“We did not want to linger if there was a terminal diagnosis and no quality of life.”
In Nancy Murphy’s family, she said, this was always understood.
So when her sister, Joan, was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2015 at age 85, she knew exactly what she would do. Joan was living in Vermont, where the state has allowed terminally ill patients to end their lives with a lethal prescription since 2013.
“Gradually, the disease finally overtook her body,” Nancy, 86, said. “She was lying in the hospital bed in her living room. We had hospice care, and she was just weaker and weaker every day. Then one morning, she said to me: ‘Nancy, today’s the day.’ ”
Nancy called Joan’s children. The next day, her daughter went to fill the prescription for lethal medication, while her sons bought champagne. They took turns toasting her, telling her how much they loved her. “We held her hands and touched her body.” Joan thanked everyone, then swallowed the drugs.
“Within 20 minutes, she was in a coma, and within two hours she was gone,” Nancy told me over the phone, breaking into tears. “It was a blessing for her that she was able to do that, and it was a blessing for us, too, that she could have a peaceful death.”
Would Nancy do the same thing? “Of course,” she told me. But she is a resident of New York, where assisted dying is not yet legal. That’s why, for the past decade, Nancy has been part of a movement to change the law in her home state.
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Author: Madeleine Kearns
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