From Holland: Condolences: Euthanasia for terminally ill

Original Post Date: 2006-12-30 Time: 00:00:00  Posted By: Jan

From Expat Joe:-

My heartfelt condolences to Richard’s wife and family and of course to you as well Jan. I have been following your messages with compassion. It was, I feel, wrong to prolong his life artificially, any life, when there is no hope for recovery. Who knows, your sensitive way of dealing with this tragedy may trigger a revision of the law dealing with terminal patients. We all have to go through this alone and speaking for myself, if I, God forbid , be stricken with such pain and suffering I would choose for euthanasia and rather cross to the great beyond at a time of my own choosing, surrounded by loving family and friends. As you know, euthanasia is allowed in Holland with very strict protocols and I think that other countries will follow in due course. It must have been agony to everyone to helplessly watch Richard’s passing and I wish you all strength in dealing with this tragedy.

[Hi Joe,

Thanks very much for your kind words.

I must admit that although I never used to admire the Dutch people in Holland much, because I thought they were too liberal (and far to friendly to the ANC and such scum), there are things about Holland I’ve started learning to appreciate, and changes there, which I admire.

I’m enjoying the swing to conservatism in Holland and that Holland is now almost leading the way away from Liberalism.

But this euthanasia idea is most interesting. Having seen what cancer patients go through, I am a total convert to euthanasia. I’ve always felt anyway, one should not be cruel to people who are suffering. But now that I’ve seen it up close and listened to what others have gone through, I am a total convert I tell you.

There are people here, one friend of mine who lost her grandfather and aunt to Cancer. It was so bad that when her grandfather started losing his mind that he insisted only she bath him – he imagined she was a nurse. So she had to bath her grandfather and take care of him to the end. She did it, but she said to me that if she is diagnosed with cancer she will insist on being put on morphine, and she will take no treatment and she would rather die than attempt to fight it.

Another woman at work told me of a relative of hers who had cancer and the cancer spread into her sinuses and into her FACE! Hideous.

I’m all for saving lives, but it appears to me, we spend far too much on people who are going to die anyway. If someone DOES want to fight the illness, like Richard did, then let them. Richard did want to live. He did not want to abandon his wife and children. But, let people also choose to die.

Many things which are “daily routine” in medicine, e.g. drips – are extremely powerful things. A person might normally have died of dehydration but a drip can keep you alive indefinitely – until your heart stops. Even if you can’t eat or swallow, they can “feed” you through a drip for weeks on end. We can keep people alive for weeks and months easily, with heart-lung machines, kidney machines, etc. All one is waiting for is for that person’s heart to quit – and that can take a very long time.

So I feel, that there should be a system in place for people to be spared needless suffering. I think a nice bureaucratic arrangement can easily do the trick. Firstly, if the person is conscious, he must agree to want to be euthanased. His next of kin must also sign off on it. And finally, there should be a board of doctors and scientists who will evaluate each request and determine whether it is a valid request and whether the person is suffering (one does not want people to use it as a means of suicide). And if all the paperwork is in order, then have a professional and painless method of letting them slip away.

I think every day, there are thousands of people, if not millions, living in utter agony because of the power of modern medicine. Let them choose.

Richard did prepare for his death. We were open about that. When this last operation came, and he was also at times in tears, he always settled down whenever he spoke to me. I seem to have a way of stopping people from crying. We had discussed that death might be the final end anyway.

But with this last operation, I did tell him that maybe this really is the end and that there just is nothing more anyone can do.

His wife did take those articles I sent about the scientists to his doctors but they said that stuff was not approved yet. Well… its actually in a totally experimental stage. But I have made a mental note to follow up on their work, and perhaps in 5 or 10 years time, the type of cancer which killed Richard could be solved just with some injections and no operations at all. And maybe then one can have the satisfaction of telling people about it and saving someone else’s life.

Let me state that I am NOT in favour of Dr Kevorkian type of solutions. It is far too open to abuse. I do NOT think one patient and one doctor should be able to decide on life and death because it could either be: (a) Suicide or (b) Murder. It MUST be done with a proper red tape type of procedure where people can sit back who are not emotionally involved and can make a final decision. It would be one of the few times where red tape would be the perfect procedural answer to the problem.

When I looked at Richard’s body in the coffin yesterday I really thought to myself that if there is one person to whom I would have granted the gift of a longer life then it would have been him, because he really was very deeply involved with his wife and his children, far more so than most men are. He really did not want to abandon or shirk his duty to them.

For me on the other hand, my own life has never been precious. To be frank with you, I never think of my own death. I’m utterly absorbed with the concept that I must live my life in defence of certain principles and that if in the process, I should end up dead as a result of that, then that’s quite fine. To me, certain PRINCIPLES and CONCEPTS are more important than life itself. And if I were to die while doing that… no matter where or how… I would not even give a second thought as to my funeral or what happened after that. I would regard my body as a dead tool and whether it be buried or eaten by animals or lies rotting in a field somewhere – that wouldn’t worry me in the slightest. I do not regard the preservation of my own life as something that I’m very concerned about.

I’m actually a maniac who in many ways, seeks a cause to die for in an age when people no longer believe in causes any more! That’s why I hold soldiers in such high esteem – because in essence, true soldiers are people who do not have to put their lives on the line, but they choose to do so willingly so that they may die in defence of others or in defence of a principle or concept. To me, that is the way to true immortality – to die for something worthwhile. In that way, one’s life echoes on for a thousand years or more and your memory stirs people.

I don’t live for the here and the now. I never have.

One girl I once dated remarked to me, “You live in the future and in the past, but not in the present”. She was quite right. The present is almost irrelevant to me.

Whereas life and living life now is important to many people, for me it has very little importance at all.

Here in Africa, as you well know, the blacks only live for today, with no thought for tomorrow. I have a mindset that is the complete opposite of theirs.

It would be more interesting hearing about how euthanasia is handled in Holland. I would hope that one day, people will agitate for that here in South Africa.

I think an excellent side-effect benefit of euthanasia is this: It will reduce the medical bills of terminally ill patients DRASTICALLY, thereby helping Medical Aids to improve their services to non-terminally ill patients.

Consider that Richard’s treatment cost the medical aid over a million rand – imagine how many normal people could have benefited from that. By helping to end the suffering of say, a few thousand terminally ill patients one would have the added benefit of helping perhaps MILLIONS MORE have better medical benefits. So as I see it, it would be a win-win situation for all concerned. It would be humane and would relieve the suffering of some, while benefitting everyone else.

I would tell you though, in Richard’s case, that he would only have been a candidate for euthanasia in the last weeks of his life. Until then, neither he, nor any of us just wanted to give up. For me personally, it was important that he lived the 3 years he did, because his little daughter was only a year old when he was diagnosed with this tumour and he at least had the chance to see her grow to 4 years of age. And his little boy was 7 then, and is not 10 and he too will at least be able to have some memories of his father to carry with him.

I’m going to take all the videos Richard made and will convert there to DVD and make several copies of them for his wife so that when his children are older that they will be able to see and hear their father speak. In that sense, technology is amazing and can also help preserve things.

Thanks again for your kind words. They are much appreciated.

But as I told Richard’s wife: When someone close to you dies you feel as if the whole world should stop – but you will see that it does not. Instead, the hours and days pass unmercifully by, and eventually, as the months and years roll on and the memories fade (mercifully) and as your confidence grows, then little by little the pain goes away and one day you will smile and laugh again.

You go through the same process when you are wounded by love. In the end, time heals all wounds and takes all the pain away. Jan]

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