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Support for HB 160 desperately needed

June 9, 2017

I have lived through and cared for my husband (cancer for almost four years) and my father (twice with hospice for a year's time each due to pulmonary fibrosis).

My husband's last four months of cancer went from bad to worse on a daily basis. Because the cancer had spread from his bladder (several surgeries, chemo, radiation treatments over the years) to his bones, which caused a broken shoulder on his dominant right side, then to his intestines, which resulted in a colostomy bag, most of his internal organs which made the tattoos placed for radiation look like a huge map of a foreign country on the core of his body, acute pain even to the point of his eardrums hurting when someone with a louder voice spoke to him, and eventually immobility due to pain and lack of strength.

His death I would not have wished on anyone.

Even though our dining room table was filled with pain medications and patches to give on various schedules, it did not begin to touch the level of pain my husband had to endure through the cancer specialist. Eventually one late evening when my husband was removing his tubes to the colostomy and urine bag, I phoned hospice and told them our cancer doctor says he is not ready for hospice; I believe we are.

A hospice doctor and nurse arrived at our home at 8 a.m. and my husband was moved to a hospice center where the pain was much better managed and he was no longer suffering from pain, albeit he could not move or enjoy life in any meaningful manner. I had the number for Dignitas in Europe in my purse, but at the time we realized we needed that service, getting on a plane would have been impossible. Unfortunately we did not live in a caring state like Oregon and the few others that had a death with dignity option. My husband was forced to suffer through a horrible end.

My father because of three years of pulmonary fibrosis had an oxygen tank. He also had a bypass and chose to stop taking his heart medication because he would have preferred to die of a heart attack rather than suffocation. The last eight months of my dad's life he needed full-time care which was mostly provided by my sister-in-law and myself with the additional help of a few female friends when we could not be there due to our own health appointments.

My dad was bed- bound for nearly the last three months. He did have hospice care and they were wonderful, but again he wasn't in a state with a death with dignity option. Nearly every morning he woke up and said, "Oh, no, I'm still here." He kept wishing he would just sleep away some night and not wake up the next morning.

Unless you have experienced these long, torturous, deaths, you likely have no idea how stressful that is for both the patient and the patient's family.

Thank you ahead for reading and supporting HB 160.

Sandra Derr
Lewes

 

 

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