Death

Caroline, thanks for your illuminating post. I'm so sorry to hear of your diagnosis, my best wishes too.

The information about nitrogen is very interesting, I've never heard about that before.

Thanks! It is a result of TBI and subsequent undiagnosed Central Alveolar Hypoventilation so not got a 'roadmap' on how it will progress...

Caroline sorry to hear of your diagnosis hope you have got right treatment I have had several colleagues with early diagnosis of dementia and are doing ok with medication Best wishes ?

I am so very sorry about the diagnosis caroline.

Hi everyone! I have long campaigned (well, written letters, e-mails and posted comments as an individual) for the current campaign to pressure doctors into breaking their Hippocratic Oath to 'give over' and accept that they are putting the cart before the horse when they pay £££ to lawyers to change the law.

I used to be CEO of a helpline charity and am Samaritan-trained so my perspective is about supporting people. The point is that anyone who is not totally paralysed (like Tony Nicklinson) does not need any help to end their life at a time of their own choosing in a pleasant way at minimal expense. The problem is that I suspect that (possibly after my letter!) people such as Tony and Terry P took the easy route and did this without being brave enough - or their relatives being brave enough perhaps? - to go public.
The option is breathing pure Nitrogen. N makes up 80% of air and our brains cannot detect the absence of the usual 20% oxygen which is the bit it needs! hence there is no sensation of suffocation, one merely goes light-headed and often a bit high or carefree and falls asleep. In fact I first heard about this in the excellent Horizon programme fronted by Michael Portillo which asks if there is a humane way to execute people. It is here: www.documentarytube.com/videos/how-to-kill-a-human-being-2

If you would prefer not to watch the gruesome survey of current methods of execution start at 36mins in.

Anyway he concludes that yes there is! But it would never be adopted because the Public would never accept the worst of crims dying pleasantly when for most of us it is a nasty struggle... Of course immediately I leapt up and said 'Yes but I know who would!!!!'.
NB it is impossible to restrict nitrogen obviously and it is easily purchased in cylinders for a type of welding. Plus just having it available as an option would be tremendously empowering for many and be empowering thought they might never use it.
As for the law, well at the moment someone could quietly bump off a nuisance relative undetected so the sooner this is recognised and people make video statements and charities like DiD stop paying lawyers and send an unconnected person along to 'witness'/film the process the better, surely? As law students are taught - the Law does not lead - it catches up to protect.
Btw though still in my 50s I was last week diagnosed with the beginnings of dementia so it sort of brings this further up my agenda...

Eldest's MiL had motor neurone disease, poor woman (poor husband too.) He cared for her at home for some time, then she ended up in a nursing home. I went to see her a few times, and when she got to the stage when she was 'locked in' she could communicate yes and no by eye movements.
TG she didn't last long after that. She was a lovely person, FiL too.

Oh, I see. Sorry. I read your post out of context. Lost track.

I completely agree with that Baggs.
The idea of having it available to anyone was being bandied about a bit on this thread, tho.

Assisted suicide being made available to anyone who wanted it is not on the table, FN. As I said up thread, those arguing for assisted suicide are arguing for it only for people who are already terminally ill and who choose it for themselves to end their intolerable suffering.

Just like we choose it for our pets sometimes because their suffering is intolerable.

It will NOT be relatives or friends of the dying oerson who makes the decision. I've read quite a lot about this and what is proposed is very tight. Look up dignityindying.org.uk and Sarah Wootton.

www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/15340671.Colin_Campbell__Glimmer_of_hope_has_allowed_me_to_call_off_my_suicide___for_now/

Colin Campbell has Multiple Sclerosis and in this link he explains why he intended to end his life at Dignitas on 15th June, and why he has deferred doing that.

At the moment, there is no public expectation that people should voluntarily shuffle off, just because they are old and/or unwell.
One reason for that is the nastiness and unreliability of suicide.
If nice, safe, reliable assisted suicide was made available to anyone who asked for it, pressure could easily arise towards some sections of society.

Exactly! Which is why it would be kinder all round to have assisted suicide, that will be effective and will be pain free for the small section of dying people who really want their suffering to end.

It is cruel to keep people alive when they are dying anyway and in desperate pain, with an appalling quality of life.

I understood the poster who made this suggestion was thinking in terms of a legalised framework, with presumably medical supervision. Suicide is not always successful, even when desperately wanted, and can be unpleasant and painful.

M0nica people already have the choice to take their own life 'just because' they've had enough. But there are those who do not have that option sometimes because they are kept alive against their wishes or, in the cases of some cancers, their bodies refuse to die quickly even when they are in agonising pain.

Palliative care is not the pain-free option it is made out to be.

Also, in places where there are safe assisted dying laws already, fewer people with terminal illnesses are commiting suicide. Presumably the knowledge that, in utter desperation, they have a way out, is of comfort to them and makes the endurance seems not so bad. I can imagine that because just having my pain control beside the bed at night often means I don't have to use it. It being there if I need it makes a huge difference. My GP understood that when I told him.

Good post, as usual, m0nica. Yes, I can see that danger but, as you and I have both said, that is not what assisted dying is about. The people arguing for it are arguing in favour of reducing the intolerable suffering of people already very ill with a terminal illness, or with something like locked in syndrome.

Interestingly, I read something recently about progress that is being made in helping people with locked in syndrome to talk through a computer. That might relieve some of their abominable stress if it becomes viable.

Baggs, I think the concerns arose when a poster suggested that it should be possible for someone to legally choose to die just because they had had enough of life and couldn't see any point in going on. No illness, just had enough of life.

This was the step that, for me, sounded the alarm bells. Easing the deaths of the dying, which is the aim of assisted dying, is a very different matter to sanctioning the death of someone fed up with living

If ending your life for any reason is legalised, it slips imperceptibly into people being expected to take it as the option because they are old, perhaps need carers or are 'full of the problems nobody dies of', to quote a phrase of my grandmother's. Not because they want to, but because it is expected of them.

Some have the strength of character to ignore these hints and tips, but not everyone does. Peer pressure works at any age.

Don't doctors have to take an oath, which includes not assisting suicide? Or maybe it's optional.

Agree with all the points you've raised Baggs. It is only a matter of time before the laws are passed, but society has to progress to the stage where compassion outweighs emotion and muddled thinking.

It is downright inhumane when someone has to end their life in the indignity of excruciating pain when it is their expressed wish to die.

Or even one's ordinarily ill relatives.

Perhaps that's what people haven't picked up on? Assisted dying is only for those who are already dying, already terminally ill, but who just want to get out of the suffering loop slightly quicker.

It's not a tool for bumping off one's healthy relatives.

It's interesting that so many doctors are opposed to assisted dying. Perhaps, having been exposed to so much illness and death, they don't trust their own callousness.

Vets manage.

Why is the terminal suffering of a human being less important than the terminal suffering of a dog?

Assisted dying is only for people who are terminally ill already.

Where assisted dying laws are already in place (check out Oregon where there have been assisted dying laws for well over a decade), lawyers have covered all the inheritance-chasing problems. Family are not involved in the decision. Checks are made, several times, with the person who wants to die, by properly qualified people.

To my mind assisted dying is just one step on from DNR.

If the lethal injection (is it always an injection? I thought there were pill-taking alternatives, in which the patient takes the pills themselves. The 'assistance' they get is being provided with them) is to reduce suffering, then yes, I would, just as we give lethal injections to our pets when their suffering becomes too great. I was glad when my father died, when his suffering, caused by lung cancer ended. This doesn't mean I wanted him dead. I grieved and I still miss him twenty-four years on, but his suffering was too much. Even my mum felt some relief that it was ended.

A doctor's job is surely to reduce suffering (I would argue that that is a better description than "to save lives"). If death is the only way out, and chosen by the sufferer under no pressure, then it is not outwith a doctor's remit to assist.

Exactly.