An article in the Herald Sun Wednesday October 28, 2009

“In Brief”

Support for voluntary euthanasia is on the increase in Australia, with a new survey showing 85% of the country in favour of it.

The result from the poll, conducted by Newspoll on behalf of Dying with Dignity NSW, saw a five point increase in support from the results of the last survey, conducted in 2007. The poll found 84 per cent of Victorians supported euthanasia.

end article:

I have just finished reading the personal experience of Miklos Somogyi who set out to document the indignity of dying – a journey filled with his pain and rage as John Elder wrote in his Age Newspaper article on August 2, 2009. (published previously on this blog) But what I have is a 16 page personal account arising out of a prostate cancer which wasn’t diagnosed in time to prevent secondary cancer in his spine. Perhaps it is the same article John Elder used to write his article in the Age, but the style is much more personal as one could expect.

Dr Somogyi, a retired mechanical engineer of 72 is working on a project involving a computer program for the complicated mechanical components in 3D, a 5 year project in the making. The software is almost complete – he just needs another year of life and mobility to achieve his dream……

Miklos speaks of the day to day dramas of dealing with just living and surviving the treatments, the hospital system and his lovely caring wife Erika, who at the age of 72 herself is far from fit and able to shoulder the burden of being his carer. But she finds that strength because “she has to” as carers of really ill people do throughout Australia (and world wide)…

I received this gift of his story through a friend and now have a phone call into their residence to seek permission to publish it. I don’t know whether he is going to write a book , but I can’t think he would have the energy to focus on it now….
I am hoping to just post his story on the internet as is and hope all the politicians throughout Australia read it!

Dr Somogyi will no doubt seek his own methods to exit life on his terms when he has had ‘enough’, but I believe his story should be shared because he deals with attitudes to palliative care as the recipient of it, firsthand.

I felt I sat with him as he wrote his story………

I could feel his pain, imagine his grief at his loss of life style, and wonder at the strength of Erika to take him home and lovingly feed him her home made cooking while learning the skills of a carer….My brother in law used to bring me chicken soup for the soul food in hospital, and I relate so much with the human touch of home cooking…..