide. I saw on facebook that there was a movie on Netflix called How To Die In Oregon so I decided to watch it. After watching it, I no longer am unsure on my feelings. I now feel that every state should legalize the Death with Dignity Act, currently only 5 states have it, Oregon being one. 

Most of you know that I watched JoEll go through round after round of chemotherapy and radiation and what it did to her body. I watched her get sicker and sicker, I watched her rapidly decline in front of me and her kids. I watched her continually enter the hospital for various illnesses; pneumonia, broken hip, dehydration from the chemotherapy, etc. After I saw this movie, I couldn't stop crying because all I thought about was what if this had been an option for JoEll, and she wouldn't have had to suffer all those months. What if she could control when she died by taking this pill when she had decided that she had fought enough and was sick of being sick. 

The movie follows various people who are terminally ill and who are going through the process of deciding to use the Death by Dignity Law. The woman who hit me the hardest was named Cody, age 54. She had gone through having really bad stomach aches and went into the doctor to find out she had a huge mass in her stomach which turned out to be cancer of her liver, after having one surgery her oncologist informed her that the margins weren't clean and the cancer was back and that she had at most 6 months to live. Cody then decided to call the Compassion & Choices, an organization that assists people with getting in contact with the right physicians and counsels them through the whole ordeal. Cody was married and had adult children, and they really struggled with their mother's decision, as any child would. Who would want to lose a parent? The daughter said something that I found really insightful she said one day she was going through scarves and jewelry with her mom picking out the ones she wanted and she had a moment where she thought to herself how fortunate she was to be able to be doing that WITH her mom instead of having to go through her things WITHOUT her mom. For me, what a bittersweet moment. Cody repeatedly says, along with all the other people in this movie, knowing that she has this medication in her possession, this control in a situation that feels so out of control, gives her a sort of peace. She can decide when she has had enough, when she has fought enough, when she feels she is about to become a burden on her family and humiliate herself by the decline that will inevitably occur with this terminal illness. Cody does live past her 6 month deadline, but a few weeks later starts to decline, she goes from being very frail and thin to looking almost nine months pregnant because the amount of fluid build up on her organs, making it hard for her to walk, breath, eat, essentially the tumors inside her are growing causing her to starve and lose the ability to do basic daily tasks. She goes to meet with her oncologist who offers the idea of having fluid removed from her stomach again, they show the first time where they take over 3 liters of fluid off of her stomach when they are putting a new drain in her, and her husband likes the idea of her doing it again so that she will be around for the Holidays. Cody looks at her doctor and she just says, "I've had enough," she looks to her husband and says, "I've had enough, I can't do anymore," it is the most devastating and heartbreaking moment in the documentary because you are pulling for her, you have this false hope that maybe she will live longer than doctors think, you too are hoping for a miracle for Cody. On top of carrying the fluid around she has had high fevers, can't keep food down, and is increasingly uncomfortable on 75 mg of Morphine AN HOUR. That's A LOT of morphine, and she is still in pain. She makes the decision to do it on a Monday at 6 pm, and asks her oncologist to be there along with family and friends. Although you do see some people take this medication and slip into a coma and pass, for Cody, the cameramen stayed outside the window with the blinds drawn so you hear the conversation but do not see what is going on. At this point in the movie I was hysterically crying, imagine saying goodbye to everyone you love and being told to drink this cocktail made of a fatal dose of a barbiturate in 60-90 seconds and that you would quickly slip into a coma and then slip away. 
So many things were going through my mind at this point, I thought of my mom who had breast cancer, I thought of JoEll who suffered and passed away from cancer, and I thought of how much this pill was similar to how Vets euthanize a dog, I was in the room for putting my golden down and was a mess then. You feel for her kids and her family, even her oncologist who struggled with the idea of writing a prescription for someone to basically end their life when they took an oath to "Do No Harm." But in this situation, letting her live and suffer would be THE HARM.

If we don't let animals suffer, why should we let humans suffer? The Death by Dignity Act allows terminally ill people the right to choose when they have had enough, when they are sick of being sick and constantly having to rely on someone else, it allows them to die with their dignity in tact. I remember when JoEll was going through one round of chemo she was VIOLENTLY sick from it, couldn't keep anything down, carrying around a pink basin you use to pee in at a hospital as a puke bucket. We were sitting on her couch watching a movie and she felt like she was going to get sick and she tried to cover it up from me because she didn't want me to see it, as if it was going to bother me, but more than that it bothered her because she was such a fiercely independent woman that she hated that we all waited on her hand and foot and would even clean her puke bucket for her. This poor woman had nothing left to be in control of, she lost her hair, lost control of the way she looked, lost control of the way her body reacted to food and medication and yet she still tried to keep her dignity in tact by covering up her face when she threw up. Cancer patients feel so alone, they are going through something that no one can understand unless they have gone through it but someone who is TERMINALLY ill, meaning they've been given a death sentence have to feel even more alone, why not give them a little bit of control back by enacting the Death with Dignity Act? 

There is a difference between suicide and what these people are choosing to do. Suicide is an act that is done by perfectly able bodied people who are mentally ill, Death by Dignity is the right to end suffering of terminally ill people who have no other option but to die when they are no longer able to be functional and live the quality of life that is up to their standards. Every one has their own idea of what quality of life is good enough for them, and I do not think anyone including the Government should be policing when that time is. It is not a cowardly thing to do, in my opinion it is incredibly brave, I'm not sure I would be strong enough to make the decision of when to leave my family and loved ones. The people who use the Death by Dignity act are incredibly brave and should be viewed as fighters and survivors as much as the cancer survivors who beat cancer. Society doesn't celebrate the cancer survivors who pass away and I find that incredibly sad because anyone who lives with cancer is a survivor. It's an incredibly terrible disease that takes over your life, and anyone who loves you. 

I cried pretty much the entire documentary and I'm not sure if it's because I am still grieving for JoEll or if it's because I can't help but wonder if she would have used that had it been an option, I know it was because I truly felt for these people in this movie and you can't help but put yourself in their place. If you have ever had anyone close to you have cancer, it hits home, it's incredibly scary. I know in my heart of hearts that JoEll wouldn't have used something like this because up until her last days she kept asking for more and more chemo even though she was told it wasn't working, she was fighting for her kids, she didn't care what she had to go through she was determined to fight and win, however, God had a different plan for her. 

If you have time it is a great documentary to watch. I hope that one day Illinois catches up and Death by Dignity is enacted here so that everyone has the right to choose when they have had enough suffering from a terminal illness.