Many thanks to everyone…I hope this debate can continue and that people who fele strongly about it will do their own little bit of campaiging as and when the time arises. I don’t expect a change in the law in the UK in my lifetime…unfortunately the power of orgnaised religion is too entrenched in the state to allow a liberalisation of th law yet…but who knows we can chip away.
Snowhite…I think you are right that there has been no prosecution of anyone who has accompanied a relative to Switzerland but some have been questioned for many hours and there are certainly cases of people assisting suicicde within the UK who have been prosecuted. I think Debbie Purdy’s campaign for clarity about the posituion of those who do travel overseas is a really important contibution towards opening up the law.
But being sure of one’s right to be accompanied to Switzerland is not far enough in itself. Indeed Switzerland is too far. One probalem as I see it is that many (as I do) would feel that probably if they were well enough to travel to Switzerland it would not yet be the right time to die. But leave it, and you get too ill to travel anywhere.
Anyone wanting to make a Living Will…forms are avaialble from Dignity in Dying which take account of recent legislative changes.
A couple of people have mentioned doctors upping the dose of morphine towards the end of life and this practice…sometimes called ‘double effect’ is legal. Basically a doctor can adminsister pain killer with the primary intention of alleviating suffering even if they know that as secondary effect would likely be death. However, because the law is so unclear around end of life decions many doctors are uncomfortable about the uneasy position taking such individual decisions puts them in.
Ruth: I think anyone with a terminal illness faces enormous struggles and questioing about treatments, about living with their illness and about how they want to die. I would hope that one characteristic of a civilised modern society would be that a framework of law exists to enable each individual to make the choices which feel right for them. Dying is not a competition in suffering. Living is not simply about not dying (thank you Roberta for that one) You ask at what exact time I would ask to die. I don’t know. I haven’t got there yet and hope not to for a long time. I don’t know how my disease will progress, which organs will be affected, what my symptoms will be, how much these can be managed tolerably in a way which is manageable for me. I might well choose to die earlier in the disease process than others would do in their own situations. Just knowing that I could have this choice within carefully prescribed limits would enormously relieve my emotional distress.
Cherub…I read about Margo MacDonald in the Dignity in Dying newsletter and I am so glad she is speaking out on this issue.Good on her.
Longden: thanks for your support.
I don’t have any religious belief and I do confess to smiling at god’s incompetence in making cancer drugs, but being incompetent at everything else no surprise there…
As others have said, I think this is all about being allowed to have a choice. The choice to die at a time that is right for both ourselves and our families. I don’t know when that time would be for me but I do know that when that time comes, I probably would not be fit to travel to Switzerland - plus I (having thought about this extensively since being diagnosed with secondaries) by preference would choose to die at home surrounded by my family. I am no longer afraid of dying but I am afraid of dying in pain and the distress that that would cause not just me but the whole family. If an assisted death at the right time ensured a peaceful and planned for death, I would definite opt for that. And it would ease my concerns now to know that I had that option available to me if I chose to take it.
Can I also comment on what you said Liverbird about people on the secondaries forum battling to stay here as long as possible? I wouldn’t want to speak for others on the secondaries forum but speaking personally I don’t relate this statement to myself at all. I know there is very little (if anything) I can do about the way my disease progresses (other than take the various treatments) and I don’t see myself at all as battling the cancer or battling to stay alive. I have a very “what will be, will be” view. What I do “battle” to do though is try to ensure the cancer doesn’t take over my life more than it has to and that I continue to live a happy and fulfilling life - but I know that I need to add to that “for as long as possible”. Despite my treatments and illness, I feel I am doing that for the majority of my time although often it is a struggle. I think that is very different from what you have said, Liverbird. Plus maybe when I am unable to do that and my quality of life is very poor, that will be when I would choose to die.
As I said at the beginning though this is all about choice and my choice will be different from other people’s. Do the other people though who don’t want that option, have the right to deny it to me though?
This is such an important topic that I hope everyone will post their views. I think its valuable to hear the many different sides of the discussion. For my own part I would welcome the introduction of assisted dying. Just having that possibilty would bring great relief to many people, and those who do not wish to use it do not need to. I personally fear the process of dying in pain and with the loss of dignity which is so often the case more than the actual death.
I also feel that the law as it stands is very hard for doctors who deal with terminal patients. I know a lot of you on here don’t think much of doctors; I read it in your posts, but not all are heartless, and it can be truely distressing to be begged for help that they cannot, in law , give.
I thought long and hard about responding to the questions posed by these posts as everyone is entitled to voice their opinion and sometimes certain subjects can become quite heated and personal.
I believe that God made us and that only he can decide the time of our death.
I would not like to put the awful responsibility of deciding when the time has come for my death on to anyone, doctors, relatives or friends. I also do not think that I have the right to decide myself to end my life at a certain time.
We can all only hope one day through research and advances in treatment (and not only in cancer treatments) that in the future no one, whatever their thoughts or opinions have to make such a decision.
Thistle
It is a shame that you had to think before posting your opinions on this topic. Not least because your opinion is of course as valid as the next persons. To read different points of view is good, and makes food for thought.
The difference I think between posts that are acceptable as anothers point of view and those that can become heated , is that any acceptable post uses the words ‘me’ and ‘I’, not easily tolerated are those that use the word ‘you’. This no matter what the topic.
Margaret
Didn’t think I was alone in the way I try and live each day, Belinda, but still good to be agreed with!
Just wanted also to say, Thistle, that I agree with Margaret in that it is a shame if you feel you had to think hard before posting - though I do know what you mean. There have been many threads on here where I too have been reluctant to post because I thought it was all getting very heated and I didn’t feel I needed the angst of it all. I totally respect your views and that you feel you don’t “have the right to decide myself to end my life at a certain time”. I suppose again this will be one of the differences between the two “camps” in that I do feel I have that right but when the time comes, I may not have the ability to end my life in the peaceful (or “open”) way I would chose. And I would never want to add to the distress of my family in involving them in something that was not above board.
I also agree with you JoJo that it must be extremely difficult and upsetting for many of the doctors - I work for the NHS and know that the vast majority do truly care.
Hi - not sure if I should be included in this debate, as my husband and I have had a very difficult weekend when he is threatening suicide as his Neurologist said there is nothing he can do about his walking difficulty and he will end up in a wheelchair. He is a very intelligent electronics engineer and cannot bear to be dependant on anyone, but has always been there for me, with 38 yrs of Crohn’s and 5 yrs of breast cancer. Currently got huge problems with Crohn’s and looking at life threatening surgery for strictures… what am I going to say to him, at 80 yrs old? Should I have the surgery, or live in pain and die from the strictures bursting?
Some 10 yrs ago, I sat beside my late twin brother’s bedside, at home, holding his hand when he was terminal with an inoperable brain tumour. His second wife just got on with her career, travelling abroad, and as I was young retired, took over the care giving. Some days, all I could do was mash up some ice cream and spoon it to him through cracked lips. It was heartbreaking.
My brother’s GP came in twice a day to see how he was, I administered the morphine on the schedule the GP gave me, and eventually the GP gave him an overdose and he passed peacefully away, at home, and in his own bed, beside me, where he wanted to be. Nobody suggested a hospice or inpatient treatment.
I have no religious beliefs and indeed subscribe to the Darwinian principle of survival of the fittest. When I do depart this mortal coil, I hope I can go the same way as my brother, at peace, in no pain, and surrounded by a loved one. I don’t think we need to go to Switzerland, and my brother certainly couldn’t have made the physical trip, but each to their own beliefs.
Very difficult subject that I am glad Jane raised.
Wish God would tell me what he wants me to do. He doesn’t. Not obviously. In the meantime, I appear to be making my own decisions. Don’t know what God thinks of my past decisions because he doesn’t tell me. Not a lot, I imagine. Oh well, did my best. We rate ourselves very highly but I gather God does not think highly of most of what we do. That is why, as I understand it, he has made certain arrangements for us. We may think we are doing the right thing by leaving our dying to God. But why then do we not leave our living to God also? Why when we have a fatal illness do we intervene? Does it not mean that God wills that we die? At what point is it right that we allow God to take over from us in the decision-making? Would it be wrong to choose not to have any treatment? Why is it acceptable to treat the cancer, because we are afraid of dying, but when the dying bit comes, we must not use the drugs we have?
…so very complex, isn’t it. I must say, reading your posting Snowwhite, makes my own situation feel so much more straightforward.
I (and this is just a very personal “where I am at”) don’t believe in God. This does at least remove the aspects of sin and punishment and of a higher authority having a master plan for my life that I might or might not want to go along with, or “arrangements” being made for my demise! There are huge ethical and practical issues that surround assisted dying and I remain undecided on what benefits or harm would come with a change in the law. I am a huge believer in the hospice movement, and that no one should have to suffer unbearably when they are dying, even if intervention shortens their life. Everyone has their own view and it is so important that this is known to those who love them, and those who care for them. Look forward to reading lots more comments on this.
We’ve been away for the weekend and I’ve just logged on and had a read.
I support Jane’s views.
There’s more to life than being ‘alive’. I do not want to be helpless, incoherrent and in pain when my time to ‘go’ arrives. Lots of you know that I have an oddball way of looking at things and have declined some treatments because of side effects making life intolerable.
To me there are ways of living which , to me, are worse than dying - my Dad has his first stroke when I was 9 my sister 6 and my brother 4, he made a full recovery and did so frome the next one when I was 17. When I was 21 he had a third and he spent from 1972 to 1976 unable to walk, feed himself, speak or even push himself up when he slipped down in his chair. My Mum had a heart attack from the effort of being his ‘carer’, and he spent his las 2 years of life in hospital. Don’t get me wrong, I loved him and hoped with all my heart(as we all did) that somehow he would recover. I do not want to be in a postition to need care like that. Once I get to that stage I want to go quickly as I will not be alive but only breathing.
I hope that I never need to think about this and that I die like my Father-in-law did, with a book on my knee and a mug of tea on the hearth. More upsetting for those left, but better for him. My family have had a warning about me, cancer is a wake up call to all of us, and we are making the most of our lives.
I’m lucky not to have secondaries, but who knows what the future holds. I know what I don’t want it to hold.
Seabird, I often think things may be more straightforward if one doesn’t have a belief in God. Trying to secondguess God is a futile endeavour, which is part of what I was trying to say I think. I certainly don’t think we need worry that what we do may be the wrong thing, because I have no doubt that it will be, whatever it is, because we are all said to be sinners - which, as I understand it, only means we are less than perfect, and we don’t know everything, and that applies to all our decisions, not just life and death ones. That is, if God exists. If there is no God, then you are probably right - we do not need to worry about whether we are doing the right or wrong thing by trying not to die or trying to die sooner. What I was suggesting, paradoxically, is that even if one does believe in God, and even if there is a God, we still can’t know his view on it, so we still just make our own decisions in the same way. And I feel sure he will not be excessively perturbed by one person’s trying to surrender to his will by not intervening, and another person’s trying to end their own and their family’s suffering by intervening. I feel sure, if there is a God, that he loves both of those people just as much. It may be that we talk about ending it when it’s all too bad, but when the time comes, God or fate will take that decision out of our hands.
I agree fully about the difficulties of implicating others in our dying, and of framing a law that would allow all and only the right cases of hastening death, and about the hospice movement. I am worried that although it has been said to be legally permissible to alleviate pain with morphine that will hasten death, not everyone who needs to know that seems to know that. I am also worried that I have heard that some people’s pain resists all efforts to relieve it.
This is something I have thought long and hard about for many years, well before I was dx.
I have always believed in the choice of the individual when it comes to death and have never understood why we, as an intelligent animal species, think it so necessary to try and find a way to outwit death no matter what it costs in terms of quality of life.
I would always support the individuals right to choose a dignified death if they wish and dread the thought of a long, drawn out, painful and dependant death as I often think it can cause more damage to the ones who are left behind than a quick release - just my own opinion.
I am not religious as I consider religion to be a man made state, although I do have beliefs and respect the beliefs of others.
However what I do find shameful is that in the instances where a person has been willing to travel to Switzerland with a loved one in order to assist them in their death, not only have they had to deal with their own grief at losing that loved one but the fact that they should then be subjected to the possibility of criminal prosecution and endlless questioning has confirmed my view that a change in the law is required.
I am in total support of any individual being able to decide for themselves if they wish to die with dignity. throughout all the ins and outs, the debate, the arguments for and against albeit valid for both sides of the argument. one thing is strikingly clear to me and should not be in my opinion brushed aside and dismissed. …FREEDOM OF CHOICE… we are human beings with our own individual voice. i fully believe that it is a persons right to decide this for their own “self”.
I think it’s difficult to get a balanced view from posts, as often the supporters of freedom of choice in dying are more vocal - or possibly less inhibited - in expressing their opinion. At least that’s the impression I get.
Personally, I’m a pro-choice, like many of us who have posted, and have been for a long time. My opinion’s only been strengthened by a recent short stay in hospital after I broke both arms and could do absolutely nothing for myself. Having to be fed spoon by spoon, and ask someone to wipe my behind is not anything I want to live with.
My partner and I have discussed at some length what’s an acceptable quality of life, fully aware that it could probably change hugely if, for instance, I had full mental faculties and no pain, but still required someone else to carry out all my personal care on a permanent basis. I can’t accept, though I can understand, the reasoning behind the ruling that if you’re fit enough to get to Switzerland to die, you can - but that’s quite probably earlier than you would choose to go if you were allowed to ask for help to get there.
A book that I found interesting was by a medic who worked in a hospital in Holland where assisted dying was available - it’s called “Dancing with Mister D” by Bert Keiser and talks openly about his approach to patients who had asked for his help in ending their lives.
Having watched my darling dad die miserably of lung cancer with bone secondaries which eventually made moving him impossible = no more visits to the loo = loss of self respect = hell for a very proud man. I wish he had had the choice to die when he decided, in his own home, with his children around him. Not in a hospital bed with bed sores, a nappy and entering in and out of a drug induced stupor, waking only to realise he was still here and still suffering. It was at this point that I stopped believing in God.
Sadly organised religion, as Jane points out, will do anything in its power to prevent any of us having an active say in the manner of our passing. This is an unfortunate fact, and a political battle to be fought and won.
I did, however, permit myself a wry smile listening to the R4 coverage of the Anglican communion self-destructing over its hatred of gays and women. With all the troubles in the world, you’d think that surely a church which proclaims a doctrine of love and compassion could find something a little more appropriate to concentrate on.
I’ll stick to cheerful atheism, and will support the campaign for the right to an “easeful death”. Unless I fall off the motorbike first…
Having been a nurse and seen how long it takes some people to die after they lose consciousness and having been in the hospice and the cancer ward where older women were dying next to me, I still believe is assisted dying.
It scares me so much that I may be unconscious for a couple of days before I finally die and that my family will watch this I am in favour of assisted dying. I’ve talked this over with the hospice, my onc team and my family and they all agree but the law is not on my side to achieve this. I just have to hope something happens very quickly so that I can say goodbye to my family and friends if they want to and then die. My little one’s fear - aged 8 - is that I will die when he is not with me but I don’t think he really understands what he is saying.
All I can do is make my imtentions clear and hope the doctors use ‘the secondary effect’ to my advantage.
I never know how much the unconscious person hears but have often found that people seem to die the minute they have been left alone as if they are just waiting for that moment to be alone in their final moments.
Last week, in hospital, the lady who’d been in the hospice with me for 2 weeks was dying and she was getting quite distressed in the middle of the night. We had talked about Bible readings in the hospice and she had told me her favourite piece so I sat and read that to her which calmed her down till morning and then i went home and just hoped her final moments would come very quickly as she and her family were so distressed by how long it was taking her to die. They and myself felt there should have been some way to put her out of her misery and I know from our conversations that was what she wanted as well but it just wasn’t happening.
It is the only part of dying that scares me as it seems a twilight world to be in so count me in any campaign.
Kate
Tend to sit on the fence with this one,…so to speak.
I have no strong religious beliefs…as far as religion goes I’m not sure what I believe…if anything.
I’ve watched my nan die from cancer, I’ve watched my mother-in-law die from cancer and a stroke, i’ve watched a close friend die from breast cancer…3 very brave people…but also there were the agonies the families went through, one member of the family disagreeing with another over their loved ones treatments and what they thought their loved one would want during their last days.
I believe if a living will is written this pressure is taken off the family…they may not be happy with the contents of the living will…but I would hope because it outlined their loved ones last wishes they would respect them.
I intend to write a living will…I know our families want us to stay with them as much as we want to stay with them…but if this is not possible…I think we should be allowed to make that one final decision.
None of us can know how we’d feel if we’d reached that point…but I for one would like the choice…so please count me in any campaign too.
I was not going tt post on this thread again as i felt i annoyed everyone earlier in the thread. By not saying i could join in with the campaign.
Just wanted to ask is it assited dying to have a morphine syringe drive then diamorph? Don’t most hospices and even hosp use them as a matter of routine? Thats what i would want. My mum had that and it was such a peaceful end.
Kate so lovely of you to read the bible to that lady, i want someone to sing religious songs to me.(preferably Katherine jenkins, maybe a bit expensive though)