How can a few days feel like a lifetime?, hundred of kilometres,  feel like another country?   Today we will drive to attend the funeral of our relative, stay overnight and return to continue our lives deprived by knowing that a good woman has died of that most insidious disease, cancer.   A disease that eats the body away from the inside out.  Death is never pretty but does it have to be so ugly?  Does it have to take its toll of those who must endure and wait and wait?   Why can’t the pain of loss be sweetened by man’s ability to shortened it.

I held her dying hand for some hours until my shoulders and my arm ached, and then next morning I sat with her body, so tiny under the obligatory white sheet with two red camellias on her chest.   I sat,  to free up others to allow them respite care.    It was a sobering time in which I could reassess how I felt about death and the concept of eternity and for me it hadn’t changed.    By the time we’d made the long trip, she’d was no longer aware.  My last conscious memory, previously,  was of beseeching eyes for reassurance, but I do respect her Catholic family beliefs and the comfort that for them she is still with them.   I felt so strongly that she was “gone”.   Like my “faith” the circumstances reaffirmed my belief system that this life is all there is, and this too is my comfort.   Whilst I can respect the “memory” I can’t “kid” myself that she has gone to any place better.   I am pleased that her pain has ceased and that her immediate family can now recover and move on.  

Yesterday I heard of a doctor who died of a brain tumor who chose not to have interventional care and lived out the last six months of his life, dying at the age of 53.   His initial indication that all was not well was a seizure, also profuse sweating.   As a professional he chose not to have any treatment that could have prolonged his life.    As a professional he made a conscious decision because he knew first hand that intervention was futile and a hastened death was preferable to the alternative of a lingering one as a result of pointless treatment.   The doctor knew,  unlike so many ill people that all one buys is time,  which is not necessarily quality of life.  Truly His Choice in Dying! (not because he wanted to die, but because he knew he was dying and chose his journey to achieve what he felt was best for him (and even perhaps his young family)   To be remembered without all the trappings of “trying to be seen to be something to promote “hope” when there is none.

Watching the Opposition Leader, Mr Baillieu being interviewed last night on Work Choices and the implication for the Liberals to gain power in the next State Election in November, 2006, I watched his “open honest direct gaze’ straight at the interviewer and the camera as he said “Liberals are all about Choice….choice in all things, including the workplace.”.   Strange that he has not felt the need to reassure the Voluntary Euthanasia Lobbyists of the same “Liberals are all about Choice.”   I had been told that too! but when reality calls for him to actually go on the record, his silence is deafening.  It tends to make me believe that he is selective in his “Choices” of freedom for the individual contract or collective bargaining.   Whether it be me as an individual with a vested interest in the outcome of his Policy or the Dying with Dignity Victoria as our Collective Bargaining Organisation.    The worker and our Union, the sick and the governing body which we subscribe to have “official representation”.

Mr Anthony (Tony) Robinson, ALP Member for Mitcham objects to the methods used by the DWDV lobbyists and tells us we should write as individuals if we wish to highlight a viewpoint.   I searched frantically through my copious files to find his responses to my previous four personally addressed letters, printed and mailed, as distinct from emails, yet was unable to locate a single letter from him.   I will email him a copy of this entry though because it is an election year and he needs to listen to people.  Mr Robinson can never be quite sure who has relatives who don’t really care who is in Government but do care about an individual’s health issues.   With one in four people contracting cancer (for one illness alone) and for the one in three, that will be touched by it, I suggest he starts doing his sums!……Even committed Christians believe in voluntary euthanasia with stringent guidelines.   The Liberal Party have realised that 73%-76% in favour actually do include some conservatives as well.   An overnight diagnosis can make all the difference to many a person’s personal view on the matter of choice.   Even a Latter Day Saint member acknowledged this to me the other day!

Having spoken of both Liberal and Labor Representatives I would like to share Mr Steve Fielding, Family First, Senator for Victoria response to me, as a result of my last letter dated July 12th, mailed to all 88 Victorian State and 12 Senators representing Victorians.

Firstly I know he did not read one word of my letter because straight off, he saw my correspondence “relating to your organisation”.  Had he read anything at all, he would have known I am individual representing my own viewpoints and those who I meet in the course of my lobbying Politicians for legislative change.

“As the first, and only federal representative for the Family First Party, I have received correspondence on many different issues.  These letters are an important part of the work I do for my Victorian constituents.  I want you to know that I do appreciate the information you have sent”.

If you would like to know more about what I’m doing to help Australian families you can visit my website…..”

As a “Family First” which is a religious based political party Mr Fielding has not learnt the most christian of beliefs “humility” which was rammed home to me in a very physical sense over many years by many religious representatives.   He crammed into his 50cent postage letter,  his glossy newsletter which highlights all the wonderful things HE is doing for Victorians with a lovely front photo of himself “Steve with Prime Ministers John Howard and Tony Blair”.

   Although new to politics (not the Church politics, the Government one!) already he has learnt the political swill of not actually addressing the issues of the Victorians he “represents” so much as using an opportunity to tell me how wonderful he is.    I am writing to him as a Senate Representing Victoria, he has already won the Seat….I am now asking him to Represent My Interests, not his own.

On the other hand, because there are Politicians who I know would honour Choice for the individual, already in conversation yesterday afternoon I was able to gain two votes for a politician who is in a marginal seat, and of course, those two have their friends who really don’t give a toss who is in but believe in Choice!…. any decision in Parliament will be along a conscience vote because of the “sensitive and considered issue” involved.

Must go now……..couldn’t sleep all night but perhaps tonight will be easier……..Thank God, I’m not driving today…but will make tea and give sympathy and do nothing to further this cause because today will be too raw for so many people standing in the pouring rain….At least the pain and distress will have eased for those most closely touched by the events of the past week.  I will be silenced just this once…….I respect other’s choices……why can’t mine by respected by those who can make the difference.

Legalise Advance Directives so that only the individual concerned is considered.

Thanks to the generosity of a contributor I have been able to provide an additional “Viewpoint”, that of some doctors reproduced from the Medical Journal of Australia, February and July 2003.   I believe there has been no further formalised Debate within the ranks of doctors, but perhaps I have missed them.

For Debate: 17/2/03, Death Talk: debating euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide in Australia is provided by Professor Margaret A Somerville, a Canadian.  Prof Somerville did not respond to my email, regarding this article.   (as distinct from an Australian Professor Margaret Somerville of Monash Gippsland Campus)

Responses: (in order printed)

1    Roger W Hunt: SA Palliative Care Specialist

2    Malcolm Parker: Queensland School of Medicine

3    Rodney A Syme: Surgeon and President of Dying with Dignity Victoria ( then VESV)

4    Julia M Anaf: Member of a Voluntary Euthanasia Society

5    Clem F Nommensen: Retired General Surgeon of Queensland

6    Francis J Coombe: President of South Australia Voluntary Euthanasia (SAVES)

7    Margaret A Somerville: In Reply

It think it is great to have both Nurses and Doctor’s perspectives on voluntary euthanasia which is more accurately defined as choice and dignity in dying.

Because of a personal immediate medical emergency (not my own) I am asking my web builder to disable “Your Say” for a week, due to the excessive spam with little input to balance the opportunities offered by inviting comment.   As one friend recovers successfully from her fourth cancer operation in as many years, a relative is dying of lung cancer after kidney cancer last year.   Like me, she had never smoked in her life.    Because she lives in regional Victoria we’ll be traveling a distance.

I feel particularly sad about her because she was one of nature’s treasures, who spent her whole life running around after other people.  A lady in every sense of the word.   I can only be there to wish for her, a good death.

It was commented yesterday that I didn’t make myself entirely clear about what “terminal seeding” means. 

“The increasing contentious debate about the impact of patenting of life forms and genetic engineering is extremely important to all humanity.  The original purpose of patenting was developed to apply to machinery and industrial inventions, but the biotec industry has already managed to gain private monopoly rights (patients) on some living materials, by distorting the original concept and intention of patenting – as life is obviously not an invention.”

“I believe the introduction of GE crops and food stuffs on the pretext of feeding the hungry is wrong.  It raises serious moral, spiritual and environmental issues and puts the control of food resources into the hands of profit driven corporations.  I am registering opposition to any endorsement of genetically engineered/modified foods by any Vatican body, including the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.”

Taken from a letter sent to the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, dated November 1, 2004.   The wording was prepared by the GE opposition lobbyists.   The standard political response was received “your comments have been noted”…..

Life is not an invention – to be manipulated at the will of man.   I am not allowed to die as I would choose based on the argument that life is a “gift from God” not to be relinquished under any circumstances.   How then can we differ from our food source which is the very bread of life itself?!.

At last I have found a shared common interest with the religious communities in a most unlikely place!  I subscribe to among other things Focus on Food which promotes healthy foods by opposing genetically modified ones which have been shown to be bad for people (and the economy!).   I was horrified to learn some years ago that an American company, Monsanto, was seeking to develop seeds which would produce food as a “once off provider” requiring vast numbers of the world’s population to be become dependent on America for food in every sense of the word.  Patented food sources, like our body’s DNA! Medicine is not cheap and neither will the food be!     Of course it would have started simply and plausibly enough with lame reasons why Mother Nature couldn’t do it better but like so many things that have evolved recently there is always a financial gain at the end of the pain, be it seeds or weaponry.   What better way to control the world than by the selective provision of food.

I also genuinely believe that many of the additives being added to our foods are directly related to the massive increase in cancers and at a much earlier age.  (Excessively high levels of salt and sugar compound health problems)   I worked with a woman once whose three year old daughter was developing breasts because the chicken meat was being genetically modified.    I have dropped my meat consumption drastically over the years, yet know that all our foods are being contaminated to a lesser or greater degree.   I have tasted real milk warm from a cow and the carton stuff offered,  bears no similarity to my memories.  A family member is so restricted because of food allergies, the diet itself is ridiculously limited, and some of the grandchildren, so young and are already suffering food intolerances.   Food should be left as natural as possible, as the human body was developed to receive it.

If you want any information on the organisation itself please contact the co-ordinator, Kim at focus.on.food@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 436, Wishart 3189.   They’ll welcome new members committed to similar ideas,  and actively promote awareness of food intolerances directly to manufacturers of foods.

Like myself they take their issues to the politicians and I have reproduced their standard letter which gives an indication of how they approach their serious concerns:  

To the Honorable Mr John Brumby, Minister for Innovation, 1 Treasury Place, Melbourne, 3000: john.brumby@parliament.vic.gov.au

I oppose the State Government’s GE Foods Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) and the government plan to turn Victoria into a biotech hub by 2010.

I oppose:

• The allocation of $7.8 million towards Agribiosciences research at Latrobe University to commercialize GE crops and flowers.
• The Partnership with the American Venter Institute to map the DNA of Victorian soils to then sell the intellectual property
• The government partnership with an unnamed investor to breed GE wheat, barley and oats and canola.
• The hosting of an International GE food Conference August 6 – 9 as a huge networking opportunity for the GE Industry and transnational investors, at Victorian taxpayers expense.

I find it extraordinary that the State Government has moved in such a radical direction without community consultation, particularly while the State moratorium on growing GE crops is in place until 2008.

In the words of State Agricultural Minister Bob Cameron when defending the moratorium “any commercial release of GE canola would represent a point of no return for Victoria”.   Clearly, this government is now willfully moving toward commercial release of multiple GE crops.

As a community member I suggest this is a most ill advised direction, particularly in an election year.

I look forward to a response to my concerns.

In May 06, The General Secretary of the World Council of Churches issued a strong condemnation of Terminator seeds.   The Rev Dr Samuel Kobia, “Applying technology to design sterile seeds turns life, which is a gift from God, into a commodity.  Preventing farmers from re-planting saved seed will increase economic injustice all over the world and add to the burdens of those already living in hardship”.  www.oikoumene.org

In June 06 A Coalition of Religions (10) in Sydney produced this statement “As a coalition of believers from ten faith traditions with the Faith and Ecology Network (FEN) we are grateful for and support the work of scientists, health professionals and campaigners who have alerted us to problems associated with access to nutritious food and the increasing presence of genetically modified foods in the market”. www.onlinecatholics.com.au/issue110

The reason why I have shared this information on this particular website is because I believe the choices Governments make at the level of the food chain is even more important than choice in dying with dignity.   With dying there may still be one’s individual choice, but once our food is terminally seeded we are bound by the balls literally to the American financial markets (or even Australia’s financial market).   Who gives the right to any company to mess with nature’s own work to a degree that beggars belief!  Can a way to be found to bottle and sell, air?   Well no one thought twenty years ago that seeds would be created deliberately not to reproduce.  How can even such a concept be sold to a gullible public?

I am emailing today’s entry to a number of people, including some 88 politicians.   I am hoping that quite a number of people who are not moved to activism at any level will see the necessity for doing so with this issue.   Please make your presence felt, and as the letter says, it is an Election year.   Make your voices heard please!   Victoria’s problem today -  but which other State, will it be tomorrow?

Mary Walsh

www.yourchoiceindying.com

Yesterday was memorable.    Being a Wednesday I undertook my customary stance on the steps of Parliament House.   I had taken the previous Wednesday “off duty” for family reasons so felt I should make the effort regardless of the weather.  

I wear a blue windcheater which has yourchoiceindying.com emblazoned across the front, while on the back it has the message “Your Choice in Dying – Legislative change by our Australian Politicians for choice and dignity in dying makes lobbying essential for the Medical Treatment Act 1988 to be fully effective”.  

The message was intentional to be seen by politicians as they entered the steps of Parliament and while getting out of their cars.   Wearing the windcheater with its message means I can’t cover it up with a over coat to keep warm.  I have another one similar with the “choices questions” as asked on the front of this website but it is not as warm and I feel the legislative statement is more appropriate to Parliament Steps.

The previous fortnight I was all hot and bothered from the long walk up Bourke Street so whipped into a lane way and divested myself of the jumper underneath the windcheater and then continued on up to the steps.    Yesterday that jumper was still in my bag yet I had optimistically worn a cotton T Shirt for when the sun came out, under my windcheater.   I didn’t want to strip off with the exposure provided by Parliament Steps which is clearly visible from a long way.  But used the jumper to wrap around my gloved hand holding the placard up….in spite of the gusty winds making it awkward.   Even my gloved hands were frozen!   (last night, feeling my hands hours later, my niece told me, I was deserving of the description – tenacious and dedicated to the cause)

I was told it was 12 degrees yesterday but I think it was about 8 on the steps.   I was frozen! but having given myself the day off the previous week I felt I should endure.   After two and a half hours and many conversations later I was moved to leave and find the nearest pub which was over the road.   It had been suggested I try vodka, but as I was on a empty stomach I couldn’t risk the ramifications of being found drunk and disorderly while in charge of a placard.  So I asked for a Red, my hands were so cold I couldn’t lift the glass off the bar with one hand, and the barmaid was moved to tell me where the warmest spot in the room was.  I quickly whipped the jumper on, put my gloves on and thawed out slowly.   For a time, my legs were shaking as well as my hands….  I seriously considered a second Red but remembered the very steep elevators into the underground and knowing I am a cheap drunk, headed home.

One gentleman wanted me to go and visit a lady who was dying of breast cancer, then changed his mind and asked me not to go.  He ran up to me, then away, then back again.   She lives in Bourke Street just down the road from where I was standing.  I kind of thought he should have let me go to her because I felt a kindred spirit, then thought how arrogant that made me feel.  What could I have said?  I would only have held her and hoped I didn’t hurt…….But he took my card, together with my phone number and said she’d ring me – but I can’t imagine that she will!…..

I was honoured again,  to be permitted by a teacher to address a Class of Students who were visiting Parliament House to see how Laws are introduced into society.   At one level I dislike talking about death and dying with choices to young people but then I remember, the youth of tomorrow are our hope for change.   Being more intelligent and better educated they’ll not be influenced by the beliefs that are neither proven nor relevant to the wellbeing of the broader community.   Choice, I feel is the only method of dealing with dignity in dying.   Choice for the individual leaves everyone free to follow their own journey.

A young man of 22 spent some time with me.   I felt very optimistic having discussed with him a broad range of issues and in particular the politics of trying to change Government thinking.   Although he was supportive of Pro Choice, the words voluntary euthanasia worried him tremendously.   I had to explain that with Dying with Dignity Victoria and Your Choice in Dying our aims were to get the Medical Treatment Act 1988 changed to permit the patient to have their end of life choices respected above all others.   He’d never thought about how an ageing population is creating wealth and employment at the expense of the individual who had no choice but to endure.   Like the young lady from weeks ago whose uncle was being kept on life support against the family’s wishes. 

I thought back to how I had concerned myself about the loss of the wording “voluntary euthanasia” and how it has been misconstrued by those with another agenda.    The mistake I feel is with Hitler the word “murder” should always have been used instead of “euthanasing in gas chambers” of Jews, Gypsies and many others.   It is murder – genocide is murder, whether black, white or brown skinned – why don’t we use the correct wording for what has occurred.   Like Death, we need to face realities.

In fifty years time I wonder whether “Seek and Destroy”, “Eliminate”, “Liquidate”, “Defend” “Causalities” will hold the same connotations for the next generation.   People are being murdered in the name of protecting “us” from terrorism, but we don’t want the bluntness of truth to stand in the way of saying the word, kill! 

People who see voluntary euthanasia as murder should also see war as murder (but they don’t they do?)  Hypocrites!

I found the Four Corners Program last night on the meshing of the Liberal Party and Religion, extremely disturbing.   It confirms what I’ve been saying previously.    It may have been about the NSW Liberal Party last night but I tend to treat the Parties without Borders and think that what happens at one level of the Party will happen at another.  Unfortunately I believe the same to be true for the Labor Party.

I am so grateful that China is there to balance the might of America and Israel.   That Russian is stepping forward and saying that Israel needs to be mindful of what it is leading the world into.    Israel is the country with the weapons of mass destruction, the germ warfare, as has America and England.   One does not have to be a genius to work out that with world globalisation that Islam will not sit by and watch their countries being pounded into oblivion.    And Indonesia with all those Islamic people who love to hate Australia and from their point of view, see us as very decadent.

How I could describe what the “terrorist” or freedom fighters depending on one’s POV is that they’ve realised they can’t compete with heat seeking missiles that America etc etc can fire on unsuspecting populations.  And just wait until America get their space ships armed.   Perhaps they are already!     To counteract, the imbalance, they instead kick the giant in the shin and bring him further down to their level so as to make their presence felt.   They use their bodies as weapons because they don’t have the machinery that the Western World has. China has acquired our manufacturing base of Australia, leaving us vulnerable to takeover because we’ve kept neither the machinery nor the human expertise trained up to leave us self sufficient.    But we can always play with our mobile phones and drink coffee while Rome burns!

“World Leaders”  are making choices for dying in quite a different manner than Jesus, God or Allah ever intended.   To see small children damaged beyond recognition with Israelite weapons  (talk about killing ants with a bull dozer!).   Has it not occurred to the Jews to give back the land they took from the Arabs in the six day war, and make love and peace a viable alternative to the madness that is the “get even” mentality that does no one any good.   We are not about “religious tolerance”, we are about Power and Greed and whatever it takes to achieve it.    I am ashamed to be an Australian under this Government!.    I am ashamed of men who would seek to destroy everything in their path to prove their power over another human being.    I am ashamed that Mr Hicks is kept in solitary confinement, handcuffed to a floor……   My God, is it any wonder I have no faith in a God!!!!     Many men, in the name of God,  are Evil – we don’t need a “devil” to scare us……..we have our Governments doing that very well!

Letter Age Friday July 14, 2006:

Dying with Dignity is a Common Goal

Palliative care is essential, and if Juliette Harris (Making Life a burden), Opinion 13/7) can guarantee me a painless dying in which my dignity remains in tact, I am behind her 100 per cent.

But if I am one of the 10% of people for whom modern pain relief doesn’t work, or if I don’t want to be dying in a bed full of my own excrement because my bowels have packed it six weeks before I die, or I choose while competent, not to be a drooling vegetable for years who the hell is she to order me to suffer for her ideals?

The Dying with Dignity movement is just that – a movement that argues than an individual should be free to die with dignity, and should not be forced to suffer horribly at the end of their lives to assuage the moral qualms of strangers.   Palliative care should include the option of a peaceful death, and it should be the choice of the individual doing the dying.  To die with dignity is a goal common to palliative care and the Dying with Dignity reform groups

Janine Truter, The Basin

Letter Age Saturday, July 15, 2006

Palliative care’s painful lesson:

Juliet Hughes (opinion 13/7) when my mother was dying in unrelenting (yes hopeless) agony last year, we found the palliative care promise was a lie.

It existed in name and theory, but could not or would not help: there was always someone closer to death they needed to help – and besides, more painkillers would only hasten her death.

In desperation I called Dying with Dignity Victoria, which was a tremendous source of support.

Did it mention euthanasia? No, not at all.   We received guidance as to what palliative care we could legally demand, and only in the last few days finally got it from the system.

Alana Bourke, Box Hill

Have just returned home from viewing a preview of a DVD which is to be made available in Australia,

Flight from Death, the quest for immortality. 85 mins duration with Director Patrick Shen and Co-Producer Greg Bennick.  

“From the very moment of birth, death is a reality that every living creature will inevitably experience – but what is death, really? In this mind-blowing documentary  narrated by acclaimed actor Gabriel Byrne, the research of late cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker is explored to revel his theory of death as the primary motivator of human behavior – especially in regards to aggression and violence.

Hailed by many viewers as a “life transformational film” Flight from Death has taken American audience by storm.   Featuring an amazing cast of scholars, authors, philosophers and researchers this is a film that is “not only thought provoking” but also entertaining and put together with a lot of class” Eric Campos. Film Threat

For more information on the film visit: http://www.flightfromdeath.com

Choice’s Comment: Excellent analysis of a grim subject which was handled with humor and down to earth commentary.   The book, Denial of Death by Ernest Becker was partly responsible for starting the Director and Producer on their journey of discovery.  A bonus for me on the night  was to talk a little to the Co- Producer Greg Bennick who at 4 am in Seattle was having a deep and meaningful chat by telephone link up with the audience,  about death…..He’d personally spent some four years involved in its making.  The topic covered a diversity of the earth’s population, and I thought it was a very well balanced view of how people think about death. 

It should be compulsory viewing for Leaders of most countries involved in conflict.

The film makes me ask the question again!   Why is a Jewish, Australian, American or English life seen as more valued than an African, Indian, Chinaman or Arab?   Why does the West fight so hard to prevent a terminally ill person from a hastened death yet kills so indiscriminately those who want to live so desperately?   

The film provides possible solutions to some of these questions?   The film is not suitable for under 18 years olds, but I would recommend it to those who can handle the challenges provided by it.

It’s most important message for me was to show that how we live, will impact on how we die.   Die we will, without choice, but how we live is all about Choice!  All actions have consequences and our choices will reflect that.

This morning I am preparing a BBQ lunch (mainly in the kitchen) because it is really cold these days!  (hot vegies, no salads)  I am entertaining some 23 people including 5 small children and 2 bigger ones….It will be days like today that I appreciate the 8 wheeled contraptions that I store for just such an occasion.   When I gently suggested wheedling them down to two, there was a hue and cry from the females who are able to relax and unwind while said children squeal with delight as they bombard each other around the concreted area with just such entertainment in mind all those years ago…. cars parked safely on the street!I can’t dedicate time to the article written in the AGE, Thursday July 13, Opinion 15, headed up Making Life A Burden.   So reminding me of us gathered around my mother’s bed willing her desperately to die (where the cartoon has the vultures pictured), not to gain anything at all by her death, except the knowledge that she had no more pain.   We hark excessively about “being seen as a burden” by those opposed to voluntary euthanasia, yet rarely do we visit the issue from the POV of the “patient”.   The sufferer, be it loss of capacity to wipe their own bum, dry their own tears, hold their own glass, or just the sheer physical pain!.   I know what I am talking about but I wonder if the writer of the article Juliette Hughes has any idea at all the depth a person can sink in terms of tolerance to pain!.  How high would she shift the bar if it was herself disabled?….

I am so fed up with delicate, careful, sensitive and considered discussionssssss  about the issue of choice and dignity in dying.  Oh yes, and the sanctity of life and being able to be soldiers and suffer which will make us wonderful candidates for the next life’s fun!

Let Juliette Hughes and her compatriots do with their life what they will and for God’s sake, leave us to address our own needs.   We would prefer a medically assisted death when our tolerance for pain exceeds a human’s compassion to endure but until the law is changed to enable more than words, teas and sympathy we will endeavor to find ways to achieve an end to intolerable pain.  The fact that women get it so wrong so many times means sales of ropes will continue to soar.   Men rarely fail in their task!   18% to 5%!  overdosing is not reliable     Medically assisted dying with just the prescription should make everyone’s life easier.   It doesn’t have to be used, but it does need to be filled!….

For myself I want my Advance Directive/Living Will made a legally binding document.   This will not happen with a Labor Government in Victoria should the current status quo remain, but I remain optimistic in the long term that the baby boomers coming up now won’t tolerate the lack of political will and will vote someone into power who can make the necessary difference.   Mr Baillieu may take on board the advantage of 76% who may not see the need for a good death today – but are surely aware that death will not escape any of us.  He may not succeed into power this election but then again, perhaps he might!

There was an excellent response to this article  “Dying with dignity is a common goal” written by Janine Trutor, The Basin written under Letters to the Editor Friday July 14…… I will reprint it tomorrow when I had more time…. for those who don’t have access to an Age.     

Yesterday was the anniversary of my mother’s death.   The single most important incident in my life which led me at a youngish age to become involved in consideration of choices about the manner of a person’s death.     In 1983 I could so easily have been charged with my mother’s murder as I very seriously considered pulling all those “life sustaining plugs” after she was declared brain dead, following a stroke”….  A defining moment in my life was that I chose my daughter’s HSC educational needs over my mother’s needs.  Lesley Martin in New Zealand chose her Mother’s wellbeing above all others.   I have never met her but to me she is a hero and a truly wonderful daughter.  She made the ultimate sacrifice that I didn’t!.   I could have shorten my mother’s distress as I watched her dying.   The awful thing is that given the same circumstances I would still have put my daughter before my mother!  We shouldn’t have to chose between the two!….  The law should enable life support systems to be turned off immediately there is no reasonably chance of recovery…..with the same speed dedicated to those waiting for heart, lung transplants!……Last night I learnt that my very self sufficient friend of fifteen years who has survived three bouts of cancer to my one, now has a 5 cm blood clot on her brain.   She is 70 years.  A woman who has devoted her whole life to a healthy life style, where sport and diet were a daily ritual for her.   She is very philosophical about her prognosis, unable to read and slurred speech, she’ll be operated on within the week.    She never comes onto this site!.   It is morbid for her and she can’t see a purpose in trying to persuade politicians.  She hopes the doctors will do what needs to be done to ensure her comfort.   Fortunately for her, she will be admitted to a hospital that is not influenced with religious overtones, so that’s a very good start.   The comfort of knowing she is in good hands will bring her the peace of mind so necessary at this time in life.

Yesterday morning I went to a doctor for a sleeping pill prescription, wearing my blue VE badge.  Asking about it I explained.   As the doctor was Chinese I assumed he would be Buddhist and said that I understood Buddhists did not agree with the concept of VE.  The belief of a life hereafter, for Buddhists means there was no purpose in shortening one life as another just replaced it with penalties for having “cheated” this one..  I said that on the other hand I had no such belief and showed him my tattoo Do Not Resuscitate – He asked me if it was genuine.    The doctor commented that I could be seen as “irrational”. (wrong comment to make to me! but as he wasn’t my usual doctor, I let it go through to the keeper)

He had vaguely heard of “Nitschke” but couldn’t remember the name and had never heard of Dr Rodney Syme.    I am appalled that so many Health Workers don’t know of others in the forefront of working so hard on behalf of ordinary citizens who want a good death made legal.   So many nurses are not informed of the Medical Treatment Act 1988.   Don’t people read newspapers?    Usually when people work in an Industry their eyes automatically stray to articles written around what they’re involved in……health, hospital, dying……… perhaps not!     Looking at the TV documentary on the study of Genes and their manipulation, perhaps we are only concerned with living forever….perhaps, death who is being ignored…won’t happen to us!  Yeah, Right!

I went back into my diary for 2005 and looked to see what I’d written for that day last year only to find it was the record of the Right to Life Conference held at Trinity College Melbourne.   It was a record of an experience that brought me back to mother earth with a thud on hearing first hand, how Right to Lifers “campaign” for what they see as their god given right to tell the rest of society how to live and die.    Ms Margaret Tighe was recently reported as saying it is “tragic” that a dying person has to go overseas.  It is entirely the result of people such as herself that this “tragedy” occurs in the first place and it won’t be the last.   I watched her last year ageing gracefully without a hair out of place and her scarf thrown carelessly over her shoulder, but ageing nevertheless, and I thought then, that she’ll soon be learning a new understanding as she realises the testing of her faith in ways she can’t imagine yet.I had expected the 12/7/05 entry to be more personal as for me this date is an anniversary of a number of major events in my life.   But a year ago I was perhaps more “fired up” on the day,  with the passion that people like me have, in believing that we each can make a difference.

I was born on this day in 1942, I was married (a second time) on this day in 1976, I returned to work on this day in 1999 after the most devastating illness of my life.  

Being born for me,  was not a celebration of life.  There were many times in my life  I’d wished I hadn’t.   But – I had been – so I struggled through a bad childhood, and into bad teens…..I survived without an education, without parents (incest Father, deserted by Mother) I must have done something wrong….. I was alone in the world, unloved and uncared for!    Family lost for a time.  I found my mother when she crossed the road in front of me in North Melbourne and I followed her in my car to see where she went into, and then I rang her.  Cold turkey!   I then found my siblings again!  I started to pull myself together, I married briefly, had children and from then on I took on an entirely different personality.   I know that colleagues from my past workplaces would have seen me as “driven”,  that I was seen as hard and unrelenting (good Convent training meant I didn’t need a supervisor to ensure I worked hard).  I worked with dedication and would say to anyone today that I came up through the school of hard knocks.   Eventually at the age of fifty I went to Melbourne University and graduated with a piece of paper, but in reality I was self taught and motivated!

I never lost my sense of justice and a fair go for anyone!   In the playground I would not tolerate one child bullied another, and we laugh around the kitchen table even today how I would take on even the biggest kid to defend my sister’s honour.   I would grab the razor strap, in mid flight, from my mother or my father’s hands to stop them beating us, while my sister curled and huddled in a corner to protect herself I was out there trying to stop it!……Not much has changed I would say….. I am still pushing forward, rather than sitting back and waiting for things to happen for me.  I don’t appreciate being bullied as people don’t, I just try and do something to stop it.   Hence my activism for choice and dignity in death.  I don’t want to be bullied by a system that “disempowers” the weaker Australians, those less able to stand up for their rights in the Health System than the strong vocal self interest lobby groups that make up the majority of the power brokers.

I also believe passionately in the power of the mind (as does Mr John Howard and look how it works for him.  Not many people interviewed in the streets appear to see anything wrong with his lack of honesty and integrity).   For me, it got me back to work at a time when goal setting was essential to my survival and purpose in life.   It doesn’t matter at all now, but it did then.

Talking of John Howard reminds me that under his new Industrial Relations Laws, people like me won’t have the security of goal setting by returning to work.   The employer will be able to sack the sick and the ill as being unsuitable for employment.   We’ve certainly come a long way under this Prime Minister’s Leadership.    People will be able to starve themselves to death as they pay off their mortgage and struggle to retain any semblance of health.    Is Mr Howard soften Australians up to introduce the American Health System where only the wealthy can afford medical care?.    One can’t have wealth without employment!

Happy Birthday to me – I never thought I would live this long and “had asked to apply for the Senior’s Card early, while 59 because I thought I would not live long enough after sixty to benefit from it”.   It is these sorts of odds I like when I work for legislative change.   Perhaps it will happen, but not in my life time.  In 1999 no one, who knew my case,  thought that I would still be alive in 2006.

Thank you for the kindness of my friends and relatives in making this a very special day.   In particular I loved the message I received from one young lady who thanks me for including me on my journey for Choice and tells me I am a true inspiration.  I am supported by really genuine friends and it makes me keep on going even when I begin to tire.   I pick myself up, brush my self off mentally, and start all over again.

It is always a humbling experience to be told that I am “an inspiration”.  I do hope I can inspire one or two politicians!