Living While Leaving Series
Patient Choices Vermont is pleased to sponsor the Living While Leaving video series to share the heart-felt and compassionate stories of Vermonters who have used medical aid in dying.
Karen's Story |
Dee Allen's Story |
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“In February 2018, symptoms became so severe that I went to the ER. Three months later, I was diagnosed with a type of stomach cancer extremely rare in someone my age. I was 33.” - Karen Oelschlaeger
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Vermont legislators may remember Dee Allen, former Resolutions Clerk at the Statehouse. In August 2020, she learned that she had a rare neurological condition. She requested aid in dying under Vermont’s Act 39 and passed away on December 21, 2020.
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Remembering Al Gillotti |
ACAMAID.org | Great videos and guidance for both patients and caregivers |
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Al Gillotti used Vermont's Act 39 because the prognosis was that his brain tumor would continue to grow and it would only become worse. He believed death is part of life and wanted his leaving to be joyful rather than stressful. He did not want to end his life in palliative sedation. He wanted to meet the beast on his own terms.
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The American Clinicians Academy on Medical Aid in Dying has launched a website which includes some great videos and guidance for both patients and the medical community. In particular, we would recommend this video, which answers the question “What is it like on the day you take your medication?”
Aid in Dying at the Bedside |
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Eric Stevens' Death with Dignity
The two films (below) are the second in our series... They feature a dialogue with wife and mother Peggy Stevens and daughter Samantha Stevens regarding Eric Stevens, husband and father. The interview is conducted by Betsy Walkerman, PCV President. These films were created by Stephen Kastner at DesignWise Studios, videographer and editor with music by Eric Stevens (and his band in Part 2).
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Part 1
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Part 2
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Dick Walters, PCV co-founder |
Maggie Lake - Putney, Vermont |
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The first video in the series (below), is an interview that spans three generations: with wife and mother, Ginny Walters, co-founder of PCV; her daughter Betsy Walkerman, President of PCV and daughter/granddaughter Karen Walkerman. It is the story of Dick Walters, co-founder of PCV, his relentless advocacy and his journey at the end of his life using medical aid in dying.
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On January 17, 2015, Maggie Lake became the third person in Vermont to make the choice to end her life by taking a combination of drugs, prescribed by her physician under the conditions laid out by Act 39. After being diagnosed with mantle cell lymphoma in 2006, over the course of 9 years Maggie had numerous rounds of chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and two stem cell transplants. (continued below)
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Oliver Brody Remembers his Partner, Maggie Lake
(Continued)
As her disease progressed, Maggie understood that it would soon take her life. She was very anxious to obtain the drugs that could foreshorten her suffering, if she decided she would need to. She didn't know whether she would take them, but she knew she wanted to have them available if she decided she needed to.
The process for getting the drugs worked just as the law prescribes: she met with two doctors, who interviewed her, asked her questions, informed her of alternative palliative care that was available, and she made the request for the drugs. Two weeks later, she met again with her doctors, and made the second request for the drugs. And 48 hours after that, the prescription was written, and she picked it up. There was a pharmacy in town that stocked the drugs that were prescribed, and she had the prescription filled.
Although she still didn't know whether she would end up taking the drugs, she was very much relieved to have them in her possession.
Maggie was an artist, and also a family nurse practitioner. She was well-known in the community, had treated hundreds, if not thousands, of people, multiple generations of families, that came to her practice at the Putney Medical Office, and also at the Brattleboro Free Clinic. And in that role, she came face-to-face with many of the life-and-death issues people must deal with. She was a caring and loving health provider, and spent much more time with her patients than people are used to. She would talk with her patients, hear their stories, and try to get to the bottom of what was troubling them. Really, she was as much a therapist or counselor as she was a medical care provider.
Maggie understood how people sometimes faced problems in their lives, problems that might drive some to consider suicide. She had had a number of patients who did commit suicide. She called suicide "a permanent solution to a temporary problem." Maggie loved life. She embraced life. She was not contemplating suicide as a solution to a temporary problem. She was ensuring that she would have the means to shorten the time she would have to suffer the pain and debilitation caused by the disease.
The way Maggie chose to end her life is not the way many people, or even most people, would choose. But it was her choice. There are some who believe that that choice should not be permitted, in the mistaken belief that it has some implication for how others should choose to die, that it somehow means that someone with a disability should choose this way to die. But Maggie's choice was
hers alone, and it has no meaning or implication other than that, for anyone else.
Act 39 is not perfect. There are far too few doctors willing to prescribe the drugs, and too few pharmacies that stock those drugs, that would hasten death for a person who has just a short time to live.
I am sharing this story in the hopes that people will come to understand that this is not enabling "assisted suicide," but rather giving people who are facing death a choice in how their lives can end, not suffering unremitting pain, but peacefully, and with dignity.
As her disease progressed, Maggie understood that it would soon take her life. She was very anxious to obtain the drugs that could foreshorten her suffering, if she decided she would need to. She didn't know whether she would take them, but she knew she wanted to have them available if she decided she needed to.
The process for getting the drugs worked just as the law prescribes: she met with two doctors, who interviewed her, asked her questions, informed her of alternative palliative care that was available, and she made the request for the drugs. Two weeks later, she met again with her doctors, and made the second request for the drugs. And 48 hours after that, the prescription was written, and she picked it up. There was a pharmacy in town that stocked the drugs that were prescribed, and she had the prescription filled.
Although she still didn't know whether she would end up taking the drugs, she was very much relieved to have them in her possession.
Maggie was an artist, and also a family nurse practitioner. She was well-known in the community, had treated hundreds, if not thousands, of people, multiple generations of families, that came to her practice at the Putney Medical Office, and also at the Brattleboro Free Clinic. And in that role, she came face-to-face with many of the life-and-death issues people must deal with. She was a caring and loving health provider, and spent much more time with her patients than people are used to. She would talk with her patients, hear their stories, and try to get to the bottom of what was troubling them. Really, she was as much a therapist or counselor as she was a medical care provider.
Maggie understood how people sometimes faced problems in their lives, problems that might drive some to consider suicide. She had had a number of patients who did commit suicide. She called suicide "a permanent solution to a temporary problem." Maggie loved life. She embraced life. She was not contemplating suicide as a solution to a temporary problem. She was ensuring that she would have the means to shorten the time she would have to suffer the pain and debilitation caused by the disease.
The way Maggie chose to end her life is not the way many people, or even most people, would choose. But it was her choice. There are some who believe that that choice should not be permitted, in the mistaken belief that it has some implication for how others should choose to die, that it somehow means that someone with a disability should choose this way to die. But Maggie's choice was
hers alone, and it has no meaning or implication other than that, for anyone else.
Act 39 is not perfect. There are far too few doctors willing to prescribe the drugs, and too few pharmacies that stock those drugs, that would hasten death for a person who has just a short time to live.
I am sharing this story in the hopes that people will come to understand that this is not enabling "assisted suicide," but rather giving people who are facing death a choice in how their lives can end, not suffering unremitting pain, but peacefully, and with dignity.
Prescription for Peace of Mind: An option for the terminally ill,
a new documentary by Karin and Bill Schwanbeck
Featuring Dr. Diana Barnard, Peggy Stevens and PCV President Betsy Walkerman, along with patients, doctors and others in Connecticut.
a new documentary by Karin and Bill Schwanbeck
Featuring Dr. Diana Barnard, Peggy Stevens and PCV President Betsy Walkerman, along with patients, doctors and others in Connecticut.
Kimiko Yumoto - South Burlington, Vermont
Terri Hallenbeck | Seven Days | June 4, 2015
Read in full at Seven Days
[…] After initially being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2007, Yumoto learned in 2011 that she had multiple system atrophy, her obituary says. That is a degenerative condition that diminishes the body’s involuntary functions, including heart rate and digestion.
“Kimiko chose to end her life through physician-assisted suicide under Vermont’s Patient Choice and Control at End of Life Act (Act 39),” the obituary says. “Kimiko left us on the day and in the manner of her choosing, but long before her time.” […]
Read in full at Seven Days
[…] After initially being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2007, Yumoto learned in 2011 that she had multiple system atrophy, her obituary says. That is a degenerative condition that diminishes the body’s involuntary functions, including heart rate and digestion.
“Kimiko chose to end her life through physician-assisted suicide under Vermont’s Patient Choice and Control at End of Life Act (Act 39),” the obituary says. “Kimiko left us on the day and in the manner of her choosing, but long before her time.” […]
A Daughter Reflects on Her Mother's Advance Directives
“Just put me in a cottage by a lake,” my mother, Ruth used to say in her lucid moments.
That was in the years when her cognitive abilities were declining due to Alzheimer’s. Ruth had worked hard to create the strongest possible advance directives before her dementia would make that impossible. She was adamant that she did not want to live beyond her memory. But in conversations she initiated on how she wanted to end her life, my mom (who loved food) eventually just said, “Well, I think I’ll just stop eating, when I’m ready.”
In the summer of 2012, sitting by a lake in Vermont, Dick Walters (my father’s cousin), and his wife Ginny Walters, both strong advocates of end-of-life choice, introduced Ruth to the idea of adding an important to her directives. This additional component would make it clear that she did not want to be fed when she was unable to feed herself. Ruth worded the directive: “No one will hold food to my lips or put it in my mouth unless I direct them to.”
When my mother could no longer age in place, we were fortunate to find a small group care home near a lake, where the staff were open to following the directives she posted. When Ruth passed away, we were grateful that she died peacefully in the way she had chosen. Her carefully thought out directives played a crucial role in making this possible.
Jenia Walter
That was in the years when her cognitive abilities were declining due to Alzheimer’s. Ruth had worked hard to create the strongest possible advance directives before her dementia would make that impossible. She was adamant that she did not want to live beyond her memory. But in conversations she initiated on how she wanted to end her life, my mom (who loved food) eventually just said, “Well, I think I’ll just stop eating, when I’m ready.”
In the summer of 2012, sitting by a lake in Vermont, Dick Walters (my father’s cousin), and his wife Ginny Walters, both strong advocates of end-of-life choice, introduced Ruth to the idea of adding an important to her directives. This additional component would make it clear that she did not want to be fed when she was unable to feed herself. Ruth worded the directive: “No one will hold food to my lips or put it in my mouth unless I direct them to.”
When my mother could no longer age in place, we were fortunate to find a small group care home near a lake, where the staff were open to following the directives she posted. When Ruth passed away, we were grateful that she died peacefully in the way she had chosen. Her carefully thought out directives played a crucial role in making this possible.
Jenia Walter