Posted on 10/25/2014 9:34:00 AM PDT by Mrs. Don-o
Brittany Maynard is a 29-year-old woman who learned not long after her wedding that she had an aggressive brain tumour. She has therefore announced that she has chosen to die on November 1, taking advantage of Oregon’s assisted suicide law. A video that she made with the help of the leading assisted suicide organisation in the US, Compassion and Choices, has been a huge hit on YouTube.
An Australian whose wife died of a similar disease, Denis Strangman, has written her an open letter below.
* * * * *
I am very sorry to read that you have a brain tumor, and especially that you plan to kill yourself.
Although we live on different continents thousands of miles apart, and belong to different generations, I sympathise with your situation, though not with your plans. I am glad that you say your proposed suicide date is not “set in stone.” I sincerely hope you will quietly forget about it and choose life. Do not be stampeded in trying to meet your “deadline” by “Compassion and Choices” or other advocates for assisted suicide.
You say you are speaking to fellow “millennials.” I don’t think they have yet invented a catchy title for us septuagenarians but you and I are fellow humans, and I would like to tell you about my own experiences in the world of brain tumors. You see, we have something in common – those terrible words “glioblastoma multiforme,” the most lethal of the primary, malignant brain tumors. I lost my wife Marg, aged 55, to this same type of brain tumor some years ago.
Marg accepted her diagnosis and was willing to try any reasonable treatment. Like you she endured embarrassing steroid-induced weight gain from the Decadron, and she lost her hair. Marg lived in hope of a reversal of her condition, while she and I shared a belief that eventually she would be going to a better place. She did pass away, only 11 months after diagnosis, leaving behind myself and our five children.
After my wife passed I became an advocate for brain tumor patients and their caregivers and helped establish the International Brain Tumour Alliance, which I chaired from 2005 to earlier this year. It is a coordinating group for national brain tumor support and advocacy groups around the world. During these nine years I have travelled extensively to meet with patients and their caregivers in Asia, North America, Europe, and even Africa.
About 200,000 people develop a glioblastoma brain tumor each year. Unlike you and my late wife, most are totally unaware of the nature of their illness because of the desperately inadequate health systems of the countries in which they live. Some of them can only crawl to a pathetically inadequate village health centre to spend their last days.
We who live in the developed countries will likely receive a diagnosis and be offered the best standard treatment available. Unfortunately, there has only been one major breakthrough in treating this specific type of tumour in the past 30 years. That is the development and clinical trial verification of the “Stupp protocol” of combined radiation therapy and the drug temozolomide (Temodar/Temodal). Even this therapy is likely to benefit only about 26 percent of those who undertake it. My wife was the first patient in our city to try that therapy but it did not work for her.
In travelling the world I have attended most of the important scientific conferences where brain tumor researchers explain their research – Edinburgh, Berlin, Yokohama, Washington, Chicago, San Francisco, Paris, Amsterdam, and so on. I have no medical credentials of my own, but I know from these conferences and from reading the scientific literature that literally hundreds of scientists throughout the world are working on a cure for this disease. I have met many of these dedicated investigators. Several research groups and companies are also conducting trials for possible new therapies for those with a glioblastoma brain tumor. I would be glad to discuss these if you wish.
In meeting and talking with brain tumor patients the common characteristic I have discovered is their reliance on hope. Many live in hope that a “breakthrough” is just around the corner and they will be the first to benefit from it. That is a perfectly legitimate approach, particularly given rapid developments in understanding the genomics of brain tumours.
Others sustained by hope are aware of the long-term survivors of this disease – those fortunate few who were given a poor prognosis, like you and my wife, but have survived for years. I have met a number of these people in North America and Europe. They do not know why they are the lucky few, but they relish the days they have been given. Researchers trying to discover the common characteristics of long-term brain tumor patients have found, for example, that people around your age, 29, have greater prospects for longer survival and a greater capacity to deal with the medical treatments. I hope you have been told about this.
Still others live in the hope that, if they do not confound medical expectations, they will acquit themselves well in the final weeks of their lives – that they will love and be loved, say things to loved ones that have been left unsaid for too long, and bring peace to themselves and those around them. I have found that, with the help of decent supportive care, this too is a reasonable thing to hope for.
A question that troubles me is whether you have considered the effect your example and statements may have on the tens of thousands of fellow brain tumor patients who are sustained by these hopes. I think that none of us has a right to take that hope away from them. If your story does not make them feel that they should kill themselves, it can certainly make them worry that this idea is lodging itself more firmly in the minds of their friends, relatives and society itself – including those able-bodied “millennials” who already have such a hard time dealing with notions of illness and disability.
I have to tell you in all honesty that in the private online discussion groups for brain tumour patients which I have observed for years, as opposed to the open forums anyone can join, your peers overwhelmingly express prayers and sympathy for you but reject your approach. The drive to approve assisted suicide as a “solution” for patients like them does not ease their burden but aggravates it.
It is certainly not too late for you to decide on a different course. I respectfully ask you to consider this, for yourself and on behalf of your fellow sufferers throughout the world who have chosen to live with hope in their hearts.
Denis Strangman lives in Canberra, Australia. He is the former chair of the International Brain Tumour Alliance. - See more at: http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/dont_rob_them_of_hope_brittany#sthash.eI6P0WZF.dpuf
Statistically, suicides happen in clusters. One person goes for the the self-pitying or accusatory note, the drama-queen announcement or the sullen silence punctuated by the discharge of the gun, and then 3 or 4 copycats --- sometimes old school friends, siblings, or persons similarly situated --- do the same. Because human hope is a shared thing. One person's hope holds back the deluge of despair for many; conversely, one person's treasonable defection to death make many think, "What's the use?"
G.K. Chesterton, depressed and almost despairing, seriously considered suicide when he was in his 20's. He turned from this temptation and became one of the funniest commentators on the passing scene, and at the same times, one of the sternest rejectors of suicide that I have ever read. (In fact, I did not understand his sternness toward suicides until I read that he himself had passed through that dread crisis and had emerged on the other side, on the side of life.)
I agree with this author, and with G.K. Chesterton: Suicide --- especially, especially "rational" suicide--- is a kind of treason.
They told my mother to go home and die in comfort the first time she had breast cancer. She survived that time and again 20 years later.
I wonder how much pressure from liberal family members and Obama care supporters of the ‘end of life planning’ group have on those with aka terminal illnesses.
My friend, who is older than my mother, had a brain tumor for several years but the tumor is now shrinking and she will not be facing death any time soon....but what if she had committed suicide (not an option for her)before the good news?? She is over 85 now, and living alone, driving, taking care of herself, and sewing cute things for Christmas gifts....Positive thinking produces positive results.
Maybe this woman will get some good news soon to change her mind.
Beautiful words from Mr. Strangman.
I agree with you, Mrs. Don-o, regarding G.K. Chesterton’s assessment of suicide. I hope this woman listens to the author of the letter.
No there unfortunately just isn’t. When officially diagnosed from this type there is no recovery. No praying...no chemo...no hoping...no shrinking...When diagnosed there is no coming bacback from this one. I hope she does reconsider but I respect her choice in this matter to not live her last days in excruciating agony and pain.
they HOPE....
I still feel my mother, over 80, with cancer, wanted to believe that she could make it..
..sadly, she, they, whoever...encouraged her to go on Hospice, which just let her lanquish, alive, but not treated...a slow death without any hope... IMO....
I wish we had given her the gift of hope....
Isn’t this typical of today’s narcissistic generation? Whatever you do or plan to do, from the most insignificant action, thought, or whim to the largest most life altering, you share on social media?
I am sorry that she has the brain tumor. So she can legally and apparently easily off herself if she wishes. I disagree with that choice, but notifying the world and getting herself in the news and on magazine covers so she can go out with great fanfare while encouraging other people to follow her suit is not only shallow and annoying, but evil.
There are so many kinds of brain tumors. My father died 4 1/2 months after a diagnosis of a stage IV Glioblastoma. He was 74 and chose not to do any of the invasive treatments. I treasure every moment I had with him.
One of my mom’s friends is a 10 year survivor of a brain stem cancer. She gets along remarkably well much as your friend does.
What this young woman has chosen is very selfish. She has a lot better odds at her age in prolonging her life than my father ever had. It makes me very sad for her and her family.
And this has long been true. A favorite and very experienced doctor --- Dr. Jose Espinosa --- told me 30 years ago, "I have never seen intractable pain, BUt I have seen intractable doctors and nurses."
Second,what she proposes to do affects not only herself, but many, many other persons in a disastrous way. Legal "assisted" suicide deeply corrupts the medical, legal, and political professions. It turns medicine, law and government away from the desiderata of what is naturally good, and in favor of mere demand.
Anyone who wants to commit suicide on their own can do so, and 30 minutes' worth of mousing around on the Internet can tell you how.
But don't insist on "authorization" or "participation" from church or state or medico or politico. Surely in the name of autonomy, a would-be suicider can take care of business without insisting on corrupting everybody around them.
A self-respecting suicider (I am not recommending this) should be responsible for himself. This "legalized" "physician-assisted" crap just puts more death-dealing power in the hands of the State, to be used against persons far more vulnerable than this proud, attractive, articulate, but terminal and terminally self-serving lady.
I have nothing but contempt for the publishers of “people” magazine...
Advertising the suicide “Option” is utterly immoral imho
I can respect that...no argument from me on having self do it.
Advertising the suicide “Option” is utterly immoral imho
My first thought, too. This young woman is making the wrong choice, but at least she has the excuse that she is dying of brain cancer, and that's enough to disturb anyone. I hope she gets some good counsel, thinks it over, and is persuaded to change her mind.
But what's the excuse of the editors of People Magazine?
I agree with you. Her biggest mistake was going public with this. Now, sentiment, opinion and presumption are in full spin cycle. Only her immediate lawyers and clergy, if she has one, needed to know.
The fact that she has gone so public has got me wondering if she wishes to be talked out of it. Something like the Sylvia Plath Syndrome. Sylvia Plath, an early 20th Century poet, author of The Bell Jar, was notorious for her repeated attempts to kill herself, until finally she (some say inadvertently) succeeded. Some hard core literary fans blamed her husband Ted Hughes infidelity for her death. Ted lived until 1998.
Valerie Harper was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor, given 6 months to live..its been what, over a year and she is still with us, if Valerie Harper had this woman’s mentality she would have missed out on that year and many years to come
People is a subsidiary of TIME magazine. That is all you need to know about them.
bump for later reading/reference
The world does not need a pop icon like this and DAMN the mainstream media for making it happen!
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