It’s way overdue



We buried my mother this past Saturday.

I usually try to keep it pretty light in this column. My readers seem to like it more when I’m writing something funny about my kids, or admitting how much weight I’ve gained over the years, or making fun of fifteen year old kids for Trick-or-Treating.

But we buried my mother this past Saturday, and I’m going to use this column to vent. A few of you aren’t going to like what I have to say, but that doesn’t bother me. And fair warning to you- this column gets pretty graphic.

My mother was diagnosed a couple of years ago with Dementia. It was complicated by scar tissue build-up, which she received from brain surgery she had as a teenager. Dementia is exactly what it sounds like- eventually the patient ends up being demented. There is no “maybe” or “what ifs” or anything like that. All roads lead to losing their ability to walk, talk, eat, and eventually even think clearly.

Not long after she was diagnosed, my sister and I made the decision for her to enter the nursing home here in our town. My sister had been pretty much taking care of our mother by herself until then, but it just proved to be too much. She was constantly falling, her moods were all over the place, and her condition was ruining two lives, not just one.

And while we as a family were incredibly satisfied with the care she received in the nursing home, the truth of the matter is long before she lost her mind, she was unhappy. Her spirit and quality of life left her long before her wits did. Everything we loved about this woman died well over a year ago. For the past 365 days she existed as a mumbling, wheelchair bound, emotional one hundred pound ball of pity.

In the end, it got really ugly. In her diminished state of mind, she kept ripping her feeding tube out of her stomach. The doctor told us that we had two choices- we could choose to leave the feeding tube in as long as she was restrained twenty four hours a day, or we could remove the tube and let nature take its course. In other words we could tie our mother down like a mad pit bull in the back yard for who knows how long, or we could starve our mother to death. We chose the second option, and luckily it only took four days instead of the projected two weeks that it could have taken.

Other than my sister, nobody on Earth knew my mother as well as I did. And I am one hundred percent positive that if it would have been legal, my mother would have chosen to end her life long before it got that bad. She would have chosen euthanasia, or assisted suicide, or whatever you want to call it. Whatever name you attach to it, it beats the Hell out of someone changing your diapers for the last year of your life.

The fact that Oregon is the only state in America where assisted suicide is legal (Oregon Death With Dignity Act, 1997) is appalling to me. It’s ridiculous, disgusting, and back-woodsy of the so-called smartest nation on Earth. We’ve come so far in women’s rights, civil rights, gay rights, children labor laws, etc. But for some reason, we still refuse to allow terminally ill patients to choose when and how they die. Everyone in America deserves dignity except the dying, unless you happen to live in Oregon.

And why? Can anybody reading this column write in and give me one good reason why it’s still illegal to end your own misery? To keep yourself from being a burden on your loved ones? To die with a little pride left? I did a fair amount of internet surfing on this subject, and I’ve yet to find a credible argument against euthanasia.

I know it can’t be tax dollars. I promise you that Medicaid and Medicare spent more money keeping my mom alive the past year than the government earned from taxes that she paid.

It could be regulated fairly easily. In Oregon, at least two doctors have to sign off on the decision to assist the patient, as well as a psychologist. You don’t have to worry about the young wife killing the old rich husband off.

If your answer is religion, you can keep it. After watching a grandmother battle Alzheimer’s, a childhood friend with Lou Gehrig’s Disease, and now a mother with Dementia, religion isn’t the answer I’m looking for or listening to anymore.

If there is a God, he’s got some explaining to do.

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