Brittany Maynard: Was it the right choice?

Brittany Family Photo

A little about Brittany from The Brittany Maynard Fund, Compassion & Choices:

"This spring, 29-year-old newlywed Brittany Maynard learned that she had terminal brain cancer. After careful assessment of her prognosis and end-of-life choices, she and her family reluctantly decided to move from their San Francisco Bay Area home to Oregon, one of five states (including Washington, Montana, Vermont and New Mexico) that authorize death with dignity.

Brittany recognizes it is unfair that the vast majority of people cannot access death with dignity because they do not have the resources and time to uproot their family, seek appropriate medical care and establish a support system."

This issue, the right of a person decide if they should live or if they decide to end their life creates a controversy in my own mind. Advocates call it death with dignity. Presumably, in this case, Brittany chose a quick and painless death instead of a long, drawn out death filled with both physical and emotional pain for the patient as well and the family and friends alike.

According to the Oregon Health Authority website: "On October 27, 1997 Oregon enacted the Death with Dignity Act which allows terminally-ill Oregonians to end their lives through the voluntary self-administration of lethal medications, expressly prescribed by a physician for that purpose."

In my case, I would sure have to have more than one and perhaps several opinions if a single physician determined if I was terminally ill with cancer. If you read the earlier posts on this blog, you will recall that my family physician was barely even concerned about the lump in my jaw. It was determined that they will "just keep an eye on it."

Then I went to the Emergency Room twice and on both occasions, I was diagnosed with having a salivary gland stone and both times it was determined that lemon drops will help ease the stone out of the gland and I will be cured.

It was not until I went to the Ear, Nose Throat specialist that they had suspicions that it was something worse and they referred to the Head and Neck Surgery Center at Celebration Health. a fine needle biopsy revealed I actually had cancer - more than three months after the first botched diagnosis.

And actually, when I look back about six years ago, I was hospitalized after I was bitten by a swarm of fire ants while I photographing a fund-raising walk for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. While I in the hospital, a doctor came in and said he wanted to take a look at things prior to surgery. He lifted the gown up to expose my abdominal area. I asked what he was doing and he said he was checking the area prior to my gall bladder surgery. I set him straight in a hurry and he realized he made a mistake. Thank God an orderly did not make the same mistake and wheel me down to remove my gall bladder.

But this points out how we simply cannot take the word of a single physician when there are issues involving critical health decisions.

Referring to a more recent post on this blog, several physicians, specialists and technicians noted from a CT Scan that a lymph node had grown in size since the last CT Scan. Based on this finding, I was scheduled for surgery to have that lymph node removed.

After surgery, we learned the lymph node in question could not be found. An additional incision was made to look at an area lower from the first incision, hoping the lymph node would be there. It wasn't. Thankfully, there were some other operations they were going to perform during that same surgical procedure.

I am hoping Brttany Maynard and her family had her condition checked, double-checked and triple-checked prior to any decisions being made. If this was the case, I still do not feel I am in a position to judge Brittany or any decisions she may have made. None of us, even Brittany's immediate family, do not know all that was going through her mind when she made the final decision.

Being of sound mind may not even be possible if someone has been diagnosed with a terminal illness. I was told that if I was not able to undergo the radiation treatments as prescribed, I would only have about five to six months to live. I suppose that can be considered a "conditional terminal disease."

I decided I was going to take this head on and do everything I could to beat this cancer that was threatening my life. But again, I did not have an absolute terminal illness. So who am I to say what Brittany was felling. I simply cannot say.

I have seen a friend  die slowly in hospice, but I cannot say he was in pain. He responded to those he loved. Up until the end, he showed the love he had for his wife in the best way he was able to. He was diagnosed as terminal when it was determined that there were no other treatment plans available that could help him.

On the other side, I have many profess that they were given a maximum life expectancy. In other words, they were told they had one year or five years, etc. to live yet they far surpassed the estimate by several years and they were still going strong.

Did Brittany make the right decision? I do not feel I am in a position to say. It is her life and her family was with her all long the way. Surrounded by loved ones until your final breath sounds like a dignified way to die.

Rest easy, Brittany. If there is now a debate as to whether you are in heaven or hell - well that is not for me or anyone else to say either. That decision is in loving hands of our Almighty Father. And that is fine with me. I trust Him and have faith in Him.