Eric McGuinness: As I face terminal cancer, I have one wish
Eric McGuinness writes that he has accepted cancer will kill him but would like some control over the circumstances of his death.
As I face death from the cancer that’s been attacking my body since 2010, there is only one thing on my bucket list — I want to die as easily and humanely as a loved family pet.
But Canada’s Criminal Code prohibits medically assisted dying, which is allowed in 10 jurisdictions, including the Netherlands, Belgium and the U.S. states of Washington, Oregon, Montana and Vermont. Quebec also acted earlier this year to legalize what it calls medical aid in dying.
The skilled practitioners and caring staff in Hamilton’s cancer-treatment system have done their best for me, but despite two major surgeries and a gruelling course of chemotherapy, the disease continues to advance. I’m resigned to the fact that it will kill me. What worries me most is how I will die.
If I wind up in a hospice rather than a hospital and if the symptoms can be controlled, perhaps a dignified, quick and peaceful death is possible. Or I could be one of the people who die slowly and painfully: unable to care for myself, pleading for an end to my suffering. Some people who are terminally ill see no choice but violent forms of death that are horrific to contemplate.
A British Columbia judge ruled the federal law invalid in 2012, a decision overturned on appeal, and the case is now before the Supreme Court of Canada, which will hear arguments in October.
The Canadian Medical Association, at its annual August policy convention, voted 91 per cent in favour of allowing members to assist patients in dying if it becomes legal to do so, and recent opinion polls suggest 68 to 80 per cent of Canadians support medically assisted dying.
I doubt, however, that either courts or lawmakers will act in time to make a difference in my case, so the one thing on my bucket list may be out of reach, as it was for Dr. Donald Low, who guided Toronto through the 2003 SARS epidemic.
Low made a passionate plea for medically assisted dying in a video eight days before his death from a brain stem tumour last year.
“I’m going to die,” he said, “but what worries me is how I’m going to die. I wish doctors who oppose assisted suicide could live in my body for 24 hours. I’m frustrated with not being able to have control over my own life, not being able to make the decision myself when enough is enough.”
Low’s wife, Maureen Taylor, said her husband wanted a prescription for a barbiturate so he could die peacefully in his sleep.
I believe he should have been entitled to that and so should any patient with terminal illness. But Low was denied the option, and “it was not a dignified death that he died,” said Taylor.
I, too, would like the comfort of knowing there’s an option when enough is enough and that’s why I support Dying With Dignity Canada (dyingwithdignity.ca), a registered charity that seeks to legalize assisted dying.
Eric McGuinness, 68, is a retired newspaper reporter and editor living in Hamilton, Ont.
1 comment:
Eric and I have been neighbours for quite some time now and have often gotten together to go places or to have coffee.
He is just such a great guy.
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