Film can spark 'The Conversation' about end-of-life

I attended the screening of "Final Pose," an award-winning BendFilm 2014 documentary directed by Karen Mellberg of Bend at The Belfry last week. The film concerns the end-of-life journey of Sisters yogi Myra Lani Fisher through her own voice and was filmed during the last few weeks of her life as she was preparing to use Oregon's Death with Dignity (DWD) Act.

I didn't know Myra and only learned about her a few weeks before she transitioned. I wish I could have had a conversation with this very strong woman to learn how she processed her decision to choose this end-of-life option.

Because this is what I do - I help people have these conversations about death and dying so they can make informed choices, have discussions among their family members, and fill out the necessary paperwork so their last wishes will be carried out. It probably wouldn't surprise you that most people find it difficult to even contemplate their own death, much less plan for it.

I spoke with a number of people that night who had no idea this information was available or even that Oregon has had a DWD law since 1997. Very few have talked to their doctor about anything to do with their own death, and not many knew about the process one has to go through to request the option.

This can be a daunting task for anyone, especially for those who wait until the last possible minute to even try to find information. Just having to make the request twice 15 days apart, much less trying to find a physician who will write a prescription and a pharmacist who will fill it, can take time and perseverance. This where Compassion & Choices comes in.

Compassion & Choices Oregon is a non-profit organization that provides resources, support, and counseling to help people with the decision-making process. They are expanding their outreach into Central Oregon by holding events such as this screening and panel discussion to increase awareness about the DWD option.

It's certainly not a fit for everybody. One's dying process isn't always a terrible ordeal, but for some people, it is; with some diseases, especially certain cancers such as Lani suffered with, it can be excruciatingly painful in spite of the availability of morphine through hospice services. Certainly palliative pain management is helpful for a lot of people, but it's not universally available, not everybody benefits equally and an individual's suffering is intangible.

For those who die slowly over a long period of time, especially in their 80s and 90s, continuing to be kept alive only to continue suffering even without pain can be unbearable to some, and these patients often beg to die, beg their loved ones to kill them; some take matters into their own hands.

Voluntary Stop Eating and Drinking (VSED) is often the only sanctioned option a person has if they are not terminal (diagnosed with six months or less to live), have a degenerative disease or mental problem or are frail elderly. I've seen VSED go well for some people and others not so much. We don't have a perfect system for helping people to die well yet. Medical students are finally starting to receive some training in end-of-life care, and things are slowly beginning to change. Insurance coverage is a whole other issue.

Those who end up in hospitals trying one more resuscitation, one more invasive procedure, one more experimental treatment, often end up on life support beyond what they would have wanted - just because they were too afraid to have the conversation and make some informed decisions about what treatments they would want and not want at the end of their lives. This agony extends to the family and leaves them traumatized for years over whether they did the right thing because they always thought there would be more time, and suddenly there is none.

There are religious objections, and fears of wantonly "offing" the disabled, the elderly, the vulnerable who are unable to speak for themselves, which is why we need solid laws to prevent coercion and forced extermination. Seventeen years of experience has shown the Oregon DWD Act to be effective and only used by a small percentage of people. And only a small percentage of the people who request their prescription actually fill it, and an even smaller percentage actually end up taking it.

Compassion & Choices advocates for the legal right at least for terminally ill people to choose the time and means of their own deaths. It is a personal choice, not a license to euthanize old, sick, dying people against their will.

The recent case of Brittany Maynard, a 29-year-old woman with incurable brain cancer, a prognosis of a only a few months to live, and the likelihood of an agonizing dying process, has kick-started the conversation around the country about our right to choose to die on our own terms. She moved to Oregon from California where there is no legal option for aid-in-dying and ended her life last month by self-administering the medication, on the day she chose, at home in her own bed, with her husband and her mother by her side. Isn't this the way we all want to go?

So now we have this beautiful documentary, a gift from Myra Lani Fisher and Karen Mellberg, about the beauty of life in our own death to give each of us the courage to have those hard conversations we don't want to have with ourselves or with our families, but which we must - because suddenly there may be no more time.