On Jan. 9, 2021, my wife of 50 years died of pancreatic cancer. She had been diagnosed barely five months earlier. Most of her life she had been a healthy 140 pounds. She had always been physically very healthy and in good physical condition. On the early January morning when, going in to her bedroom to administer morphine, I found her lifeless, she weighed less than 70 pounds.
Among other functions, under normal circumstances, the pancreas provides enzymes that aid digestion. Over the preceding five months, I’d watched my wife progressively eat less and less food, being reduced to nibbling dry Cheerios out of a teacup. The desire for a particular food might strike her, I would purchase the food, she might take a bite or two and couldn’t eat any more. The disappointment she registered, the repeated realization of the degree to which the cancer controlled her fate was excruciating. The physical discomfort that accompanied the process of starvation was indescribable, even with the use of morphine.
We lived in Franklin County, only a few miles from Vermont. Many times she expressed the wish that we lived in that state that allows people with terminal illnesses the right to mitigate suffering and choose to die under medical supervision. In my wife’s case, this would not be suicide but a gentle end to suffering and agony.
I served in the Army medical corps in Vietnam while the draft was still in force. I encountered the remains of many young men in their late teens or barely in their twenties. They had not experienced much of life yet, nor could they usually understand a decision to die — unlike an older person who has lived a full life and must confront a terminal illness.
I don’t believe such decisions should be left to legislators or a small group of people. It is an intensely personal situation and carefully controlled, the choice of how one dies when death is inevitable should be left to the individuals.
John R. Riggan
Shelburne Falls