Brain Cancer Patient Delays Assisted Death

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• Brain Cancer Patient Delays Assisted Death

 

A 29-year-old woman with terminal brain cancer who planned to end her life next month has said she is not ready to die yet.

Brittany Maynard, who moved to Oregon because of its assisted dying law, originally said she intended to take lethal medication on 1 November - this Saturday.
But in a new video, she said: "I still feel good enough and I still have enough joy and I still laugh and smile with my family and friends enough that it doesn't seem like the right time right now.
"But it will come, because I feel myself getting sicker. It's happening each week."
Ms Maynard recently visited the Grand Canyon with her husband and parents, a place she had always hoped to see before she died.

Earlier this month she rebuked a palliative care expert who said she was being exploited by an advocacy group and felt under pressure to end her life. She insisted it was her decision alone.

Ms Maynard was given six months to live in April after being diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer
In her latest video, released on Wednesday, she acknowledges the scepticism she has faced.
"When people criticise me for not waiting longer," she said, "or, you know, whatever they've decided is best for me, it hurts, because really, I risk it every day, every day that I wake up."
She said her health is still deteriorating to the extent that she was recently unable to say her husband's name during a seizure.
"I think sometimes people look at me and they think, 'Well you don't look as sick as you say you are,' which hurts to hear, because when I'm having a seizure and I can't speak afterwards, I certainly feel as sick as I am," she said.
Ms Maynard has been campaigning for expanded assisted dying laws in the US with Compassion & Choices, an end-of-life non-profit organisation.
She and her husband moved from their home in the San Francisco Bay area because California is not one of the five US states - Oregon, Washington, Montana, Vermont and New Mexico - that helps terminally ill people to die.