According to an email received overnight I’m advised SBS is planning to repeat the screening of Do Not Resuscitate, Davor Dirlic’s 2006 Documentary.

It is expected to screen on Tuesdays, March 23rd (Pt 1)  and the second episode on March 30th.  Time to be advised, but one could expect after 8.30 pm…..

I was reminded again of the absolute frustration I felt at having that bottle of Nembutal in my hand, and the great degree of difficulty I had trying to get the bloody top off, only to pour it down the toilet!!  Yes I did actually pour it out and yes, I did not bring any illegal substance back,,,,except a bag of sweets, which I failed to declare (I don’t see lollies as food! and of course, they weren’t for me anyhow)  They had pictures of skulls and my friend collected them, something different, from Mexico’s Day of the Dead!….

I was reminded again of my naivety in thinking or believing that anything I did, could actually make a “State Government” policy difference.    I remembered sitting on the steps of Parliament House and crying like a baby with the stress and distress of the failed Physician Assisted Dying Bill which never got off the ground in spite of all the work that had been done to prepare it for consideration. Liberal and Labor combined to destroy any hope of a regulated system that would provide for choice and dignity in dying!   My distress was no act! but I think I lost something of myself on that day….It was an accumulation of ten years of lobbying….the hard slog, when I was neither young nor fit!    I found myself very weepy for the following week.  My attitude had to change, if I was going to lead a meaningful life outside of worrying about my dying process.

I’ve decided that I will endure a degree of acute pain in the very short term, in order to prevent ongoing suffering, as a end of life choice.   I don’t know yet how, but of course, I’ve  given it hours of consideration.  I’m no hero!, so I want the best end my limited resources can provide for.   With arthritis making its presence felt, my mobility could become a serious problem in the long term, and its these little hiccups that one has to make provision for.

No, I am not promoting suicide, I am merely telling it the way it is for me!   Others can make their own choices.

In Australia it is illegal to use a telephone, fax, email or the internet to discuss or research assisted suicide.  Downloading the handbook, The Peaceful Pill Handbook, carries a $110,000 fine and the Documentary actually picks up on some of my many months of activism in the City of Melbourne, but again ill health prevented me from continuing.   The first rays of a winter sun don’t hit the steps of Parliament House until after 11 am, a long time to stand in freezing weather for a Cause!

Importing Nembutal is also a criminal offence because the drug is a border controlled substance and the maximum penalty for bringing it in is 25 years jail or a $550,000 fine.

I remembered a few year ago reading about a Catholic Priest dealing with the suffering of the terminal ill patients in his Palliative Care Unit and in response to a question about voluntary euthanasia said “Give them tea and sympathy, but nothing stronger!”…. I am terrified that I could end up in a unit with that mentality and a recent Four Corners documentary showed that nothing has changed.

Happily for me at this stage of MY life, the Government really can’t do much about someone like me, criminal that I am!    I don’t have much future left for them to bugger up for me, and having survived a Catholic Convent childhood, nothing they can throw at me in the way of imprisonment is going to have much impact……As long as they don’t mind supplying the prednisolone should we get that far, we’ll have a comfortable arrangement!   I must also ensure I don’t become a burden on the State!

I wish that the media would stop putting those inane little references about help or information about end of life choices, referring people to beyondblue rubbish whenever suicide is mentioned!   The desperately ill are  through the talking! and they want ACTION!.     The majority of people considering death are usually in the queue waiting to die for whatever reason, the majority have no choice about the fact they are looking at death in the face! usually it is a cancer, or a grave medical condition. They’re dying slowly and badly!!!   That the majority of people considering suicide are doing so with good reason from their point of view and their ability to ensure pain with no hope of recovery!    No amount of ‘talking’ will take their pain away!   They’re usually ready to die, because quite frankly the living, is just too bloody hard!  and one has to experience real pain to understand their physic…..nothing to do with being depressed, but I for one,  am certainly not going to jump hoops and pretend I’m happy when I’m hurting! and badly!!

The government should be providing the solution to acknowledge what 88% of Australians want, legislated reform for end of life choices.