VSED might not be for everyone, but it is the only chance for some to experience an end to unbearable suffering. Done with careful preparation, medical support, and compassionate caregiving, VSED offers a natural end to life.
“We reached the goal for patients like me, who aren’t terminal but degenerative, to win this battle, a battle that opens the doors for the other patients who come after me.”
“Last words—it doesn’t happen like the movies. That’s not how patients die.” — Bob Parker
“We are notorious for ignoring and denying death; we keep death out of sight and out of mind, postponing any serious considerations until death comes knocking at our door. This approach inevitably leaves us unprepared and frightened when we are faced with our own mortality. We seldom get around to asking ourselves seriously,“Will my death be good? Will it be wise? Will it matter?”
It should be clear, as we argued in the first part of this two-part post, that the word “suicide” is not always appropriate. In this second part of our post, we offer a candidate word.
The distress and pain that surrounds the suicide of a healthy person is different in kind and in degree from the distress and pain of the hastened death of a dying person. Vocabularies need to account for the difference between a killing and a death.
I hope others might be inspired to hold frank and open conversations about fundamental questions most of us will face. It would be so much less lonely for us all.
Patients may not be aware that their health care system is faith-based, and rarely understand the restrictions that their health systems have implemented — until they need this care.
“We have a long way to go to educate the public about choices in dying, about defining ‘life’, and about making the end less agonizing for patients and their families.”
When a friend once confessed, “Jim, I don’t think I could do what you’re doing,” I immediately blurted, “I don’t think I could not do what I’m doing!”
