My father, 93, had a stroke. My father-in-law, 87, had surgery to remove a portion of metastasized cancer from his colon. Both happened on the same day. Both are fucked.
My father can’t remember what town he lives in, can’t remember the year, and can’t finish a sentence. Oh, and did I mention he’s profoundly deaf. He was bitter and mean before the stroke, now he’s sad. In a moment of lucidity he was able to tell me he’d rather die than stay in the nursing home where we had to place (warehouse???) him.
My father-in-law is home with a colostomy bag and is considering chemotherapy. He’s convinced he can beat cancer. He is a simple man, can’t read nor write, with English as a second language. I’m convinced he doesn’t really understand what chemo will do to his world. Well meaning family and friends are encouraging him to “fight this thing for the win.” He’s buying it for the moment.
I’m not going to make the decision they have. To me, quality of life matters more than quantity.
What to do about it then? I’m on a mission to gather the necessary tools to off myself when most of my faculties are compromised. I’ve just started the process.
Call it euthanasia, call it suicide, call it death with dignity. Whatever you call it, it’s not easy. Our country makes it hard to humanely kill yourself. Try to find an life ending drug and your met with all kinds of “Don’t do it. Help is available,” messages. Offers to sell you the drugs to do it…not so much.
My options are limited. I can use guns. I have a lot of those. If I can keep access to them despite being in a nursing home, they will do the trick. On the downside, a bullet to the head is incredibly messy and traumatic for whoever is left to clean up after you. Gun shot is a likely option, just one I’d prefer not to use when and if the time comes.
The next option is to travel to a state like Oregon, or a nation like Switzerland where they have allowed options for self selected opt-out. These sound appealing until you look further into them. Almost all require you to move to their locale, meet their unique qualification criteria, and follow their proscribed pre-death bureaucracy. My family will try to block me from pursuing this avenue. And, truth be told, I don’t want to jump through hoops when it should be my damn decision. So I don’t think I’ll be going to another place to die.
The last option would be the MacGyver method. Folks desperately seeking a means to their end have invented various types of so called exit hoods and other methods. I don’t want to die with a hood over my head breathing in helium until I pass out. I’m good at changing light bulbs, but that’s about as far as I want to take it building my own death-rig.
So I guess, a gun it will be when the time comes. It’s not ideal, but it will for sure get the job done. And, given that we as a country are so much more permissive about having guns available for random killing, it will be easy to put to use for my own purposes.