Sometimes you have to think about dying, and how you want to go. Last Friday Mr. terran and I went to visit a friend, let’s call him Barry. Barry was diagnosed with incurable cancer last fall and the doctors have given him two more weeks to live. Barry’s wife is mentally handicapped and right before his cancer diagnosis, Barry had been laid off his job. He had not yet reached retirement age. As my husband says, they did not hit the life lottery.
We gave him a card and some money for his family. We sat with Barry and held his hand and fed him ice. I told him what the weather was like outside, since he has not seen the outdoors since August. Barry was about half his normal size and was too weak to lift the container of ice by himself.
In some ways, Barry is lucky. He is spending his last days in a clean, comfortable, pleasant care facility. The staff, largely immigrants from Africa and Eastern Europe, was polite and helpful. But as we walked through the halls of the care center, we saw many, many people who had not hit the death lottery.
These folks sat curled up in wheelchairs, or lying on gurneys. TV sets played a John Wayne western, interspersed with commercials for long-term care insurance and arthritis medication. They patients sat, staring. They smelled of urine. They moaned or cried out. Most of them were quite elderly. Several had missing limbs— I remember that both my father and my uncle had to have their feet amputated from diabetes shortly before they died. Several people appeared paralyzed.
When we got to the parking lot, my husband and I sat in our car and talked about dying. He is religious. I am an atheist. Neither one of us wanted to spend our last few weeks of life sitting in an anonymous lounge, wearing an adult diaper, surrounded by strangers. We want to die at home with people we know. We want to die on our own terms.
I want to be able to eat a last meal made up of all my favorite foods. I want to watch "Buckaroo Banzai", or read a Discworld novel, or knit something one last time. And then I want to go. When I am very old, or incurably ill, I want to say goodbye to everyone, take a handful of pills and go out listening to some loud, angry-ass Elvis Costello.
I don’t want my family spending every last dime on expensive care as I linger between death and life. I don’t want to wait until my mind is gone, my body a helpless, immobile shell, moaning and incoherent while John Wayne kills Indians in front of me. I don’t want to be on machines or feeding tubes while underpaid immigrants wipe my butt. Isn't it ironic that some of the same people who don’t want everyone to have affordable health care are also against legal suicide? Why can’t we go when we are ready to go? If we can’t have health care, can we at least have a dignified death?