Posted on 09/30/2007 10:01:27 AM PDT by wagglebee
Lovelle Svart woke up Friday knowing it was the day she would die.
There was much to do. Her family and closest friends would be gathering at 11 a.m. in her mother's apartment in the Southwest Portland assisted-living center where they both lived.
She directed trips to the grocery store and even called AAA to jump-start the dead battery of her 2006 Scion. She double-checked delivery of food platters from Fred Meyer: turkey sandwiches, strawberries and grapes, pretzels, almonds and sparkling water. There would be pink roses on the dining table and a boombox in the corner to play music, including the polka tunes she loved.
Lovelle made one last trip to "the bridge," a wooden footbridge in a nearby park where she had found quiet sanctuary the past few weeks as painful cancerous tumors spread from her lungs through her chest and her throat.
The consummate planner, she had choreographed the day. She wanted to leave time -- five or so hours -- for storytelling, polka dancing and private goodbyes. And at 4 p.m., she intended to drink a fatal dose of medication, allowed by Oregon law, that would end her life.
A smoker since age 19, Lovelle found out five years ago that she had inoperable lung cancer. Radiation and chemotherapy slowed the cancer's spread but could not stop it.
In June, Lovelle's doctor warned her that she was likely to die within six months, making her eligible for Oregon's unique, 10-year-old Death With Dignity Act.
What some call doctor-assisted suicide and others call physician aid-in-dying or hastened death is one of the most passionately argued issues in U.S. medicine and politics. Proponents frame the question in terms of personal choice, death with dignity and freedom from pain. Opponents say assisted suicide violates the Hippocratic tradition of "First, do no harm" and undermines the doctor-patient relationship by turning physicians from healers into accomplices of death.
Far more people ask for a lethal prescription than actually use the drug. Either their symptoms overwhelm them before they make a final decision, or they find other ways to control those symptoms, including pain.
Lovelle was determined to keep control, if possible, of when and how she died.
On July 1, she filled out and signed a one-page form titled, "REQUEST FOR MEDICATION TO END MY LIFE IN A HUMANE AND DIGNIFIED MANNER." By signing, she agreed that she knew the expected result -- death -- and was aware of alternatives, such as hospice care.
By law, she also had to make two oral requests at least 15 days apart. Her doctor wrote the prescription for a lethal dose of barbiturate in late July, and she had it filled Aug. 7. She kept the orange bottle of clear liquid in a plastic grocery bag on a stack of towels in her bedroom closet -- "hidden in plain sight," as she put it.
She was still unsure whether she would take the drug, but said she took comfort in knowing it was there.
Once she knew she had less than six months to live, Lovelle also decided to try to start a more open public discussion of dying. During the past three months, mostly through a series of online video diaries for The Oregonian, she shared publicly the experience of facing death.
Lovelle, 62, has "touched a chord" by chronicling her "deeply intimate struggle with mortality," said Dr. Susan Tolle, director of the Center for Ethics in Health Care at Oregon Health & Science University.
"People are following closely," Tolle said Friday. "They want to know what happens to her.
"Lovelle has become their friend."
Friday morning, Lovelle stuck a yellow note on the door of her mother's apartment: "Please Do NOT Disturb. Unless Urgent. Thank you."
She wore a blue sweat suit over a "Cancer Fighter" T-shirt.
Lovelle delighted in Friday's blustery weather and a forecast that included possible thunder and lightning about the time she planned to die. "Oh, the woo-woo crowd will have a blast with that," she said.
After AAA jump-started her car, she left the engine running to recharge the battery, returned to her apartment and set the kitchen timer for 10 minutes to remind her.
When a friend later expressed shock that Lovelle had spent part of the last morning of her life dealing with a dead car battery, Lovelle explained:
"The car goes to my sister. I didn't want it to be dead."
In the living room, her family and friends sat and told stories and jokes, sometimes with political references. Sometimes they laughed a bit too loudly, out of nervousness at the occasion. Twice, Lovelle came out of the bedroom where she was having private meetings to say, "No politics!"
A bit later, Lovelle and George Eighmey, head of Compassion & Choices of Oregon, an advocacy group that works with most of the Oregonians who end their lives under the Death With Dignity Act, danced a brief but rousing polka.
By midafternoon, the studiously punctual Lovelle was falling behind her schedule. No one complained.
But a little before 4 p.m., she decided it was time to make her final preparations. First, she had to take the two pre-medication pills -- to calm her stomach and control vomiting. They were hard to swallow, given the tumors in her neck, but she got them down with water.
"It" would be in about an hour, she told her family. Time now to sit alone with her mom, Vi Svart, in her bedroom for the last time. The rest of the group sat in the living room, debating whether they wanted -- and whether Lovelle wanted them -- to be in the room with her at the end.
Lovelle's three siblings and her mother, despite deep misgivings about her decision to end her life, supported Lovelle in her choice.
"I feel so at peace," she said. "I've had such a good time. . . . And today has been so wonderful.
"I'm really ready to go. I'm ready."
About 4:30, Lovelle announced she wanted "a hugging line" -- one last hug for everybody. "You'll be first and last," she said, turning to her mom.
Lovelle stood in the center of the living room and embraced them one by one -- long hugs with tears and laughter.
Then one last cigarette break on her favorite sitting stone next to the parking lot. Afterward, Lovelle took the elevator up to the third-floor apartment and hung up her coat and hat.
"OK," she said to no one in particular. "I'm going to get into bed now."
In many ways, Lovelle fits the pattern of Oregonians who choose to end their lives under the Death With Dignity Act.
Like most, she had cancer. She was in her 60s. Well educated and insured. Not formally religious. White. Enrolled in hospice care.
And fiercely independent.
"I could be very gregarious -- and very private," she said. "Very much the partygoer -- and very much want to stay home and read."
She was chosen Miss Cafeteria at Crater Lake Lodge in the summer of 1963, and she has the lemon-yellow rayon dress to prove it. She left it hanging in a plastic dry-cleaning bag on her bathroom door.
She loved surfboarding and polka-dancing and both her first and last names, "because they are different, and I like things that are different."
And she liked, as she was the first to admit, being in control.
Lovelle decided it was more important to die by taking the lethal drug while she had a degree of control over her body than to wait for nature to take its course. But how to decide when?
Her symptoms -- shortness of breath, stomach distress, weakness and pain -- were intensifying. If she waited too long, she would be unable to drink and swallow the lethal drug on her cupboard shelf.
Lovelle sought a shifty window between life-worth-living and incapacity, "this tiny bit of freedom" when, for her last act, she could swallow a fatal potion in the company of family and friends. "That's when I want to go."
Last Sunday, after a painful, restless night, Lovelle decided it was almost time.
Swallowing was more painful than ever, like choking on broken glass or razor blades, she said. She had barely eaten in two weeks. She started taking morphine to dull her pain.
She told family and friends to come Friday.
Lovelle sat on the foot of the bed, while 10 others gathered around. A photograph of Lovelle as a curly-haired 5-year-old stood on one bedside table; on the other were a glass tumbler containing the liquid medication, which looked like water, along with a container of morphine and Lovelle's ever-present mug of Gatorade. On the wall above the head of the bed were five more family photographs.
With some help, Lovelle yanked off her shoes and socks and slipped partway under the covers.
Eighmey stood by her bedside. He has attended more than three dozen deaths of this kind.
"Is this what you really want?"
"Actually, I'd like to go on partying," Lovelle replied, laughing before turning serious. "But yes."
"If you do take it, you will die."
"Yes."
Ever the detail person, she reminded him that she wanted her glasses and watch removed, "after I fall asleep."
Eighmey warned her that the clear liquid would taste bitter. She needn't gulp it. She would have about a minute and a half to get it down.
Lovelle dipped her right pinky into the glass and tasted.
"Yuck," she said. "That's why I need the Gatorade."
Holding the glass, Eighmey asked her again to affirm that this was her wish.
Yes, she replied.
Someone asked, "Can we have another hugging line?"
One by one, they came to head of the bed for hugs and teary whispers.
"Sweet dreams."
"It's all right."
"I know."
"Thank you for being my big sister."
"All the church is praying for you."
Lovelle was sitting up in bed, three pillows propping her up.
She held the glass tumbler in her right hand, raised it to her lips and drank. It was 8 minutes after 5.
"Most godawful stuff I ever tasted in my life," she said, making a face before taking a sip of Gatorade and plain water.
She laid back and scrunched down under the covers, glasses still on to see her loved ones.
She reached for her mother, who leaned closer, then laid down next to Lovelle, stroking her hand.
"Are you OK, honey?"
"I'm fine, Mom."
"You're not sick?"
"No. I'm peaceful. It stopped raining, the sun's out. And I've had a wonderful day.
Her eyes closed.
"It's starting to hit me now."
For a while, no one moved or spoke, as Lovelle drifted into a coma. Then Lovelle's mom asked for a prayer. Others spoke up with prayers and memories, which prompted other stories. Lovelle's brother Larry read part of William Wordsworth's "Intimations of Immortality."
Lovelle lay motionless but for the gentle rise and fall of her chest. Her heart slowed but didn't stop.
About an hour into the vigil, Lovelle's mom lit three white candles in cut-glass candlesticks in the living room. "She's still with us," she said.
Hours passed. Given what Lovelle's body had been through -- not only lung cancer but also open-heart surgery in 2004, Eighmey was surprised how long she was lingering. But not her family.
"I hate to say this," one said with a smile, "but this is just like her."
"A little spitfire," agreed another.
"Above average -- that's Lovelle."
"One last reminder that she's the one in control."
Jane O'Dell, a volunteer for Compassion & Choices, sat at Lovelle's bedside all evening, holding her right hand, monitoring her breathing and regularly checking the pulse in her wrist and neck.
About 10:30 p.m., more than five hours after she had taken the drug, O'Dell signaled that Lovelle's breathing had become shallower and more labored. Her pulse dropped, her skin turned pallid and her fingernails bluish. It was more than a minute between breaths.
Family and friends resumed their bedside vigil, and silence again fell over the dark room. Lovelle's chest stopped moving.
Eighmey leaned over at 10:42 p.m. and put his ear to her chest to listen for a heartbeat. He stepped back, shaking his head and spoke in a quiet voice.
"She's gone."
Are you suggesting that Christ didn't have dignity at the Crucifixion, or any of the other thousands of Christian martyrs?
Again, many cannot differentiate between APPEARING dignified and possessing dignity. The Clintons on occasion APPEAR dignified, you will NEVER convince me that they have dignity.
Yeah, and what about when the demons came and dragged her down to eternal hell one minute after she died?
One Minute After You Die (Paperback)
by Erwin Lutzer (Author)
“what seemed like such a mediocre life”
I think it is unfair to characterize her life as mediocre, or unremarkeable. You don’t know anything about her, and it sounds like she had a loving family and many friends, hardly mediocre. All I really hope to accomplish is to raise my children, and grow old with my wife. I don’t consider that mediocre or unremarkeable. That is all that is really important. Not everyone has olympic medals or a nobel prize.
I don’t agree with her choice, although I do understand it. Judging her entire life is a bit unfair.
And for an online account of what it’s really like for some after their deaths, go to
http://spiritlessons.com/Mary_K_Baxter_A_Divine_Revelation_of_Hell.htm
Advocate
Death doesn’t have to mean suffering. In the event of a terminal illness, we each should have the right to choose the time and manner of our death when the course is prolonged or agonized.
The Compassion & Choices legal advocacy team, led by Director of Legal Affairs Kathryn Tucker, ensures and defends your right to comprehensive end-of-life care at the bedside and all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
We set legal precedent in California that failure to treat a terminally ill patient’s pain can constitute elder abuse and defeated the Bush administration challenge to Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act.
Ms. Tucker
practiced law with the Seattle based law firm Perkins Coie prior to moving
to C & C; she remains Counsel with the firm. She is Adjunct Professor of
Law at the University of Washington School of Law and Seattle
University School of Law, teaching in the areas of health law and
constitutional law.
Ms. Tucker is listed in the prestigious directory Who’s Who in American
Law, was recognized as 1996 Lawyer of the Year, Runner-Up, by the
National Law Journal, and as one of the nation’s Outstanding Young
Lawyers by the American Bar Association in 1995.
Physician Aid in Dying: A Humane Option, A Constitutionally
Protected Choice, 18 Seattle University Law Review 495 (1995)
The saddest part was that her brother could only come up with a POEM and not a PRAYER. Very sad state of things.
From Chapter Two
Jesus and I stepped from the tunnel onto a path with wide swaths of land on each side of it. There were pits of fire everywhere as far as the eye could see. The pits were four feet across and three feet deep and shaped like a bowl. Jesus said, “There are many pits like this in the left leg of hell. Come, I will show you some of them.”
I stood beside Jesus on the path and looked into one of the pits. Brimstone was embedded in the side of the pit and glowed red like hot coals of fire. In the center of the pit was a lost soul who had died and gone to hell. Fire began at the bottom of the pit, swept upward and clothed the lost soul in flames. In a moment the fire would die down to embers, then with a rushing sound would sweep back over the tormented soul in the pit.
I looked and saw that the lost soul in the pit was caged inside a skeleton form. “My Lord,” I cried at the sight, “Can’t you let them out?” How awful was the sight! I thought, This could be me. I said, “Lord, how sad it is to see and know that a living soul is in there.”
I heard a cry from the center of the first pit. I saw a soul in the form of a skeleton, crying, “Jesus, have mercy!”
“O, Lord!” I said. It was the voice of a woman. I looked at her and wanted to pull her out of the fire. The sight of her broke my heart.
The skeleton form of a woman with a dirty-grey mist inside was talking to Jesus. In shock, I listened to her. Decayed flesh hung by shreds from her bones, and, as it burned, it fell off into the bottom of the pit. Where her eyes had once been were now only empty sockets. She had no hair.
The fire started at her feet in small flames and grew as it climbed up and over her body. The woman seemed to be constantly burning, even when the flames were only embers. From deep down inside her came cries and groans of despair, “Lord, Lord, I want out of here!”
She kept reaching out to Jesus. I looked at Jesus, and there was great sorrow on His face. Jesus said to me, “My child, you are here with Me to let the world know that sin results in death, that hell is real.
I looked at the woman again, and worms were crawling out of the bones of her skeleton. They were not harmed by the fire. Jesus said, “She knows and feels those worms inside.”
“God, have mercy!” I cried as the fire reached its peak and the horrible burning started all over again. Great cries and deep sobs shook the form of this woman-soul. She was lost. There was no way out. “Jesus, why is she here?” I said in a small voice, for I was very scared.
Jesus said, “Come.”
The path we were on was a circuitous one, twisting in and out between these pits of fire as far as I could see. The cries of the living dead, mixed with moans and hideous screams, came to my ears from all directions. There were no quiet times in hell. The smell of dead and decaying flesh hung thickly in the air.
We came to the next pit. Inside this pit, which was the same size as the other one, was another skeleton form. A man’s voice cried from the pit, saying, “Lord, have mercy on me!” Only when they spoke could I tell whether the soul was a man or woman.
Great wailing sobs came from this man. “I’m so sorry, Jesus. Forgive me. Take me out of here. I have been in this place of torment for years. I beg You, let me out!” Great sobs shook his skeletal frame as he begged, “Please, Jesus, let me out!” I looked at Jesus and saw that He too was crying.
“Lord Jesus,” the man cried out from the burning pit, “haven’t I suffered enough for my sins? It has been forty years since my death.”
Jesus said, “It is written, The just shall live by faith!’ All mockers and unbelievers shall have their part in the lake of fire. You would not believe the truth. Many times My people were sent to you to show you the way, but you would not listen to them. You laughed at them and refused the gospel. Even though I died on a cross for you, you mocked Me and would not repent of your sins. My Father gave you many opportunities to be saved. If only you had listened!” Jesus wept.
“I know, Lord, I know!” the man cried. “But I repent now.”
“It is too late,” said Jesus. “Judgment is set.”
The man continued, “Lord, some of my people are coming here, for they also will not repent. Please, Lord, let me go tell them that they must repent of their sins while they are still on earth. I do not want them to come here.”
Jesus said, “They have preachers, teachers, elders-all ministering the gospel. They will tell them. They also have the advantages of the modern communications systems and many other ways to learn of Me. I sent workers to them that they might believe and be saved. If they will not believe when they hear the gospel, neither will they be persuaded though one rises from the dead.”
At this, the man became very angry and began to curse. Evil, blasphemous words came from him. I looked on in horror as the flames rose up and his dead, decaying flesh began to burn and fall off. Inside this dead shell of a man, I saw his soul. It looked like a dirty-gray mist, and it filled the inside of his skeleton.
I turned to Jesus and cried, “Lord, how horrible!”
Jesus said, “Hell is real; the judgment is real. I love them so, My child. This is only the beginning of the frightful things I have to show you. There is much more to come. Tell the world for Me that hell is real, that men and women must repent of their sins. Come, follow Me. We must go on.”
In the next pit was a very small-framed woman who looked to be about eighty years old. I can’t say how I knew her age, but I did. The skin was removed from her bones by the continual flame, and only the bones remained with a dirty-mist soul inside. I watched as the fire burned her. Soon there were only the bones and the worms crawling inside, which the fire could not burn.
“Lord, how terrible!” I cried. “I don’t know if I can go on, for this is awful beyond belief.” As far as my eyes could see, souls were burning in pits of fire.
“My child, this is why you are here,” Jesus answered. “You must know and tell the truth about hell. Heaven is real! Hell is real! Come, we must go on.”
I looked back at the woman. Her cries were so sad. As I watched her, she put her bony hands together, as if in prayer. I couldn’t help crying. I was in a spirit form, and I was crying. I knew that people in hell felt all these things, too.
Jesus knew my thoughts. “Yes, child,” He said, “they do. When people come here, they have the same feelings and thoughts as when they were on earth. They remember their families and friends and all the times they had a chance to repent but refused to do so. Memory is always with them. If only they had believed the gospel and repented before it was too late.”
I looked at the old woman once again, and this time I noticed that she had only one leg, and there seemed to be holes drilled in her hip bones. “What are these, Jesus?” I asked.
He said, “Child, while she was on earth, she had cancer and was in much pain. Surgery was done to save her life. She lay a bitter old woman for many years. Many of My people came to pray for her and to tell her I could heal her. She said, ‘God did this to me,’ and she would not repent and believe the gospel. She even knew Me once, but in time she came to hate Me. She said she did not need God and did not want Me to heal her. Yet I pleaded with her, still wanting to help her, wanting to heal and to bless her. She turned her back on Me and cursed Me. She said she did not want Me. My spirit pleaded with her. Even after she had turned her back on Me, I still tried to draw her by My spirit, but she would not listen. At last she died and came here.”
The old woman cried out to Jesus, “Lord Jesus, please forgive me now. I’m sorry that I didn’t repent while I was on earth.” With great sobs she cried out to Jesus, “If only I had repented before it was too late! Lord, help me out of here. I will serve You. I will be good. Haven’t I suffered enough? Why did I wait until too late? Oh, why did I wait until Your Spirit quit striving with me?”
Jesus said to her, “You had chance after chance to repent and serve Me.” Sadness was written all over Jesus’ face as we walked away.
The creator surely provided mankind with the capability of rational thought; she is as perfect a proof of that as there is.
And to those who say the doc's are right when they say, "First, do no harm.", who is to say where the greater harm lies - in life or death?
In this case, the patient knew and made the perfect decision! Way to go, Lovelle,....way to go!
Christ did not die with dignity...as was His choosing and His purpose. He chose to allow himself to be humiliated in front of the world and take on the suffering of mankind....... so WE wouldn't have to. That was His gift.
The Clintons have the "appearance" of many things......but what do they have to do with this topic?
No Christ died in an undignified way with more dignity than any of us could ever imagine.
“My oldest grandchild is 12 but I intend to dance at their weddings..”
How nice for you. You seem to have missed the point that this woman was dying, sooner rather than later. I am sure that she had many things that she wanted to do too, but won’t have a chance. Fighting has nothing to do with it,she was going to die in the very near future, even if it was left up to God.
End stage cancer can be painful and ugly, especially lung cancer, and I would find anyone who wasn’t scared of facing it to be disingenuous. I would be, and as much as I would like to believe I have the courage to face it, I am not sure. I won’t condemn those that don’t as a coward.
I will recognize that only God should end a life. I will also recognize that she had two options, bad and worse, and try to understand that we all have weakness, yet God loves us anyway.
She wore a blue sweat suit over a “Cancer Fighter” T-shirt.
Perhaps the shirt should have said “I Surrender.”
My comments were directed toward those who can make the choice to die with palliative care in a dignified manner....so they don't have to suffer. That's all.
Well then to be clear, do you support euthanasia/assisted suicide or not?
I thought I’d made it clear from my very first post that I do not approve of assisted suicide. I was promoting hospice care which is using palliative treatments with “comfort drugs”... so that a dying person does not suffer greatly...allowing them to have a quality in what life they have left ...in a dignified manner...with loved ones at their side.
Thank you for clearing that up, I couldn’t agree more (as long as it is true hospice care and not the ones that seem to be trending toward euthanasia through dehydration and starvation).
Not to take away from your work, but it sound like a bunch of self-esteem-pop-psychobabble to me.
All of us have a "direct line to God," in the form of divine revelation and/or natural law. It's only modern relativists who pretend that God's will is an unknowable mystery so we can just do anything we please.
So... you really didn’t want clarification...... only a platform from which to lob the missiles. Enjoy! *chuckle*
And why not?? She was dying anyway.
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