Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Who else admires this young woman?

She not real tough so she's going to end it early so I don't have to go through any pain, the new generation.

You happen to be talking with one that has looked the grim reaper in the eyes.

Last Thanksgiving, after feeling very bad for over a year, I started coughing up blood. Not a little stripe of red, but after I was done, it looked like someone had gutted a deer... It gets your attention, rather well.

My initial doctor visit, and combined with 35 years of smoking, they told me of the distinct possibility of having advanced lung cancer, for which there is no cure.

I had those possibilities to consider. Seriously.

After I was admitted, and went through the whole plethora of what was "going on", they found that my main artery in my heart was 99.9% blocked, and did emergency catheterization on me, with a stent.

My heart was enlarged, and caused pressure in my chest to precipitate the coughing of blood. I had also experienced a total of 4 heart attacks until the procedure saved my life.

So, I was faced with thinking about the terminal effects of advanced lung cancer, and saw what a death by it meant, through stories of others.

I don't smoke any more. I eat healthier, and I am grateful that I didn't have to endure what death awaited me with lung cancer. And while I had already made up my mind not to pursue treatments that would only "prolong" my life for a few short, months, I had not made the decision to take my own life either.

I don't judge those that ought to have the freedom to make their own choices. Those choices are between them and God.

about ten years ago, i watched my mother die a slow death. Then 3months later it was my son's turn. A victim of downwinders, i.e. govt testing of nuclear bombs in nevada, and blowover radiation into arizona, and he died of cancer. That day i called up to prescott, sensed it was time and got there just in time to hold his hand and whisper in his ear, just let go, let it get done. About 30seconds later, he died. I watched him suffer with that cancer for months. He died about four days before the 4th of july, so you can imagine how our fourth's go these days. People shouldn't outlive their kids. Ronnie was my stepson. A couple of months before he died we were having this conversation, I never knew what to call him, son, friend, buddy, he was all of these. He gave me then the biggest compliment i ever got, and said i was always there for him, unlike his biological dad, so "dad" worked for him. I miss him to this day.
Tomorrow I will be up where we always deer hunted, and i will do like I do every year, stop by the place he liked to camp and remember. Cancer is an evil thing, and I don't have good answers except i don't blame anyone that wants to end the pain.
I remember that last elk hunt he tried to do. He did the walking and so on, but would be screaming at night from the pain. It isn't fun to be in a camp listening to your son cry out like that and not a damn thing you can do. I do know if he had chosen to take his own life, none of us, and I mean none, would have blamed him.

Nope, you can't understand it.

My wife died three years ago from stage 4 breast cancer.
She was given morphine to deaden the pain.
Her family kept begging the nurses to give her more so she wouldn't suffer.
The nurses thought she would die soon after she quit eating and drinking but they were wrong.

I hope I never have to watch somebody that I love go through that again.
whelennut

Not so. From the article:
�bone-splitting� headaches, seizures and �moments when I�m looking at my husband�s face and I can�t think of his name.�

From what I have noted the last 60 or so years, is everyone is different. And pain levels with different terminal illnesses are also different.

I'm glad to see most don't have a problem letting this unfortunate young lady handle her life, and death, in the best (for her) way she sees fit. And I hope she will never read this thread.

Agreed.

Not trying to pick a fight, just curious. For those who oppose her making her decision, do you also oppose pain meds? Wouldn't the pain be God's plan as well? Is it OK to medicate to unconsciousness but not death? Where exactly is that line? Should they just gut it up and refuse all medications?

Armchair quarterbacking someone's life is as wrong as any other instance of speculation on circumstances that haven't been personally experienced. How do people die? How should they die? These are questions that only God can answer. If you don't believe in God, you have a different perspective. I will stick with a belief in God.

There is nothing to tear at your heart, as to have a conversation with your daughter that is battling cancer and have her tell you she doesn't want to die. Being afraid of dying is different. For years we talked about everything, death wasn't something we talked about, but as the years progressed we understood it could shorten her life, substantially.

She was a wonderful person, robbed of one of her most valuable possessions, time. There is nothing fair about cancer and to try and understand it from a human perspective is impossible. I believe in God and that His plan, though different than mine, is somehow better.

We didn't talk about a convenient time for her to end her life, we stood by her and hoped for any miracle that would save her. It never happened and I sat in a hospital room, holding her hand as she took her last breath and cried.

That has been almost 4 years ago, I still cry every day, there is nothing like the loss of a child.

I see two different philosophies here. Some of us want to have absolute control and try to compartmentalize our lives for some satisfaction of control and organization. To those who do that, I am not condemning them, but I feel a stronger association with God and that it isn't up to us to make our lives so convenient that we forget who we are and why we are here.

Cancer is a merciless killer and I can't understand it, I miss Paige every day...

Throwing away her God given gift of life. Prayers for her soul.

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