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My mother died from what was probably stroke-induced dementia in 2019. She was a zombie for about two years. My father has short-term memory loss that will inevitably worsen. I have a disorder that can lead to dementia and have been on medication that studies show can cause dementia. I have no children and my husband is 7 years older than I. As for my siblings, I wouldn't trust any of them near me. I don't want to end up destroyed by dementia with no one to care for me properly. While assisted suicide is available in a number of states, the rules are a cruel slap in the face to those who face dementia. You have to be considered competent when you make the decision but you must make the decision if you have only six months to live. This is nice for a lot of diseases but doesn't really work for dementia. I've found a few organizations in Switzerland and the Netherlands that allow a mentally competent person to obtain assisted suicide at any time. You have to jump through a lot of hoops and it costs a lot, but it's something to think about. If my husband goes before I do, I think that is what I'll do.

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its a contentious subject, but yes, I agree with you.
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AlvaDeer Apr 2022
Mstrbill, it is interesting but it has turned out NOT to be contentious. I expected so many more to come to us with the religiously based "Only God can decide..." but that hasn't been the case. I am amazed how many are thinking of this and LONGING to speak of it.
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since my father has heart failure ive been thinking alot about how i will end up since i dont have kids and wont have any and not married..... i do not want to be put in a nursing home which i will be bur i am afraid of death.... but i think at that point of my life i hope i come to terms with death and i would totally do assisted suicide as long as i was terminal.
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reallyfedup Apr 2022
I applaud you and your graceful statement.
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Yes - I agree too. I also wish it were not such a contentious subject as it is not listed in the Care Topics menu.
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I have already taken legal steps to be placed in a very good local residential care center with a “stepped placement” set up so that my care will be appropriate to my needs, and I have always been focused philosophically on the intention that miracles are identified and discovered every other day.

If a medication comes along that actually does restore cognitive integrity, I’ll want it to be tried on earth.

My own LO is presently declining significantly, as did her mother and my mother, but SOME of the other members of this side of my family, even with significant disease process (PD), retained their cognitive integrity to the very end. No extraordinary measure will be provided, but she receives exemplary care in her SNF, and I keep an eye on things almost everyday.

I’m too nosy to want to cut myself off from my natural future, whatever it may hold.

Nothing at all contentious here. We all need to think this out and do the best we can for ourselves.
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reallyfedup Apr 2022
I applaud you and your graceful statement. You sound like a wonderful person and I respect your point of view.
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Just stop seeing your doctor... ever.
Discontinue all your medications now, including any over the counter supplements.
Eat, drink and be merry.
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Christine44 Apr 2022
I met someone who did just that -- stopped seeing her doctor(s) and discontinued all her medications. She also had a "do not resuscitate" order in place in her hospital. This is what happened, or at least this was her version of what happened; although she was definitely on the "strange" side, she did seem quite intelligent and I couldn't then or now see any reason why she would lie to me. After stopping medications/seeing a doctor, etc. she had a lot of heart problems and had a major stroke & was on the operating table, she said, for many hours. As a result of this, when I met her she had huge mobility problems, that seem to come with suffering a serious stroke ("spastic" movements) that affected both her gait and her head/shoulder movements. I asked her why her "do not resuscitate" order was not honored when she had the stroke, which should have kept her from being kept alive, and having a long heart operation. She replied: "Hospitals do what they want to do." Someone else recently said to me something similar about hospitals: "Hospitals are in the business of keeping people alive."
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Yes, I have thought about it. My brother has early onset Alz. He is 4 years older than me, so YES, I am scared of being such a huge burden on my kids and husband. That said, I am doing everything I can to try and circumvent the possibility of going down that road. I follow the Bredesen Protocol and read constantly about what is new in this field. It has helped me if nothing else, to feel like I am doing something positive.
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reallyfedup Apr 2022
I don't know what that is, but I'll look into it. Thanks.
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Author Amy Bloom has recently written a Memoir about her Husband's determination, when diagnosed with early Alzheimer's to avail himself of Dignitas in Switzerland to make his "final exit" by his own plan and on his own timetable. While it is loaded into my Kindle at present I haven't yet read it. It is called In Love: a Memoir of Love and Loss. Dignatas is not open to all in that it costs on average 10,000 to go there. It is one of the few places one can LEGALLY make a final exit with a diagnosis of age alone. You might wish to read her book.
Facebook also has a page called Final Exit that can be joined should you wish further discussion on self-deliverance.
As a nurse I have of course discussed this subject endlessly with fellow medical staff. Many feel we should have more options on timing our exit.
I would caution that some of your thinking involves fears of loss, an almost planned depression, and one should never act when thinking is in that realm. More than you can know plan their exit when ill. It isn't widely discussed, I fear.
It is a subject I wish was more discussed, but Americans have quite a determination to avoid discussion of the hard stuff.
I would venture to say only to know that you are not alone in your thinking.
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TChamp Apr 2022
The expense for a dignify end of life in Switzerland, is probably a bargain if you consider the cost of Memory Care and nursing homes in the U.S. Most members in this forum prefer to live in a world of fantasy and wishful thinking. They get mad when I spell the naked truth. They acuse me of not "offering support". In other words, not following the fantasies of the herd.
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It's a rational thought. Assisted suicide does help people with ALS, MS, terminal cancer and other lethal conditions. Dementia is indeed an exception because like you say, you have to be mentally competent to make that decision. However, you don't have dementia and may be you will never get it. There is no way to predict dementia. It's a lottery and nobody knows who will be the loser. Why worrying so much now?
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reallyfedup Apr 2022
I hope I don't get it. But both my parents had it and I've been on drugs that increase the chances of developing it. Also, my particular mental disorder, which I've now had for 60 years negatively affects the brain. My life span according to the statistics is much shorter than the unaffected person and even now I can feel my cognition getting bit shakier. So, rather than worry about it, I have decided to take it into my own hands. This has given me a lot of peace.
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It was a beautiful sunny day, and my neighbor and I were talking about the usual neighbor stuff. Somehow we got onto the topic of dementia and we’re soon sharing tips as it were on how to accomplish our right to die before that diagnosis. It was rather Kevorkianesque, but also realistic.

I expect right to die to become easier as boomers age.
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AlvaDeer Apr 2022
EXACTLY. Once the cost of keeping us is too much we will see easier access to the right to die. I have always said that PS. As a nurse I saw things change once humans weren't used as ATM withdrawal machines by the medical system. Before that Doctors would argue with family to keep someone alive just so they got their money. Once there was little money to be made for Hospitals and doctors with that it was then that things changed. It went from "Are you SAYING you want me to LET YOUR LOVED ONE DIE!!!!" to "Are you saying you want your loved one to stay in this TORMENT instead of allowing them peace!!!!!" ........ it all happened, that change, very quickly. It is still a world in which we should "follow the money" for the most part.
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I'm surprised and strangely comforted to learn that I'm not the only one who has thought about suicide rather than live with dementia. I've watched my mother decline over the years. She's in memory care now, and somewhat adjusting. I have no children or family to help me (who would help me) and I know now that I wasted many years "helping" my mother instead of living my life, maintaining friendships, working two more years, so much more. I don't want to do that to anyone. Maybe I'm feeling negative because I haven't yet recovered from all years of caregiving.
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reallyfedup Apr 2022
You don't need me to say it but I will anyway: You've been through a lot. You have a right to feel tired and negative right now. It's tiring and can be unpleasant to be a caregiver.

As for my interest in assisted suicide, I've lived with a serious and complicated mood disorder since I was about 7. I'm now 66. I have pursued treatment for years and years and really there is not much medicine has to offer. I spent a few hours today looking for research studies but so many of them cut off at 65 if not sooner. I am looking for an interdisciplinary mood disorder program that will help me give me as accurate a diagnosis as possible,. I'm also interested in the brain-gut axis, which addresses microbiome health, newer talk therapies, and psychedelic treatments like ketamine. So I'm not giving up just yet. Even so, what keeps me sane through all this is the knowledge that I can quit when I want, albeit after my husband is gone if I outlive him. I think I've had enough and the significant possibility I will get dementia ties it up like a bow. My best to you.
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A French journalist named Hugo Clement did a video interview not too long ago with an elderly French woman -- who didn't seem sick or in ill health when he interviewed her -- who had signed the papers making arrangements for assisted suicide in Switzerland. You might be able to find it online if you google his name and "assisted suicide" or something like that.
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I want a cocktail of meds that will send me off peacefully into the abyss. I'll get my own personal stash (saving up for that rainy day) and wash it down with an exquisite glass of wine. Seriously, watching my mother decline from Vascular Dementia, I know this is a place I never want to visit. Although she has been demanding and manipulative her entire life, and I still (working on it) harbor many grievances, this has been a very long, hard road for all of us. As we boomers age it will strain our health care system beyond capacity.......I think it is imperative we all have the choice to die with at least some shred if dignity. There is no humanity in making people live under such dire circumstances.
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TChamp Apr 2022
Your plan to end your life sounds great. The problem is that if you get dementia, you won't know you got it. Then, you beautiful plan will be all forgotten.
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I know someone who at around age 70 made a conscious decision to die. She had been schizophrenic all her adult life and lived in a care home due to various ailments. She notified her family, who respected her decision. She then stopped eating and drinking. It took about 5 days.
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AlvaDeer Apr 2022
Jamie Raskin's beautiful Memoir of his son's death, Unthinkable, let's us know the absolute agony of some who suffer mental illnesses. The agony of their parents. Their inability often to go on, and the grief of those helpless to help them.
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I seriously wish to have the right to end my life, should I be diagnosed with Alzeheimer/dementia. BUT my more intense reaction, to my parent’s poor health/dementia, and mom’s very difficult mobility issues, is too stay as healthy as possible. To do what I did not see role modeled. The women on mom’s side were inclined to be obese, overweight, not active, so I’ve worked hard, to stay a healthy weight, move daily, stay active and live with discipline. It’s ingrained in me to live one day at a time, cause I got sober, with 12 steps, at age 24, almost 40 years ago, and those steps guide me daily. Thankful. Every. Day.

Instead of feeling like I’m going to end up like my elders, I’m doing my best to stay independent, continue challenging myself, keep learning tech, embrace change, declutter, all the stuff I saw my MIL doing, but she still got Alzeheimers. My own mom did very little of those things, and she is dealing more with loss of mobility, but def has dementia. Both our parents have official diagnoses of memory loss disease, but their memories are better than they are bad, now. They still know us kids, remember lots, but forget lots.

So if it gets me, I’d appreciate opting out, but will plan, with my husband for what we do, if not possible. We used to joke that since we want to go together, we’d simply jump on an iceberg, and float off to our fate, happily heading for whatever is next, together. As we age, we realize it is better to make actual realistic plans, because burdening our children, with our lack of preparation, or because we wanted things done our way, with no regard to the burden it will bear on our two kids, is not for us.

I feel like a traitor, even writing these words, but living under this, the past 4-8 years, watching our parent’s deteriorating health, and their increasing dependence, on their youngest daughter, our youngest sister, has also made life tough. I won’t go into it here, but things are the way they are because it is the way our mom, dad and sister want it. They live together, always have, their choice, never discussed with the three older sisters. It is what it is.

This is my first post, and the subject brought me out from under the covers, as I’ve been lurking this forum, for over four years. You’ve helped keep me sane. We’re all just doing our best to support our sister and parents, always have, too much to say to tell the story, but know that lack of communication is deadly, and memory loss disease, combined with immobility, incontinence and poor health, is a lot to deal with, so I want the easy way out, in case doing everything possible to avoid it, does not work.

Thanks for having a place for people to go for excellent, honest, caring advice. I’ve experienced how much people can help each other, just by sharing their troubles and solutions. It works!
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AlvaDeer Apr 2022
Please please stay out from under the covers. We can't find you there!!!!!! We really are a very good community and only very occasionally get ticked off with one another!
Do know that even when we have "intent" not to "go there" very few of us, even when we have a means at hand, willingly exit this life. Even those in pain at the end of life. When I was in nursing I was taught that by a Priest. So dire was his condition that nurses went in two by two and wept outside his room questioning why "his God" didn't take him to peace. Yet one night he said to me "If the pain meds put me out could you wake me at 9?" I said "Sure, but WHY?" and he said "Quincy's on then". So while we prayed for him to die this gentle man wanted one more episode of that Coroner's program, Quincy, on TV.
Believers would say it isn't to us to make the time. Others say is is/can be. I think most of us would be comforted to know we COULD have a painless exit if we wanted it, even tho few of us would likely use it.
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I believe that we shouldn't artificially prolong life but, ultimately God has numbered our days, so...

I live in an area that is a huge snowbird and retirement community, far and wide, every small town, every place within 200 miles has catered to the aged for decades.

We have so many silver alerts and I can not help but think, these are without variation, people that have Alzheimer or dementia, did they knowingly walk away to let nature take it's course? It doesn't take long in our extreme heat to become unconscious and die. Sounds like a good option if you can no longer have any quality of life.
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AlvaDeer Apr 2022
RR, it was Dorothy Parker whose poem told us that while many of us want to/are willing to cash in our chips it isn't all that easy to "find a way". You have just mentioned a very favorite of mine. Puts me in mind of those found in snowdrifts, gone away, after a lovely eve. of gambling in Tahoe, thinking they can make their way back to the hotel by some "short cut". So often it doesn't work out. I am pretty sure it wasn't their intention, but in cases where it is the intention, one can see how easily it could be done. Dip too long in the Pacific, playing in the waves, and one understands how quickly hypothermia can take us out. Happens all the time.
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2 words, Dr G (Dr Garavaglia)
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reallyfedup Apr 2022
Thanks for sending but genes are genes and you can't get around that. I eat a very careful diet. I don't exercise as much as I should but that will improve with the weather. I still face an excellent chance at getting dementia.
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I don't think about that for myself, just want to be comfortable and not in a lot of pain. My husband though talks about finding a way out before he becomes unable to take care of himself. We are 73 and 76 and both have our individual health issues that will for sure get worse, but we eat right and exercise to stave off the inevitable. I try to live in the now. He worries. Interesting topic. I like to think that I do not know until I get there how I will feel about being really sick, but the dementia diagnosis keeping one from deciding for themselves certainly is concerning. My father committed suicide and I wish either a medication to stop his pain had been found or an assisted suicide had been available to him instead of the violent way he went out. It was too horrifying for those of us left behind.
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PeggySue2020 Apr 2022
We have a gun too. And have met ppl and families charged with cleaning up what remains.

Years back, an article came out about how ppl were going to Mexico for bottles of liquid barbiturate intended for animal euthanasia. The people would just drink them and hope to go out like Marilyn Monroe.
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Yes. Switzerland is a viable option, but expensive and far away. Here is another interesting option, recently written up in the NY Times. https://www.dezeen.com/2019/05/22/philip-nitschke-death-pod-design/amp/. A death pod, developed recently. Expensive as well, but not as expensive as my moms 10, 000 a month Skilled Nursing, or other facilities. Myself and my youngest sibling, who is mentally I’ll are moms only surviving children. I am the oldest, 68 and live 400 miles away, traveling to visit regularly. She is 92 , has lived alone, falling often for 18 years, so far. She is relatively safe now, but it has been an exhausting journey. I would never want to subject my kids to it….
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I am 68 years old, my father passed when I was a child, and I lost my mom to lung cancer thirty years ago. I thank my mother daily for leaving the way she did. Her cancer had metastisized to her bones but went undiagnosed for 4-5 weeks. During that time, I visited her at home 2-3 times a week, to help around the house or just chat. She was always in a pleasant mood, due to the opiates they used to prescribe :) and we had long, intimate talks about life and memories. We still didn't know she was terminal, but one night she collapsed (she was married). Once she was in the hospital and diagnosed, her mental facilities instantly declined and when she became frightened, I asked the doctor to please give her something to calm her. He did, and she was transferred to a local nursing home where she was put on morphine. When her pain became unbearable, I told the staff to feel free to increase the dosage to keep her as comfortable as possible. She lived the few days it took for everyone to say goodbye, then again, I encouraged the doctor to increase the medication and she peacefully slipped away. I often wonder if the doctor purposely helped her along. I like to think that my passing will be as peaceful and drama free as my mom's, but my how times have changed. I have made my own plans and let my kids know they won't have to go through the pain of fighting with siblings over who is going to take care of me! None of us want to be a burden, but we probably not leave as gracefully as my mom did.

So, now at 68, I see my friends watching and caring for their 95 year old parents, watching them swim upside down like a dying goldfish for what seems like forever, fighting with siblings for time or inheritance, and I am so thankful my parents (my step father, too) went so early and quickly. It is the most loving thing to do. At some point, it will be too late to have any say in our treatment. That is the what scares me the most. Thanks, mom, and don't worry about me, kids, I have a plan.
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reallyfedup Apr 2022
I'm happy that your mom's ending was not horrible and that you had good time together. I think it is a gross failure of what we call modern medicine that interventions devised to prolong life have instead in many cases transformed people from humans into screaming zombies. Then the laws make people jump through every imaginable hoop to decide death on their own terms. And many states don't even have assisted suicide. It is really wrong. Your mother died 30 years ago. These days, because of the ham-handed response to the opioid crisis, I wonder if pain control has become more uncivilized. I don't know.
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I hope to assist myself.. with all the pills we are placed on as we age it should not be hard. I just hope I don;t forget where I put them. ( Still Alice)
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PeggySue2020 Apr 2022
The pills that old people now take won’t do it. Gabapentin, trazodone, most ss ris can be eaten by the handful without reliably dying. Seroquel, same thing.
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I think about this a lot and my preference would be to just wonder out in the wilderness and let the animals take me.
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Riverdale Apr 2022
I just don't feel brave enough to be eaten alive.
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Yes. I want to make a pact with my husband. I have 2 grandparents who lived to 98 in nursing homes. Terrible existences. I have a mother who is 91 and immobile. I can't stand her life. She is either on her last legs or oblivious at my visits. Other direct descendants died early because they smoked or didn't frequent visiting doctors. I do my best at almost 66 to eat well and exercise but I fear ending up like any relatives I described.

My frustration with my mother has to do with a number of issues. She has had so many periods dating back to my childhood when she couldn't cope and stayed in bed. She practiced Christian Science. That did not solve two hip and one knee replacement along with countless other issues. I tried to have her be healthier.

During Covid she developed a septic infection. She spent time in a hospital and was released to rehab and then SN. She hasn't walked since. 9 months ago she was dropped by an aid who went against protocol and both her femurs were broken. She then developed a horrific bedsore which she still has. She has to be catheterized. I feel very bad about all of this but there is nothing else for me to do but visit and see countless residents whose quality of life is nonexistent at least from my viewpoint. Crying, screaming for help or totally out of it. I don't know how anyone could want this.
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reallyfedup Apr 2022
I am so very sorry for you and for your mother. I hope your husband is not as short-sighted as mine. He won't even talk about it. Best wishes to you.
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SO shared conversations where his father told him that he, the dad, would be ready to check out if he was ever in a diaper, which he now is. That was like maybe six years ago.
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reallyfedup Apr 2022
It's so easy to talk about ending your life but when it comes right down to it the decision is very hard to make, maybe impossible. My husband has a friend who used to say that he would take himself out with a shotgun. Here he is, years later, living a truly hideous life with an amputated foot, a rotted jaw, and god knows what else.
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My father had Derek Humphrey's Final Exit on his coffee table. This would have been in the 1990's. It wasn't an issue for him because he died suddenly from a cerebral hemorrhage. The Final Exit Network still exists.

Alzheimer's could wipe out any kind of planning, so you'd have to act pretty soon after it was clear you had it.

Everyone should have an Advance Directive filled out and kept by people who would need to know about it.
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reallyfedup Apr 2022
I'm aware of the Final Exit group but something didn't work for me when I read it. I should go back and look at it again. Thanks. I do have an Advance Directive.
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I don't know about assisted suicide, but I would probably get to a point that I would stop taking my medication; especially, if my behind is too old and I can't wipe my old butt. LOL People are living longer because of all of the medications they take that are keeping their organs going even though the brain is long gone. It would be nice if the body would still have some get up and go in it, but who in the heck wants to live life day in and day out living on fifty pills a day just so these CEOs of these big pharma companies stuff their pockets.

It becomes a burden on families. One person is sacrificed to give up their job to take care of these folks. The sacrificial lamb or goat is left with not enough money in their retirement savings and will be living a life of uncertainty in their own golden and twilight years. Then you have the family infighting of who is going to do what.

Reading these stories on Aging Care has gotten me triggered because it is a wakeup call to reality. At a certain age, we cannot trash our own lives to save someone else out fear, obligation and guilt.
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reallyfedup Apr 2022
I wonder how effective that would be. If it's workable, it's a great idea.
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I am thinking of poison herbs / plants as a way out , for myself. Doing the research now , and that will be my Plan B,,, if natural death isn’t going to take me out soon enough.
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I am in Canada, we have had MAiD for a while.

https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/medical-assistance-dying.html#b11

People can now make a statement that they want MAiD while of sound mind, even if they suffer from dementia in the future.

My Godmother chose MaiD, my uncle is considering it. I know my mother does not want to live if she loses control of either her mind or her body.
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reallyfedup Apr 2022
I read about MAiD but you have to be a resident and I think you have to live there for at least 5 years.
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My plan is to wait till my fur babies pass because I can't leave them alone, then simply stop eating and drinking. No mess, no fuss.
I'll leave a note for family. I never want to be a burden to them.
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reallyfedup Apr 2022
I was thinking that too but don't you need some hefty medicine to get through that?
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Yes. There are states that allow it, I think Washington State does. You made need to establish residency there for a certain amount of time and get a physician to document that this is your wishes before you hit that stage of dementia.
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PeggySue2020 Apr 2022
The whole west coast allows it, and it’s basically a handful of barbiturates, but you can’t get them for that diagnosis. Hastings Center talked about the ethics of having an implantable death bomb put into people so that five years hence, they would expire. You can imagine how that idea bombed.

For me, I’d do either a Tijuana trip for animal euthanasia drugs, which are also barbiturates. Or I’d get on hospice and horde however much morphine and Ativan as possible and keep asking for more so I could have a stash.
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I don’t recommend assisted suicide. I recommend prayers and strength of God for the process. We do not know if worst is waiting at the other side. Jesus spoke about the afterlife
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