My Father's Name Was Roy, and He Died on His Own Terms, Too

I watched my father die.  He had COPD, and about two years ago he contracted throat cancer.  He wanted to live, and he embarked on a course of treatment that was ultimately successful in beating back the cancer.  But it so weakened him that he experienced a respiratory arrest.  The physicians at the hospital saved him by intubating him.  He went on a respirator, which did the job of breathing for him.

For people with COPD or other similarly aggressive respiratory diseases, breathing is a chore.  Strategies must be learned to cope with the vastly diminished lung capacity and the extreme difficulty of simply drawing a breath.  You’ve seen the commercials on TV, where the elephant is sitting on the person’s chest.  According to my dad, that depiction is pretty accurate.

COPD patients must be careful not to over-exert, or to panic when it seems they cannot breathe.  If you’ve ever been deprived of breath, you know the panic of which I speak – blind terror, wondering if the last breath you took was in fact the last breath you’ll ever take.  COPD sufferers conquer this feeling with a superhuman force of will, calming themselves when everything is telling them to do otherwise.  I still marvel at the way my father handled that.  I doubt I could.

Because breathing is so difficult for people like my father, putting them on a respirator carries with it a unique danger – that being never getting them to breathe on their own again.  For the first time in years, my father breathed fully and with little effort while on the respirator.  It felt good.  It felt whole and nourishing, but it came at a price.  The muscles he had so studiously developed over years of struggling for his air soon weakened.  Atrophy would mean death.

Over the next few months, my father did his best to wean from the respirator, to break the bond with the machine that both saved him and entrapped him.  He did well, going for longer and longer periods before his oxygen levels dropped to the point where the respirator had to be reconnected.  It looked like once again, my dad would beat back the disease that had plagued him for the last 15 years of his life.

It proved to be a false hope, a brief Indian summer before the chill arrived with force and finality.  My father didn’t want to be attached to a machine.  He didn’t want to live out his days trapped within the walls of his hospital room, looking out the window at the breeze blowing through the trees.  A breeze he would never again feel on his skin.  My dad wasn’t “that guy.”

As with the young lady with the brain tumor, he knew how the story ended.  He was entirely lucid – in fact, aside from a tube running from his neck to a machine by his bed, he was the dad I always knew and now knew I would lose before long. 

The arguments for and against assisted suicide are at once logical and emotional.  Neither side has a corner on compassion, and neither side is possessed of callousness.  The question isn’t whether someone should be allowed to die on his own terms; it’s whether someone should be allowed to petition society (through government imprimatur) for a stamp of approval.

There are some things that must lie beyond the reach of bureaucracies.  There are many aspects of life that no form of government, no matter how compassionate or benign, will ever be able to address appropriately, safely, without the possibility of abuse.  People belong to themselves and to those they willingly give themselves to, in marriage, in love.  Government never enters the equation, nor should it.

Some might say the decision my father made is not at all different from the decision this young woman is making, but they would be missing the point.  My father decided to have the respirator removed, and to let the disease take its course.  Without the respirator, my father would’ve already been gone.

This young woman is taking the shortcut, and since no one knows what might lie beyond her hastened death, possibility itself is shortchanged.  But this is not the reason I cannot agree with her decision.  It is her insistence on involving the rest of us, through government, that forms the foundation of my case.

Government is politics.  Involving government in this circumstance makes this political by definition, and as my conservative friends will readily attest, there are always those in government who will use any excuse, no matter how small, to wrest power from the individual and vest it in themselves.

There is nothing stopping this young woman from taking her own life if she is determined to do so, except for her own unease at finding a suitable method.  All her gyrations and family disruptions – moving to Oregon, changing jobs, etc. – are simply to gain approval of her decision – societal confirmation that she isn’t making a mistake.

I believe she is making a dreadful mistake.  I am referring not to her decision to die, but rather to her reckless involvement of government in this most intimate decision.  Whether she likes it or not, she is setting a precedent, and precedents aren’t simply followed.  They are also enforced.

They made my father comfortable, surrounded by his family and soothed by sedation.  The respirator was unhooked, turned off, and removed.  It took my dad about 17 hours before his body gave out and he went home.  I was there for every minute, and will remember it forever.

The respirator gave us a few more months with my father, and I learned so much from him and about him during that time.  I would feel forever cheated had some bureaucrat determined that his time should have come sooner.  The actions of this young lady in Oregon, her insistence on seeking the approval of the state for her decision, make that possibility all the more likely for others.

I love you, Dad, and I miss you.

The author writes from Omaha, NE and welcomes visitors to his website at readmorejoe.com.

There is a story going around the internet about a young woman who has chosen to “die with dignity,” on her own terms, rather than put herself and her family through the expected horrors of a painful and ugly death.

She has a brain tumor, and the prospects are, according to this young woman, nonexistent.  All she has to look forward to is perhaps a few months of relative functionality before the tumor robs her of her life – but not before it robs her of her sanity.

She wants to avoid this eventuality, and any compassionate human being understands her motivations.  The young woman intends to commit suicide before the disease has run its course, sidestepping the worst of it by ingesting a lethal dose of some doctor-prescribed drug.

I watched my father die.  He had COPD, and about two years ago he contracted throat cancer.  He wanted to live, and he embarked on a course of treatment that was ultimately successful in beating back the cancer.  But it so weakened him that he experienced a respiratory arrest.  The physicians at the hospital saved him by intubating him.  He went on a respirator, which did the job of breathing for him.

For people with COPD or other similarly aggressive respiratory diseases, breathing is a chore.  Strategies must be learned to cope with the vastly diminished lung capacity and the extreme difficulty of simply drawing a breath.  You’ve seen the commercials on TV, where the elephant is sitting on the person’s chest.  According to my dad, that depiction is pretty accurate.

COPD patients must be careful not to over-exert, or to panic when it seems they cannot breathe.  If you’ve ever been deprived of breath, you know the panic of which I speak – blind terror, wondering if the last breath you took was in fact the last breath you’ll ever take.  COPD sufferers conquer this feeling with a superhuman force of will, calming themselves when everything is telling them to do otherwise.  I still marvel at the way my father handled that.  I doubt I could.

Because breathing is so difficult for people like my father, putting them on a respirator carries with it a unique danger – that being never getting them to breathe on their own again.  For the first time in years, my father breathed fully and with little effort while on the respirator.  It felt good.  It felt whole and nourishing, but it came at a price.  The muscles he had so studiously developed over years of struggling for his air soon weakened.  Atrophy would mean death.

Over the next few months, my father did his best to wean from the respirator, to break the bond with the machine that both saved him and entrapped him.  He did well, going for longer and longer periods before his oxygen levels dropped to the point where the respirator had to be reconnected.  It looked like once again, my dad would beat back the disease that had plagued him for the last 15 years of his life.

It proved to be a false hope, a brief Indian summer before the chill arrived with force and finality.  My father didn’t want to be attached to a machine.  He didn’t want to live out his days trapped within the walls of his hospital room, looking out the window at the breeze blowing through the trees.  A breeze he would never again feel on his skin.  My dad wasn’t “that guy.”

As with the young lady with the brain tumor, he knew how the story ended.  He was entirely lucid – in fact, aside from a tube running from his neck to a machine by his bed, he was the dad I always knew and now knew I would lose before long. 

The arguments for and against assisted suicide are at once logical and emotional.  Neither side has a corner on compassion, and neither side is possessed of callousness.  The question isn’t whether someone should be allowed to die on his own terms; it’s whether someone should be allowed to petition society (through government imprimatur) for a stamp of approval.

There are some things that must lie beyond the reach of bureaucracies.  There are many aspects of life that no form of government, no matter how compassionate or benign, will ever be able to address appropriately, safely, without the possibility of abuse.  People belong to themselves and to those they willingly give themselves to, in marriage, in love.  Government never enters the equation, nor should it.

Some might say the decision my father made is not at all different from the decision this young woman is making, but they would be missing the point.  My father decided to have the respirator removed, and to let the disease take its course.  Without the respirator, my father would’ve already been gone.

This young woman is taking the shortcut, and since no one knows what might lie beyond her hastened death, possibility itself is shortchanged.  But this is not the reason I cannot agree with her decision.  It is her insistence on involving the rest of us, through government, that forms the foundation of my case.

Government is politics.  Involving government in this circumstance makes this political by definition, and as my conservative friends will readily attest, there are always those in government who will use any excuse, no matter how small, to wrest power from the individual and vest it in themselves.

There is nothing stopping this young woman from taking her own life if she is determined to do so, except for her own unease at finding a suitable method.  All her gyrations and family disruptions – moving to Oregon, changing jobs, etc. – are simply to gain approval of her decision – societal confirmation that she isn’t making a mistake.

I believe she is making a dreadful mistake.  I am referring not to her decision to die, but rather to her reckless involvement of government in this most intimate decision.  Whether she likes it or not, she is setting a precedent, and precedents aren’t simply followed.  They are also enforced.

They made my father comfortable, surrounded by his family and soothed by sedation.  The respirator was unhooked, turned off, and removed.  It took my dad about 17 hours before his body gave out and he went home.  I was there for every minute, and will remember it forever.

The respirator gave us a few more months with my father, and I learned so much from him and about him during that time.  I would feel forever cheated had some bureaucrat determined that his time should have come sooner.  The actions of this young lady in Oregon, her insistence on seeking the approval of the state for her decision, make that possibility all the more likely for others.

I love you, Dad, and I miss you.

The author writes from Omaha, NE and welcomes visitors to his website at readmorejoe.com.