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Old 03-02-2023, 10:26 PM   #6
nfotiu
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Join Date: May 2002
Location: Virginia
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My Dad chose it in late summer 2019. He was an incredibly active cycler in his 70s and got a terminal pancreatic cancer diagnosis out of nowhere. He was pretty thin to start with and lost a lot of weight pretty quickly. Tried some chemo to help him get a few extra months but did more harm than good and was extremely happy that MAID was an option for him.

The biggest stress for him during that time was that he knew he had to be fully in control of his mental faculties to choose it. A couple months before he chose it, he was in a pretty awful spot of not being able to keep any food down or get out of bed and he started trying to arrange for us to get there quickly. Him being on Vancouver Island, and me living in Virginia with a couple young kids I had full custody of, it was a stressful year (Looking back, it is very lucky for all of us, it was just a year). Pancreatic cancer makes a mess of all your organs and chemistry, and he did go to the Dr. the next week and they found something in his bloodwork they were able to address, and he ended up actually having a very nice couple months where he was riding with my mom, and my kids and I had a very rewarding visit with him on an upswing.

He went downhill pretty quickly over the following month or two, and the time became more obvious, but he was still himself and went out on his own terms. I was there for the day or two before and it was incredibly surreal hanging out with your dad, who you knew was scheduled to die in a couple days. But it was so relieving to be able to be there with my mom when it happened. He and my mom felt so much peace that he could do that on his own terms and once it actually happened, it was very peaceful.

The one thing I would change is the stress that he had about making sure he didn't wait too long. In the end, it was definitely the right time, but it would have been very tragic if he and my mom missed out on that last special month because he felt pressured to choose it too soon.

That said, it is miles ahead of where we are in the US and it was such an amazing thing for my dad whose biggest fear was being an invalid that was a burden to anyone. I didn't actually even know it was a thing in Canada until my Dad told me that was his plan. It caught a lot of my American friends/family/coworkers off guard when I told them
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