Life After Mother:  Compassion, Choices and Courage

My mother often expressed her support for the right of terminal patients to end their own lives, sometimes saying she’d want that for herself. She was even a supporter of Compassion & Choices, a non-profit organization that advocates for terminal patients’ right to self-administer lethal drugs legally.  

When the end of her own life loomed ever larger, however, the deeper into denial she went. Even if she’d been more courageous and honest about her declining health, she wouldn’t have met the criteria that California’s End of Life Option Act (EOLOA) requires.

California allows terminal patients to request drugs from a doctor to end their lives. The patients must meet the following criteria:  they must have six months to live as determined by a doctor, they must receive permission to self-administer lethal drugs from two physicians, they must be mentally capable, they must request the drugs twice (fifteen days originally, changed to 48 hours recently), and they must be able to self-administer the drugs. 

For neither my mother nor father, no doctor ever gave them less than six months to live. One doctor gave my father, who was dying of cancer, three to five years to live, another doctor told him, one year. I was no doctor, but I knew those estimates were overly generous. He was gone a few months after those estimates were given. 

Dementia, a common term for memory loss, was what my mother was diagnosed with, but she was never diagnosed with its most common form, Alzheimer’s. Whatever the condition may be labelled, it’s a particularly controversial aspect of a patient’s options for end-of-life care. By the time a patient with Alzheimer’s or dementia is given six months to live, the patient’s mental capability is no longer sound.  

I was present when a doctor told my mother, about a month before her death, that her condition would last indefinitely. I asked for a timeframe. The doctor looked at my mother and proclaimed, “For the rest of your life!” Neither she nor I asked how long that might be.

I sometimes wonder if the doctors didn’t discuss a timeline of six months or less out of reluctance to perhaps deal with a right-to-die situation. My mother’s HMO has a web page that provides information about the EOLOA and stating that a patient may explore this option, but how willing staffers may be to discuss this option may be another matter.

Sometimes when my mother ranted about a right-to-die law, I’d get pragmatic and tell her she didn’t need any law, she could just jump off a cliff. Terminal patients, though, deserve better choices than that. This is where a living will, a Physician’s Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment, and/or a power of attorney allows a patient and the patient’s relatives some control, whether or not a legal end-of-life option applies.