Suicide

Since doing the interview on Physician Assisted Suicide recently, I've had a few people ask me about the specifics of my plan. I've been asked this in the past as well, but generally I give a fairly vague response in order to minimize reactions. In one case a medical professional asked me what I planned to do, and I told her in some detail. She responded by saying it was all she could do to stop herself from grabbing my "supplies" and making off with them. Unfortunately for her, those supplies are legally mine, medically prescribed, and hidden. Fortunately for me she was a true professional, admitting to her feelings but not acting on them.

Before I go much further with this, let me make this perfectly clear.

I.DON'T.WANT.TO.DIE.

I am no different that virtually every other healthy person on this planet. I want to live. I want to see my children all married with children of their own. I want to see my grandchildren grow up and go to college, get married, and perhaps even have their own children. I want to live a long and happy life.

Unfortunately it's looking more and more like I will not get what I want, so I have to be happy with what I have gotten so far. I will confess that the idea of ending it all is in my mind on a regular basis. I wake up a great many mornings asking myself why I keep going. Then Katherine comes into my room and says "get up", and I cannot help but smile at her. Or I remember that my daughter, Kate, is coming for dinner in a couple of days, and surely I can wait that long. While my quality of life is tumbling, my reasons for living are still strong enough to outweigh it. That will change one day, but not this day.

As for taking my own life, this is a fairly easy thing. Information abounds on the Internet with lots of ideas for quiet, painless departure. The key ingredient, it seems to me, is courage. You have to be willing to leave and have the courage to do something about it, something I am not willing to do yet. My specific plan involves about 8 Zopiclones and a half bottle, or perhaps a full bottle, of my favourite Scotch. Online research tells me that should do the job just nicely. I will fall asleep, and I am extremely unlikely to wake up.

Of course, that's why I am in favour of Physician Assisted Suicide. I might be wrong. It's unlikely, but something might go wrong in the process. More importantly, the above plan involves having the full use of my arms and a full ability to swallow. If I wait too long, that will be lost to me and this plan will fail. So doing it myself means I have to leave early, something I clearly do not want to do. As I have said before, it's a timing issue, and a near run thing. It will be a whole lot easier if I don't have to do this myself.