Original subtitles

And, does anyone have questions? Okay.

He has to drink, if he can,

sixty to ninety seconds.

He drinks the medication, and that will put him in a coma,

within a matter of minutes,

and after that...

We wait for me to die.

Yeah, and we can never predict how long that’ll take.

Now, Roger, uh, I talked to the other woman in there,

and she said the stuff tastes pretty nasty,

you could have some juice or something in there

to take the taste out. I want to see if...

Yeah, I’d like to have something... We have cream soda.

Oh, you do. Okay.

Do you want to get that ready, in case Roger wanted some?

Bring the goddamn glass, already. Roger, wait a minute.

Before you take it,

I’m gonna ask you those two questions again, Sure.

and I’m serious, you have the right to change your mind.

My mind’s not changing. All right,

and what will this medication do?

It will kill me, and make me happy.

We can hand you the medication now,

and we ask you to drink it, in sixty to ninety seconds.

You don’t have to gulp it, just take it slowly.

It tastes, pretty bad,

but you have here a soft drink to chase it down with

afterwards, if you cannot take it solely.

Mmm-hmm. Do you have any final words

you’d like to say to your family?

I thank you all for being here.

We love you, Rog.

We’ll leave you alone.

I thank the

wisdom

of the voters of the state of Oregon,

for allowing me

the honor

of doing myself in

at my own volition,

to solve my own problems.

So, thank you all.

We love you. We love you, Rog.

I don’t really want to watch this part.

Well, it’s kind of too late now.

You don’t have to gulp it, Roger. You can drink it slowly.

Slow it down.

Can somebody wipe my chin? Sure.

Tastes like wood.

He’s never been a drinker, so he wouldn’t know it.

What wood is? Not about wood alcohol.

Ready? Lift him, lift him.

Ah, it’s comin’.

Ah, it’s comin’.

For my head is hanging low,

I hear the gentle voices calling.

Old, black Joe.

I thank you all,

particularly the team

that prepared the medicine.

Tell the next person that it tastes "woody,"

but it is not, it is not rejectable.

It was easy, folks. It was easy.

Good-bye, Roger.

Gordon Green, doctor dropped a prescription off for me this morning.

Gordon Green? Yes.

I have Blue Cross Regency, First Choice 65.

Do you have your card with you? You bet,

I didn’t think this would be covered.

All righty,

your total, sir, comes to $89.52. Mmm-hmm.

There’s your merchandise.

There’s your card back.

Thank you very much. Well, thank you.

and have a very good day.

I’m going to, everyday’s a good one.

How you doin’? Fine.

Yeah, we’ll hurry home.

Where do you want this? I’ll take it.

I’ve gotta find out if

I have to refrigerate it, or not.

Apparently not, it didn’t say nothin’.

This here is the final medicine I’ll have to take.

Hi Sue, this is Gordon,

I know it’s Sunday, and I just leave a message for ya.

Yeah, I picked up the medication today,

at Buy Mart, and we have it here, in the house.

Have a good day, and a good weekend. Good-bye.

There, oh boy.

Well, I’m glad that’s done.

Yes, that was easier than I thought.

Yeah.

Hi Sue, this is Gordon. I know it’s Sunday, and I just leave a message for ya.

I feel very privileged

to be on the forefront of such a vital

medical, social and political movement.

What I think about when I’m meeting someone for the first time,

is, there’s always some anxiety,

and I think that that anxiety is productive.

I would never want to become,

uh, laissez faire about this whole process.

And what I think about is,

are they going to understand exactly what it is

they’re pursuing, and what the process is?

And also, what’s almost always foremost on my mind,

is that they know, that they are in charge.

That they’re the boss.

Hi Elizabeth.

Hi Mrs. Lucke, I’m Sue Porter, with Compassion.

We’ve talked on the phone a few times regarding

wanting to make your own end of life choices,

and getting a medication

to maybe, end your life, if that’s what you choose to do.

So, I’m here to...

These people

have lost so much control, and they tell us repeatedly

that they want the medication, for control.

Whether they take the medication, or whether they don’t,

at least, they can make that decision.

Unfortunately, I was diagnosed

with ALS, about a year ago,

and I just received my

uh, six months diagnosis

to live.

I still can walk, with difficulty, but that’s when

that ends, then I’m gonna

you know, be makin’ that decision.

So, Gail, how do you react to everything that Peter is saying?

This is the way he’s thought for a long time,

it’s just gonna be hard,

we’ve been together for a long time,

and, uh,

he’s wonderful, even now.

He helps me in many ways.

This is the

request for medication,

to end my life in a humane and dignified manner.

You will sign this, Peter, and then you will have

two witnesses sign it

and what they say is that you’re of sound mind,

and you, you might find that the time that is in your mind,

of when you can’t walk anymore Mmm-hmm.

might change, that changes all the time with people. Yup.

and there is nothing set Right.

in stone. Okay? I understand that. I appreciate it.

Everything’s ready then.

Okay.

There’s a very, fine line here

of never, ever, ever wanting them

to think that we are selling a process.

We’re not. What we’re doing is offering choice,

and so as I communicate with people, and as I contact them

I really, always want to be sensitive

to that principle.

Oh, make sure and request

Seconal. You want the one that costs less?

I don’t know. Which one is it, that you just drink?

That’s Nembutal. Actually, I see it in these notes right here.

Uh, Nembutal...

We, uh, Mrs. Wakefield, we cannot quote these prices for sure,

Yeah, right.

I understand. but Nembutal is well over a $1,000

Seconal is $130.

I go into these situations

with a certain amount of pragmatism, because I have to.

If it were all emotional, I couldn’t do this work.

Hi Sue! Hello Donna, how are you?

Pretty good, how you doin’? Just fine, thank you.

Good to see you. It’s good to see you, too.

Hi Gordon! Hi Sue.

You’re lookin’ great. Thank you.

Sit up.

Uhm,

Donna or Gordon, do you have the medication? Yes.

Down in the lower drawer, way in the back, right hand side.

Yeah, we picked it up.

No problems. Great.

Everything went well.

We hope it stays right there, but, uh,

if I’m in that bed, and I’m

racked up with a stroke or somethin’ like that

that’s when I want it.

I’m not gonna lay there and be a burden to her.

You know,

I saw my dad for twelve years

with a stroke, and one whole side was gone.

Says it’s like livin’ in a barrel.

See out, hear everything,

physically couldn’t do anything,

and he kept saying, "I just want out."

And my mom ended up the same way.

She wanted out. Oh.

And I couldn’t, I didn’t

figure why they’d want to do that,

but I understand now.

You can only handle about so much garbage, you know,

and then you’ve had it. Mmm-hmm.

And uh... but I’ll handle it until

somethin’ like that happens.

Okay.

So, you got Seconal.

There’s three different medications here.

I know we’ve talked about this before, but you know,

we represent choice, we don’t represent death. Oh yeah.

So, um,

if you were ever going to make the choice to take this medication,

this is how it would work.

I’d ask you two questions. First of all:

You have the right to change your mind.

And secondly, I would ask you

to explain to me what this medication is going to do.

And you have the choice of doing this any way you want.

You could have just Donna here.

You could have friends here. Nah.

Just this one.

You can always change your mind.

Mmm-hmm. It’s totally up to you.

And then, what this is, is Seconal.

In Seconal, there’s a hundred capsules in here.

You don’t take a hundred capsules.

That would take me all day. Yeah, exactly.

I would be exhausted. Yeah, yeah.

What, um, I would do is open ’em up

and um, empty the powder

and then add six ounces of room temperature water.

I’d have a good, cold beer to wash that down.

Yeah. You could have whatever you want.

Um, this has to be consumed in about a minute,

or minute and a half. Oh, that’s a piece of cake.

and normally, uh, people go into a coma,

really Gordon, within a few minutes.

Oh, the heart’s so bad it wouldn’t handle it.

Yeah. I mean it should pop it right off the bat.

I’m getting little episodes damn near every day now.

You are?

So I don’t think I’m going to need that, but I wanna just

just go in there, lay down some day and go to sleep, and not wake up.

That’s the decent thing to do. Mmm-hmm.

So for once in my life, I’ll be decent.

I’m feeling good. We can do this again.

It’s not the last one.

I’d forgotten how steep these hills are.

Okay...

shall we... I think this is...

Well, actually,

should we try and go to the top? I’m good for it.

What if it’s uphill on the way back? Should we...

Okay, well you can carry me back.

Okay.

I am feeling so good. I got a lot done

this morning, already. I went to Goodwill.

Oh, which reminds me, I was going to invite people to shop my closet

but you guys could go first.

You’ve gotta touch the tree.

Chris said she wanted an old sweat suit, shirt of yours.

She did? She wants that green hoodie. I thought

that’s a good idea, then I thought what do I want?

And then I said, "Can I have the Volvo?"

You may borrow it any time.

Um, well, I think

we can loop back down.

through the... How are you feeling?

I’m good. Actually,

if you want the Volvo, Stan will probably...

In November of 07, I had a terrible stomach ache.

It was kind of pain that takes your breath away, which I never, ever have.

So, I hike myself into the doctor a few weeks later.

She ordered an ultrasound for me,

and she got the results of the ultrasound, then she called me into her office

and then she burst into tears.

Um,

and she said, "You have a big mass on your liver."

Cody had a primary cancer of the liver

that was roughly the size of a grapefruit.

It was the type of cancer that we don’t have any good

chemotherapy agents for,

or any good radiation agents for. So,

it’s the type of cancer that

is treated surgically,

or we don’t have a lot of effective options for.

We kind of had the one shot of taking it all out and

and, hoping that that was going to be enough for her.

I had the first surgery.

It seemed to have gone all right

and then there were complications, and I ended up in the ICU,

um, in the hospital for fifty days.

I was in a coma for quite a while.

And all of a sudden

I open my eyes really wide and said,

"What is happening to me?"

The night before

her second procedure,

she was supposed to be taking pain medication, pills,

and she was throwing up and couldn’t keep the pills down.

So, the pain medication was wearing off

and she said then you know,

"I don’t ever want another night like that."

If she had died in the hospital

it really would have felt like she was pulled out of our hands

because then you’re still

fighting to keep her.

And that’s what hospitals are about. It’s about that fight to keep people alive.

I had to learn to walk again.

I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t go to the bathroom by myself. I couldn’t shower by myself.

I fell and I couldn’t get up.

It took six months before I was able to take care of myself again.

We were actually all starting to feel that maybe we’d dodged the bullet,

and then the radiologist said

"You know there was something that looked a little funny on the CAT Scan."

I saw it, and had to give her that call saying that

there was obvious cancer recurrence.

The cancer was back and we didn’t have any really good options for her.

The outcomes for this disease have not changed

in 30 years.

If you can cut it out, great.

If you miss any cancer, it’ll be back

and it’ll be more aggressive.

She said, "If this comes back,

I know that I don’t have any good treatment options

and I want to be able to

have that in reserve, the Death with Dignity Law."

It kind of shocked me thinking about it in the intellectual realm

of, this is a law that supports my values versus

I’m actually going to take a pen

and write a prescription for something that will

end someone’s life.

What really settled the decision for me was

talking to my sister, who’s a breast cancer survivor,

and I talked to her about how much I really

really liked this woman and how much we had been through together.

I mean, we had slogged through a year together

in a very close, very intimate relationship as,

as patient and doctor, and how

fond of her I was and fond of her family I was.

Um, my sister just said, "Well,

of course you’re going to do it.

You have to help her. You’re her doctor."

And that’s really the deciding point for me.

If I had an option I would prefer not to die, thank you very much.

Um, but given that I know I’m going to die, does an extra three months

if, um, of

fluid leaking through my pores

sound that great?

Well, no.

I’d rather go when I’m still feeling okay

and when I can still communicate with my family.

She cares a lot about her kids.

She’s also

very dignified. I think

when she looks sick,

for her that’s very difficult,

because she wants to present herself as being healthy.

I grew up in the country.

We put our dogs and our horses down.

We didn’t let animals suffer.

I think Cody taught me

that, first do no harm,

is going to be different for every patient.

Harm for her would have meant

taking away the control

and saying, "No, no, no. You’ve got to do this

the way your body decides,

as opposed to the way you, as a person, decides."

Sorry.

Did you have a shooting pain? Ah, yeah.

Yeah.

Are you taking any pain medication or anything?

I got some today

because this kind of pain

is kind of scary.

But I haven’t taken any.

I never take...

I just...

But it’s pretty clear that

that kind of

pain takes away your ability to make decisions, too.

Let’s see. So, here are the drugs.

It’s very comforting to know that they’re right here

and I don’t have to go through any more bureaucracy,

I don’t have to take another trip to the pharmacy.

Um, they’re here. The, the...

it’s whenever I decide.

It’s not that anything that I have to do.

It’s not like in the hospital where I was told, "You have to have another

CT Scan or we’re taking you down to, to

do another procedure."

It’s, it’s my choice

when to take them and whether to take them.

My volunteer has told me that I’ll know

and I just have to trust

when my life isn’t worth living anymore.

It’s a pretty day, that’s pretty amazing.

When you guys were little we brought spare pants, and

and spare shoes for you, but

we didn’t do any of that this time.

It feels a little bit like, I’m a dead woman walking.

It’s this curious limbo of

getting a diagnosis that’s this dire

and having this period where

you don’t know what’s really going to happen, except

with Death with Dignity,

you do have some control over what’s going to happen.

You can offer that

to your family.

So, is the tide going in or out?

Yup. Very funny.

And so it means, you can have some good times

and go for a walk

and go back to the coast

and have things be as normal as possible without being focused on

"When’s she going to die?" Because you know that.

My son, the engineer and mathematician

has a little trouble with this

and he hasn’t talked to me very much about it.

When she found out, like a month ago, that she had cancer again,

um, that was pretty surprising.

She called me on the phone.

The way that she broke the news is that

"The cancer’s come back. I have six months to live

and things are going to be fine.

Uh, and it’s gonna, like, things are going to be fine?

Six months to live and I’m not going to do anything?

Ah, that sounds like the opposite of fine.

How do you tell her that things are not going to be fine?

My rational was, you know, you have two choices

either you can blow up on her over the phone,

when she just found out she had cancer,

um, and make her feel even worse,

or you can just be comforting

and say, "Okay, I’m sorry."

Um, and I chose the latter.

Oh T, you made me come up here...

T said, "I know you’re struggling, but if you

aren’t struggling for you, would you struggle for me?

And of,

of course I would if I thought there were a real chance

but there’s not.

Uh oh.

Thank you.

It still feels kind of like ah,

you give up when you don’t try everything out there

but I still think that’s the

the rational and, I think, the right thing to do to not

not try and seek every option because

95 percent she’s only going to gain

ah, two or three months. That’s a lot of extra pain.

Ah, and uh,

and a lot of extra cost.

This is not a good idea. Whose idea was this?

I know it’s hard for them, but they’re great.

Beautiful, beautiful!

I know they’ll be fine. I’ve writing them letters, so I’m thinking about...

That’s, that’s the other wonderful thing about this Death with Dignity.

It gives me a chance to think about how I want to leave things with them at the end.

The, the images...

Sorry.

There are moments where she is just so ready to go.

She doesn’t like being sick

and then there are the days when she, you know,

healthy and grateful to be alive.

I’m not going to die with the fluid

oozing out of my pores in my legs.

I’m not going to weigh 200 pounds again.

I’m not going to lose my hair, again.

I am not going to be humiliated

with losing control of my bodily functions again.

This is, will be tidy and,

while not easy for my family

it’s a lot better than the alternatives.

She says it’ll be easy, but I think it’ll be hard for us

uh, when, when she does

you know, take,

take the drink and uh,

final rest really um,

but I plan to be there.

Hello. My name is Odill,

and I was wondering if you have any information like um,

written information or anything like that. I’m considering it

within um, the next few months.

That’s it. Thanks.

My name is Derek Humphry.

I’m a journalist and author,

President of the Euthanasia Research and Guidance Organization,

founder of the Hemlock Society, thirty years ago.

The Hemlock Society’s mission was,

A, to help people

with their problems of dying

here and now,

and secondly,

uh, to change the law

in the best way possible,

democratically across America

to allow the choice in dying.

I became involved in the issue in 1975

when my first wife was dying of cancer,

and ah, I had no knowledge of

euthanasia movement or right to die, or anything.

In those days, it wasn’t a public issue

you would be very unlikely to know anything about it.

Last night an instructional video tape shown on television in Oregon

sounds harmless until you consider the tape

is a step by step guide to committing suicide.

NBC’s Dan Lothian has the story.

How to die, now on television.

From mixing the lethal brew,

to finding the right gas and bag.

Then find a clear plastic bag, just big enough to go over the head.

A step by step,

do-it-yourself program from Derek Humphry,

the author of the best seller’s suicide guide, Final Exit.

This is my average daily mail. These are all

uh, copies of Final Exit

or The Good Euthanasia Guide.

Compassion and Choices, which is a national organization

took over the Hemlock Society a few years ago,

and then there’s a very fine, little group

Compassion and Choices of Oregon.

The key to the Oregon law,

and why it passed and why doctors have accepted this,

is that the doctor does not actually kill the patient.

The patient kills themself.

The American Medical Association

like nearly all medical associations throughout the world, ah,

are against euthanasia

ah, which is direct injection.

The sort of thing that Dr. Kevorkian did that got him in prison

for nine years. Direct injection into the vein.

The Oregon law has been thoroughly tested

and now its time to try to get it going in other states.

The right to die movement recently tried to pass a law in Washington State

which is similar to Oregon’s law.

It was quite a contest.

All these photographs, I look at and

I can just see it, how much in love I was

and how much I just adored him.

I can see it on my face,

and I can see it on his face,

and I can feel it as if it were yesterday

that what I felt when this picture was taken.

I just thought I was the luckiest person in the world to have met him,

and I was. I was.

At the age of 55, in the year 2000,

went to a doctor and found out that Randy had brain and spinal cord cancer.

Which is a very, very grim diagnosis,

and we knew that this was gonna be how he was going to die.

And the treatment for it, it is very harsh.

And creates a lot of side effects that can be even

worse than dying.

He had surgery that removed part of the tumor

in June of 2000.

Then he went through months of radiation treatment.

He had three different kinds of chemotherapy

and they took out his medulo, on one side of his head

which controls balance. He was then stumbling and falling all the time,

cut open his head. I’d come home from work and find him bleeding.

Then in 2005, the cancer came back and Randy

decided he didn’t want to continue treatment and he said, "No, I’m done."

He told hospice that he wanted them to help him

and give him some aid in dying when he felt the time was right,

and they said, "We can’t help you. It’s illegal."

So, he told them that he wanted to move to Oregon

’cause he knew it was legal there.

They said, "You’re not going to live long enough to be able to establish residency."

He said, "Then, if you can’t help me, I guess I don’t need you."

After that, things got bad.

He was in a hospital bed 24/7.

He couldn’t control his arms and legs

and he’d be just screaming in pain.

Probably one of the worst is that he became incontinent,

and he had to be in diapers

and he hated that.

He had double vision and then his eyes started popping out of his head

from the tumors, so he couldn’t close his eyes.

A year after this picture was taken

and we were up at the hospital, and they were asking Randy for his

Medicare card.

The person at check-in assumed he was 80 years old.

So, in one year of looking like this to the next year,

they thought this was an 80 year old man.

And he would,

every day talk to me about how he felt,

that he was half in his body and half out,

and he’d say that he could feel himself leaving his body

and then feel himself going back into his body

and he said, "Nancy, I’m trying to figure out

how do I stay out of my body?

How do I get out and stay permanently out? I don’t want to come back."

There was nothing I could do, but to hold his hand.

That was it.

Six weeks before his death he said,

"Nancy, this is going to get really painful. It’s going to get ugly.

Promise me that you’ll help change the law."

And I said, "Yes, I promise you that I will change this law," and I had no idea

how I was going to do that, or how that would happen.

I had no thought about when it would happen

or how long it was going to take when I made that promise to Randy, it’s just

when you love somebody you say, "Yes, I promise you I will."

And you figure out the rest later.

About six, seven months after he died,

I spoke to some of the employees of Compassion and Choices and told them

what Randy had wanted and I said, "You know,

"I’m willing to do anything, anything. This is what my husband wanted

and I will do anything."

And then they contacted me and let me know they were going to be going down to

our state capital in Olympia

and they asked me if I’d be willing to go down and speak.

And I said, "Absolutely,"

and that’s how I got started.

I have not signed yet.

I had asked the campaign

if they’d be willing to let me be the last signature

and they said, "Yes, absolutely," that I could do that.

My name is Nancy Niedzielski.

Two years ago, this month my husband, Randy, died from brain cancer.

Please help me fulfill the final promise that I made to my husband

by making Death with Dignity legal

by voting yes on I-1000.

Thank you.

When I finally signed the ballot,

I was so overwhelmed by the emotion of it

that I was actually having a hard time signing my signature.

One step forward. On to November. I was shaking.

This is for you Randy. I love you most of all and then some.

I think for a while I felt like everybody was waiting for me to die.

I don’t feel like that anymore.

I feel like myself again.

For the first time, since this all started

I feel quite perky.

It’s kind of

discombobulating in a way. It’s like,

"I’m supposed to be really sick,"

but I feel great

which is pretty cool, actually. I may have another Christmas with the kids.

So, things seem

really kind of almost back to normal.

It’s a new normal. It’s a different normal.

I wouldn’t set a date again.

When you’re first diagnosed you want to have some certainty and

and setting a date gives you that certainty,

but it’s a false kind of certainty.

I was supposed to have six months.

Death with Dignity luckily doesn’t

enforce that because I just blew through my six months

and should anything dramatic happen, I’m prepared.

But in the meantime, I can just forget about it.

It’s been really great for Stan and me,

’cause we’ve gotten a summer vacation we totally didn’t expect,

it’s been time that we are grateful for.

So it’s been a great summer. It’s been a golden summer.

And you can’t help having a little

flicker of, "Well, maybe I won’t die.

Maybe I could live another twenty years,"

but what I try and do is transmute that into,

"Wow, this is a great day."

That awareness

that every day I get to make a meal,

that I get to

kiss my husband, that I get to talk to my children

one more day.

That’s great.

How are you doing?

I feel really good. So that’s good. Good.

So yesterday we had breakfast together, with,

Sunday with the kids, and

I could tell Cody was getting a little bit tired.

I said, "Well, maybe we should take a little break." She said,

"No, we’re going for a walk," and we went up to the top of the hill.

We touched the tree and we marched back down again. Thank you very much.

All righty then.

Shh, shh! People have said, by the way, that

she’s more beautiful than ever. It’s only because I’m thin.

That’s the only reason, which is kind of upsetting because

that’s the way our society works.

I was just going to say this is not a good message.

It’s not. Jill and I have had several conversations about this because,

"Oh, you look great." People you haven’t seen before,

"Yeah, been on the cancer diet, thanks very much."

I mean I just don’t understand why I’m feeling good.

Um, and I would like to know how much longer.

And I know nobody knows that.

The honest truth is I’d just be guessing.

You’re not showing signs or I’m not hearing from you signs of liver

function problems.

Meaning, I’m not seeing

you’re bleeding really easily or bruising copiously,

You’re not getting fluid build-up in your belly.

Right. Well, I am getting a little bloating. Um, Uh-huh.

it does seem like that is,

is sticking out more. The pooch is sticking out more?

Yeah.

What I’m kind of talking about would be fluid

where you really almost look kinda pregnant.

Oh. It’s like a really significant

fluid buildup. Have you ever seen anyone with liver failure or

who gets that kind of bloat? I’ve read about it, I have not seen it.

It’s not subtle.

In terms of time, that’s the hard part.

I don’t know when

the tumors are going to obstruct enough bile ducts

to give you a pool of bile and put it at risk for getting infected.

It could be something that’s very quick. It could be that you just

suddenly, two months from now say,

"You know, I’m really weaker than I was a month ago,"

and then we’ll kind of know that that’s the beginning.

But I don’t know...

I’d like to

monkey with your drain to see if I could get kind of a feel

Oh, okay. ... for flushing it.

Um, that might give me a little bit of information.

I just wanted to kind of get a feel for this. Mmm-hmm.

Let me know if I give you the horrible chills.

Oh, it feels good going in,

and it’s not too chunky coming back, so that’s good.

Nice olive oil color. Oh, there’s a few.

There’s a little chunks, but not a ton.

Now it looks like a good,

a good first pressing, wasn’t that your line?

Now okay that’s good.

So, I’m not seeing a whole bunch of chunks which would suggest that your,

your drain is becoming obstructed.

What is that? This is bile.

I just put saline in and its bile, and then probably some of that solid

particulate matter is probably some bacteria and possibly some tumor,

hard to say. Yeah, so

that’s what it looks like. Really? The tumor is that...

It could be, I can’t tell without a microscope. ...goopy?

But yeah, it could be, could be.

I’ve tried on some occasions to think of what it would be like in mom’s shoes

which is shockingly hard.

Being told you’ll die in just a few months

without having an option of controlling that.

I think everybody in my family is a control freak on some level

and I think all of us would like to have some options of how we’d

like to take control of our life at the end.

Poor Jilly, having to go back to DC.

You know T, when you come over on Saturday’s for breakfast,

we can make a family video. We could have a video chat

Jilly, on Saturday mornings.

I go through periods where I’m very calm with things

and then I go through periods where it’s extremely emotional.

Usually those periods are when I’m thinking about the future,

and the things where I’d want mom to be there, and she’s not going to be.

One of my highlights from my last trip was actually her going through

her jewelry and her scarves with me.

And just, I mean, it was actually giving them away.

This was, like, her giving away her objects to me

um, which...there was a moment where I thought about

she had left the room to go

find other things, and I was just standing there folding her scarves, and I thought,

"This would be so different if mom was already gone."

You know the act of standing here and like, folding up her scarves, would be

tragic, instead of being something that we got to share.

U.S. Air, this is it. Yeah.

I think the kids just aren’t as worried because

I’m lucky not to be feeling sick.

But who knows how it’s going to feel in a few months.

In the meantime we’ll all cope, it’ll be fine.

But for right now, they’re able to go to their work

and take vacation and

think about the things they should be thinking about

instead of waiting for me to die.

I’ve done a good job. They’re flying off.

I don’t need to be calling them back all the time.

Thanks, sweetie.

From KUOW 94.9 Seattle. The personal and ethical debate over initiative 1000,

this is Weekday. An anonymous online survey of physicians showed

fifty percent in favor, 42 percent against.

This whole country has a thing about death. They’re scared of it.

They don’t even want to talk about it. When I look at

one of the most important aspects of good end of life care,

I honestly cannot say that um, having a Death with Dignity Act is a crucial part.

My father was dead even though he was alive,

and he had that right to do what he did

and I support this initiative. I’ve gotten...

I didn’t know what I was getting into uhm...

It was scary. It was tough.

I wasn’t used to being in front of the press or anything like that.

I’ve never done that before,

but I didn’t care how hard it was going to be.

I had a mission.

Would you like some information on I-1000?

Would you like some information on I-1000?

Would you like some information on I-1000?

No. but I’d love to talk to you about that possibility.

I would love for you...

I would love for you to talk to me. You don’t have five minutes?

Officially the Washington State Medical Association and the

State’s Hospice and Palliative Care Organization

are opposed to legalizing physician aid in dying.

This is a society sanctioned death

and I just think a society has to be asked,

"Is this what we really, really want?"

This is separation of church and state

and I am very much against religion telling me what to do.

My husband was raised a Catholic, as I was,

but he did not feel that any government or any religious leader

had the right to tell him how long he had to suffer.

Okay, so we’re sanctioning the medical community to "off" people.

Where could that lead? What we saw were abortion led

so then we further the notion that we can decide

who is fit to live and who is not.

Taking a look at initiative I-1000 with Nancy Niedzielski, Dr. Rheba de Tornay

and Dr. James Gordon.

Dr. de Tornay, what would initiative 1000 do?

One of the things that bothers me is that it’s somewhat of a slippery slope

and I think we health professionals

can alleviate a great deal of suffering today.

But there are diseases that exist where you cannot control

the pain and my husband had one of those. And that’s why this should be an option.

Now I’m off to an interview with Canada.

Evidentially this is a hot topic in Canada.

Death with Dignity, the other side calls it Assisted Suicide.

Is this assisted suicide?

No. To me it’s very offensive to call it suicide.

Suicide is something someone does who is otherwise

physically healthy and has their life ahead of them,

but are clinically depressed and don’t want to live.

That is one of our fears, is that someone realizes

"Well, dad’s costing seventy five hundred dollars a month at a long term care facility

and that’s eating up the inheritance real quickly."

Hi David. My name is Nancy.

I’m a volunteer on the Yes 1000 Death with Dignity Campaign.

Have you decided if you’ll support initiative 1000?

You’re not? Can I ask you why?

Well it’s not an easy way out, actually. It’s a very difficult way out.

I respect that that’s what your beliefs say

but unfortunately, by not passing this

it’s saying that your beliefs have to dictate to everybody else

who doesn’t have the same belief.

I did. My husband suffered horribly.

Okay thank you.

Absolutely not.

This is a debate about how we finance healthcare and resources

and when you’re talking about someone who is living with a chronic disease,

when you talk about poor people

and when you offer someone death versus living,

I think we all need to take notice.

My name is Randy Stroup. I’m 54 years old.

I have two boys. I got four granddaughters and one grandson,

and my mother, I was living here taking care of her

but now she’s been put in an assisted living home.

Next thing I know,

I was diagnosed with prostate cancer in December 19, 2006.

A year ago Christmas, they gave me two to four months to live.

So as far as I know, prognosis is today or tomorrow.

After the first chemotherapy failed,

my doctor decided he wanted to try a stronger chemotherapy.

Well, the Oregon Health Plan decided

as long as it didn’t increase my life by five years,

then they didn’t want to pay for it.

Mid September, I received a

letter from the Oregon Health Plan.

It said in the letter they would do anything for comfort and palliative care

including a doctor assisted suicide.

Dear Randy Stroup,

Dr. Michael Monticelli submitted a request for

authorization dated March 26th

2008

for letting

Oregon Health Plan to pay for cancer treatment for you.

Unfortunately, we are unable to approve that request.

Your condition at this stage meets criteria

for comfort and palliative care.

Comfort and palliative care may include

physician aid-in-dying

under Oregon Death with Dignity.

Yeah, they don’t care.

It still just appalls me.

No man has got the right

to offer money to have somebody else killed.

I’m a man of simple methods

and the person who wrote this letter needs to be

put in prison for the rest of his life.

I do prison time for a lot less than this.

To think that they could even start to put a

price tag on my life,

or send me a letter saying they’d pay to kill me,

but they won’t, won’t pay to help me.

Dignity means to me, that you can hold your head up high,

and I don’t see how anybody can take their life

and hold their head up high while doing it.

This is the Ray Carnay Report.

An exclusive KOZY TV presentation on people,

events and consumer information.

Written and produced by Ray Carnay.

Not, not in all my years in

show business, in radio, in television

have I talked to two more interesting people than I have on my show today.

Thank you. You’re both lovely.

And what, oh what a wealth of information your backgrounds for a television audience

and I know they’re going to be just absolutely intrigued

and hanging on to every word that you have to say, and I’ve got a lot to ask you.

All right good. Great. We’re ready. A whole bunch.

I want my audience first to ah... Play.

I thank God for that,

that voice, and wanting to take that away from me in surgery.

I’m gonna die with being able to say "good-bye."

When they looked at my,

my cancer x-rays or my CAT scans or the MRIs,

and they told me that, ah,

there’s nothing that can be done. I’ve had the cancer there before.

I’ve gone twenty years and it came back,

and the only way now is to

remove my voice box, take that out and

take out the thing that’s been my life. My whole life has been my voice.

That’s been my profession, and I thank God for it.

I’m sure I have a much different outlook than many people have on,

on the finality of life.

I will have a real presence, almost a live presence, at my own funeral.

I know of no better way to say goodbye

than my little eulogy.

Here we are, okay.

Hi.

How are you? Fine, thank you.

I’m Ray. Ray, I’m Thaddeus.

Thaddeus, nice to see you.

Go in here?

Yeah. Okay.

Actually, if I could get you to scoot forward about... Sure.

about to right here, yeah sitting right close.

Like so? That is great.

Okay. Okay.

Well, let’s go ahead and, uh, get you some headphones

and I’ll get a mix sent to you

as soon as I can. Go ahead and feel free to warm up and

just run over it a couple of times.

I’m, ah, I’m always ready.

I’m going to need to see... Oh, you’re going to need...oh, I see.

I’ll give you some headphones. Set the, okay...

Okay, so, here we are.

Dear family and friends,

welcome to this joyous occasion.

Joyous because I, I strongly believe that this is the beginning of another life

with a loving God as my constant and eternal companion.

I am so proud that Judaica and Christian principals are here to make this a

memorable and a beautiful occasion.

Pastor Jim and Rabi Maurice and Major Joe are dear friends.

I thank them, all of whom have made this service possible.

Hopefully my brother, Harold, and my sons Robert, Richard and Jeff

along with my daughter, Darla,

were able to attend this final visit.

Other daughters Cindy, Carol and Shelly

may not even be aware of my demise.

I do realize that this entire affair might be considered by some as,

well, as unusual.

But for me it’s an opportunity to actually voice my goodbyes and gratitude

for the love and friendship that is prevalent within these holy walls.

My father, an orthodox Jew, once said to me,

"If all the world lived by the principals taught by Moses and Jesus

we’d have a perfect world."

How very true were those words of wisdom.

Go in peace. Go with God.

Bless you for your attendance.

Can we play back that last part? "If all the world

lived by the principals taught by Moses and Jesus

we’d have a perfect world."

What a hell of a voice.

Nah. No, that’s great.

Yeah that’s great. That’s exactly what I wanted.

You have a great voice. Well, thank you. Thank you very much.

What have you been doing since the last time I talked to you?

I’ve been feeling really good, and I’ve been feeling really guilty about it.

I just feel like, if you’re handed a

diagnosis like that, there are certain expectations

about how you should behave and

um, what’s going to happen next.

That’s a hard thing to

anticipate. Its a hard thing to live with

and not you know, feeling like, "Well, when will I know? When will I know?"

And I feel like I want to conform to the expectations

of someone with a terminal illness.

But it’s funny, I gave away all of my jewelry

and then, I bought some more.

That’s so great. Because I thought

maybe that was a bit premature.

But I have had this checklist

and it’s nearly done, and I’m sort of dragging my feet on the last

few things ’cause I think,

"Well, if I have another several months,

then what am I going to do?" Yeah.

I’m ready

to start to decline

and I’m not declining. What’s the matter here?

And you said something profound when we talked on the phone,

"You have to decide what quality of life is good." Is it,

Is it just being able to get up and get dressed and take a walk?

Or is it not having pain?

I’m coming to think maybe it’s

not being able to take care of myself and not worrying my family.

And I feel like I want to maw it all

for my children a kind of, um,

grace and acceptance

because I’m really scared of being a coward at the end.

Well, we call it Death With Dignity, not death from cowardice

And do you think its cowardice to,

to not want to suffer?

That’s a message that our society gives over and over again.

That only the, if you’re, the truly courageous

are the ones that are willing to suffer the most.

Yeah, you’re right.

It’s an absolutely, totally, erroneous

and completely flawed philosophy and,

and ah, and logic. There’s no logic to that.

It, you’re right and I don’t want to put my children through that.

It’s a very human thing to die. We’re all going to die.

Yeah.

And I’m just lucky to know that

more about how and when I’ll die

and have more control about that than most people do.

Right.

You gonna go up the old way

and drop down? Oh, you want to go up that way? Sure.

I was thinking this will be my first time back at OHSU

since I left for the surgery.

I never did turn in my ID tag. I should have brought it with me.

Remember when I used to walk this?

That was a long time ago.

We’ve had a lot of good times up here.

See, the steps are right there.

Hi Martina!

How are you? Ooh!

From your garden? Really?

The first ones that have just opened.

I feel like there should be a ceremony. I should be getting... I do.

Hi! How are you?

Good to see you. I have a present for you

for old time’s sake.

Oh, thank you!

It’s not the season, but it has sentimental value. I brought some to share.

Hi, how are you?

Frank...

There she is...

Can I just give Frank a hug, really quick?

Nice to see you. Oh, thank you.

Yeah, we all go back twenty years. Twenty years, can you believe it?

These are the stairs to the pool,

is that what we’re looking for? Yes. Yes, it is.

This is an important... Oh... It’s hot in here.

The reason we’re here is to have a belated celebration

and recognition of the role that Cody played in, ah, saving the pool.

And I want to present it to you Cody, because this is in recognition.

Oh!

And what it says is, "Our caps off to Cody Curtis.

Dedicated OHSU employee and swimmer." Thank you.

Cody successfully saved the pool

from being closed indefinitely in December of 2006.

People from OHSU and the neighborhood continue to come together

to share a lane and a smile."

Thank you. No, I...

and now everyone has to jump in and swim a lap

You’re going to give us a lesson, right? Right.

That was really fun. Thanks, honey.

Put this down.

Are you all right? Do you want some water?

Today it’s, uhm, no longer about I-1000.

What it feels like to me

is that my marriage has ended today.

And it ended legally on July 24th, 2006 at 4:40 p.m.

when Randy died.

But since there was still something I needed to do

that Randy asked me, I never really felt that it was over.

And so today it feels over to me.

I absolutely believe it’ll pass.

It’ll be kind of a bittersweet victory in that

now I’m done.

You know, now I have to figure out how I go on with the rest of my life,

and so it’s gonna be hard.

I’m just feeling, uhm, nervous about

will I make it through the night without falling apart?

When Hippocrates set up his oath,

he wanted medicine to be clear cut,

we are going to help you.

We’re not going to abuse you. We’re not going to try to kill you. You can come to us

and we’ll do our best to heal you.

Now this, sets physicians into the realm of

actively helping people end their loss.

We have a strong tradition in this country to allow patients to deny care.

Removing a technology is

a patient voluntarily denying a service

and that’s acceptable, that is your right.

But we’ve never before

allowed physicians to actively

take somebody’s life, and that’s what this is

and that’s not the practice of medicine.

Will you sign my annual?

It’s great being around all these people, I love it,

but it just feels weird and

almost lonely, or empty to me not having Randy right here by my side.

I almost feel like he’s left me to be,

just ah, say, "Okay,

you’ve done everything I’ve asked. Now’s the time to go."

The initiative is passing with 59 percent of the vote.

And which, which radio show is this?

Oh, Oregon Public Broadcasting, okay.

Okay. Oregon Public Broadcasting.

It passed?

This election day

marks the end of my marriage

as you have fulfilled

the final promise that I made to my husband

by making Death With Dignity legal.

I say to all of you

what Randy said to me each and every night,

"I love you most of all and then some." Thank you.

Okay

we’re off to live on

Yes. ... with dignity.

See you, dear Rob.

Well, thanks again. I love you.

I love you too. I love you for everything you did.

You know after all of this, now it’s time for you to kind of just

grieve a little bit for Randy, and move on a little bit.

Okay?

Life goes on. I know.

We’ll be in touch. We will. I’ll talk to you soon.

And I will be a volunteer forever for you guys. Yes, you will.

You know it. See ya. Bye. Yes, you will.

Where the heck is out?

One, two, three, four...

Actually, it’s really hard to sort out

what’s doing what.

My fevers are spiking. They’re harder. They’re lasting a longer time.

I’m not responding to antibiotics.

I have more pain

and I’m jaundiced, oh boy!

So yeah, I’m

declining the last week and a half.

It’s harder to get out of bed.

It’s harder to just do normal stuff.

But I have a really good handle on what’s coming.

I’ll know.

Right now because it’s so up and down and there are things that are still working

it seems like

a choice that I don’t want to take just yet.

There’s enough good days

but I know it’ll get to a point

where I’m not enjoying things

and I’m a burden.

In which case

that choice will seem easy and obvious

and I’ll be grateful.

And I’ve had a little preview of that this week,

Because when the fever gets high

it hurts.

I just think, "Well, wouldn’t it be nice to just

close my eyes and drift off?"

I don’t think it’s gonna be that easy,

not with this disease.

The decision tree for the fluid build-up

was quite different.

We hadn’t really been through that so much

and so that was a whole new fear

and a lot of the discomforts

could be easily correlated to the pressure against her ribs and different places

caused by that fluid build-up.

And she was supposed to be taking pain medication, It’s not doing its job.

and she was throwing up and couldn’t keep the pills down.

She couldn’t eat. She couldn’t swallow. She was

you know, really weak not only from,

from all this weight

but also she was basically starving herself not able to eat enough to keep

her body mass up.

Kate called me yesterday and said that you had

she said, you probably had a little of what we call ascieties of fluid

on your belly. Uhm, and then it’s probably time to change the tube

Uhm, uhm,

like we were talking about before, it’s not an exact science in terms of, uh,

when to change it out, but usually every four, six weeks or so, uhm,

you get enough debris and stuff that

just changing it out can make people feel better.

Sometimes people get so much fluid I mean they just, it

pushes your diaphragm up so you can’t breathe as well.

Right. Pushes your bowel out of the way.

Pushes on your stomach, you don’t really feel like eating as much as you used to.

Its not good, but it’s not, it’s not a terrible thing

and under the circumstances it’s kind of expected.

We have you sign these things over and over again.

I’m gonna have you sign ours today.

You’re signing for the billiary tube change and for the parazentesis, okay?

We’ll get you comfortable. Oh, thank you.

How’s your pain right now?

Oh, I’m fine. Okay.

Is your skin real tender here?

Whew! It’s cold.

Ms. Curtis are you doing okay?

Just have a lovely feeling, just resting.

Okay, it’s out.

Good job.

That’s it, it’s in. Okay?

First part of the procedure done, now we’re getting the fluid out of your tummy, okay?

This shouldn’t be too difficult, I think.

I hope you feel better. There’s quite a bit of fluid there, you were right.

How are you doing Miss Curtis?

Are you getting your nap in?

All done. Both things are done, okay.

Do you want to see what we took off your tummy?

Wow!

Okay, so, we got about twice that much.

Wow. So it should help you feel better.

Do you feel better?

Pat ourselves on the back? Okay.

Okay. I’ll probably check in with you a little later, okay? Everything went fine.

How do you feel Cody?

What’s going on, hon?

Aww. Bless your heart.

Oh, you’re welcome! I’m so glad you feel better.

Hey! I told her about an hour, Stan

and if she’s feeling better before than I think...

I think Cody’s choice is a pretty clear choice.

You know, a year ago we would talk about it and argue about it.

No one was sure they really knew what was being talked about.

And you know, I think she’d rather

not have to choose. I think she’d rather

gracefully let nature take its course.

And she was prepared for that not to be an easy course.

And so

it’s not about the stint or the liters of fluid.

It’s about her state of mind and

her pride in herself, and her pride in us,

and our pride in ourselves and our pride in her.

And that doesn’t get talked about very much.

And doesn’t get said nearly enough

And then I don’t think Cody really has

decided, uhm, very much in advance.

She just said, "Okay, I’m going to take the next option."

We don’t really know which option it would be.

So, how are you feeling? Uh...

I’m feeling better.

Good. Than I was. But that’s not saying much.

Yeah, so the pain that you were needing the meds for, was that distention?

It was the distention but,

it felt like my ribs were going to break apart

and my collar bone and stuff. It was so much...

Pushing and pressure. And a lot of stuff doesn’t taste good anymore.

Yeah, I can’t take more than a couple of bites. Okay.

And then I can’t take a deep breath anymore and it’s really hard to walk, now.

Yeah, that’s the fluid.

This is a big change from our last visit.

I mean, I think we were sort of wondering when...

’Cause it seemed like you were very, very stable... Yeah, for a long time.

This is a change. Yes. Yeah, yeah.

Actually, the main thing we wanted is to get the decision tree from here.

Okay.

I wanted to find out about what it’s gonna be like if I choose not to treat

fever or... Mm-hmm.

And I just feel like, I’d just rather drift away. Okay.

Okay. I think the, the drifting away is certainly a possible thing.

Um, when you’re getting a fever of 104

that tells me that, that bile is infected

and that is a, a pretty life threatening infection without treatment.

If you didn’t treat the fevers,

you would probably end up getting that really violent shake.

Yeah.

But after that passed, at a certain point you probably would

drift off, your blood pressure would go down and you would lose consciousness and...

And as far as how long it would be,

Uh huh. Uhm, it could be twenty four hours.

It could be, you know, three or four days.

I just don’t know. That’s not bad.

But it wouldn’t

be likely to be much longer than that with those high fevers,

with that kind of infection.

And then the other thing to know, too, is that if we

don’t have oral pain medication regimen,

there are still other options for that, as well.

Okay.

It’s pretty clear that this is a different ball game.

It is hard to predict.

I would say

that if you wanted to get through Thanksgiving and not feel

as distended and full, we can take more fluid out.

You know Jill really... Yeah.

...was set to come home for Christmas.

Okay good. December 23rd.

So there’s a fair amount of incentive to see

if draining helps

to get us to there.

You know, I certainly think the drainage

could help get things through till Christmas.

Well, I think this is enough. I...

Okay. I can’t do any more.

That’s okay. Okay.

I’ll be around, uhm, and

you know, definitely be available so...

Yeah, it’s fine. It’s fine. This is hard.

Have you been watching any movies?

I’ve been thinking of you and I’ve been wanting to stop by.

Because it’s... Once you get through the first

flurry of gotta make a list, gotta get everything done, gotta be ready to die,

then there’s a period of adjustment

about, okay, now I’m ready to die, now what?

Are we doing a trim today or style? Just a tiny trim.

Okay.

About three weeks ago,

Cody was on a very minimal amount of pain medication

Within the last three weeks she’s gone to needing the equivalent of

ten milligrams of IV morphine an hour.

which is a lot.

Part of the pain is due to the fact she has literally liters,

like 3 two liter coke bottles of fluid in her belly.

It’s like going from not pregnant to nine months pregnant in a week.

Then she said, "This is not what I signed up for."

She says, "I’m suffering now and, uhm, so it’s time."

I don’t get to take a shower.

I have to use a handheld thing. Oh shoot, so...

So this is a real luxury.

I don’t want to subject myself or my family to

needless suffering at end of life.

And I understand that there’s a kind of

dignity in suffering,

but there’s a certain grace in accepting the inevitable.

I think that Cody could die at home

without using the Death With Dignity Law

but I think what it would require to keep her comfortable until her body

let things take its course and she died,

would be things like, a hospital bed moved into their apartment.

She’d need nursing support.

She’d need help with bathing, help with going to the bathroom, help with dressing,

all of these things being things that

Cody is just not a person to want to have help with.

If Cody did not use the law,

I think with all of our maximum support,

given the speed with which her symptoms have taken a turn

I suspect that she would be gone

within, at least, eight weeks.

Do you want me to grab you some tea here or something? We’ve got some mint tea here.

Most of the time I’m okay with it,

but then I think,

"Oh, I’m going to die."

So how are you feeling?

The wheels are comin’ off,

what wheels I have left.

So... So, you’re just hanging in there, basically.

Yeah, I was gonna try and make it through the holidays

and now I don’t know if I will. I might have to just...

So, you’re going, you’re going to have your whole family together.

When’s, when is Jill coming out?

Well, she wasn’t going to come until the 23rd,

but we may change that.

I’ve done most everything on my to-do list

except

I know my mother’s now been diagnosed with

a, uhm,

her biopsy came back malignant.

They’re very slow growing

and she’s 85 years old

and she’s not going to get treatment.

And unfortunately that has not helped our relationship.

She refuses to talk about it.

It’s really difficult between us right now.

How’s that bang length, there?

You would think that would make things easier, but it didn’t.

But you know,

just because you’re going to die doesn’t mean

you’ve solved everything in your life.

Let me just have you stand up. I’m just going to check everything here.

I enjoy Cody’s presence so much

and to think of her not being around is very sad and

it’s sad in the way that you lose patients, it’s always sad.

It’s sad to say good-bye to somebody,

but it is also part of life and,

uhm,

it’s something that I consider it an honor to be a part of.

And I knew all along that I wanted to be there for her if she wanted me there.

So when she asked if I would be there,

it wasn’t really a decision. I just knew that’s what I wanted to do.

And we had a very amusing conversation where

we set a date for her life to end

which seems very surreal but Cody’s joking the whole way.

It was one of those sad and funny and

inspiring conversations, all at the same time.

We ended the conversation just as I pulled in the driveway,

and I got out and walked into the house and I told my husband,

"Uhm, I just made a date with someone for them to

um, end their life."

And he knew, of course, what I was talking about, but it was a very interesting

conversation.

Linda had said all along that when it’s time, you’ll know

and it’s true.

And I thought it would just happen.

I thought I would drift away

but my body’s so strong.

It was clear that I wasn’t going to drift away,

that it was going to be excruciating and long.

So, I’m going to take the

the Seconal, Monday at six o’clock.

Actually, I’ll take the

the, the first two pills at 5:15pm

and then my surgeon will be here

’cause we were worried that I

would lose my ability to swallow or keep anything down.

She has a full day on clinic

but she’ll be done at six, and so six it is.

Hey mom? Yeah.

Sorry, I’m, uh,

it says

to melt

four squares of semi-sweet chocolate.

Yeah, but I think this is better and it’s darker.

I think people would like that better.

And the top is so thin it’s nice to have it as

as the darker, less sweet chocolate.

Plus vanilla. Yeah.

So, any amount of vanilla? Oh...

Yeah, any amount.

Just pour the vanilla in there!

Put two teaspoons... Of vanilla.

Ouch, ooh.

Laughing makes my stomach really hurt.

That’s worse than crying.

No more laughing, T.

My mom’s

been making Christmas bars every year,

they’re everybody’s favorite cookie, but

nobody else in our family really knew how to make ’em.

So, it was

great to learn how to make them.

I think this is perfect.

My hands are shaking.

I think that because it was

just a couple of days before

my mom chose to do Death With Dignity,

there was kind of like, "Well, this is it."

If there’s anything else that you really want to make,

we should make it together in the next two days.

I kind of, already had a food relationship with my mom,

of trying recipes and cooking with her.

All right, thank you T that’s brilliant.

Looks really nice T,

although I should put in a big X and an O in there.

So, this was kind of like

uh, the last recipe.

Thank you. Yeah, thank you mom.

All right, lie down. Okay, bye.

Oh, and there’s some t-shirts. This I’m going to...

Talking to myself.

That’s great on you Megan. I love the way this feels.

It has sparkle in it. I know it does, but see it’s got

perfect on your coloring.

Ah, I like it on you. You think it’s okay?

I thought it would be

scary and apprehensive,

like all the people you read about on death row,

but it doesn’t feel like that at all.

Not that I’ve been on death row,

but I’m not considering any last minute appeals.

Stan liked that one, but it’s too short.

But it was cool.

You’re not going to wear them again?

Ah, you mean tomorrow?

And Monday?

I am on a lot of morphine

now. Seventy five milligrams

an hour,

and it’s not going to be better for very long.

It’s just going to keep sliding.

Stan was so funny. Yesterday he says,

"Okay, well I want to know where the checkbook is and all the stuff I need to know."

I have tried

to show you this for the last

for the last thirty five years."

Oh, I had this,

I had this for you.

Now, close your eyes and put out your hand.

Mom, do you want me to butter the pans?

It’s been in my bedside.

Mom? What? No, you don’t need to butter the pan.

I meant to get it wrapped, but I didn’t.

Really,

up to the last few weeks it’s been a walk in the park.

I had no idea.

It’s kind of like, "So, this is what

terminal cancer is like.

This is not fun.

I didn’t sign up for this.

Oh wait,

there’s a,

there’s a, there’s a door I can open."

You want to get up? Yes. I have to have...

Oh, that’s good T.

That’s...you did a good job.

You can get a little more...and the rivets are really hard.

These pots with rivets.

Nope, you did pretty brilliantly.

Good job, sweetie.

So you don’t want the lick?

No? Okay.

You don’t want to have to come running again do you? All right.

Well, thank you, sweetie. You did a,

you did a brilliant job. I think it was mostly you.

Well, Megan helped.

So thank you, and you helped. ...help, didn’t you?

But I just wanted it to be a happy day.

And you musn’t think that ’cause I’m crying now that I’m not happy.

I am.

I just cry easily.

Should we do one last song?

Okay, one last song. What have you got?

Ah, You are My Sunshine?

Oh that’s a good one. We can do that one.

You are my sunshine.

My only sunshine.

You make me happy when skies are grey.

You’ll never know dear how much I love you.

Please don’t take my sunshine away.

The other night, dear when I am sleeping.

I dreamt I held you in my arms.

On the other hand.

You have other ideas? How about Jingle Bells?

While dashing through the snow

In a one horse open sleigh.

Oh yeah, that’s a...

O’er the fields we go, laughing all the way.

Oh what fun it is to ride in a one horse open sleigh. Hey!

...jingle all the way. Oh what fun it is to ride in a one horse open sleigh.

Ah, very nice.

Six o’clock, hmm. What should we do?

Hey! Well, hello.

Hello, Dr. Kate! Sorry to be late.

Oh no, you’re wonderful. Hey guys.

You are the cat’s pajamas. You are...

Oh, I can hear the spoon clinking.

And I got some Gatorade in there, so she’s good to go. Okay.

Finish off that last little piece.

Okay.

You guys are ready? Family’s all ready? Yep. We’re good.

It should only take a couple minutes, daddy.

Oh, I can stay. Okay.

I love you so much, mama.

I know. I love you too, sweetie.

There’s holiday Kleenex in the next room.

Are we good? I think that’s good.

Are you ready? Yeah, I’m ready.

Thank you, Linda.

Oh, I feel like I should give you a hug. Can I have a hug?

Yes. Thank you. Oh wait!

I forgot there’s someone important here.

I love you honey.

Cody, this tastes terrible. I’ve told you that before.

Yeah.

It tastes really terrible. So just drink it down

Oh yeah, yeah.

Straight down is the best without...

Wow! Nice work.

Do you want the rest? Blach!

Blach? No? That’ll do it. Do I have to?

Now, you’ll start getting a little bit sleepy

and uhm, go to sleep. I’m going to step out so

that you can have this time with your family. Okay.

Blah, boy does that taste terrible.

I’m just going to give you a quick hug before you get sleepy.

With grace, as always.

It was a great day, honey. Thank you. And a great weekend.

Practically perfect.

And thank you mama and daddy for coming

and for singing me out.

And thank you for coming so long ago.

The room’s starting to go around and around.

That’s generally not a good sign.

This is so easy. I wish people

knew how easy this was.

It’s a good thing. Thank you, Dr. Kate.

Oh, no problem.

I love you, honey.

Thirty six years.

I’m 54 years.

I’m drifting. I’m drifting.