SCC reverses course on doctor-assisted death
Woo hoo! For personal reasons, I am quite happy about this.
CBC radio just announced this, but this is the only online source I can find at the moment:
http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/scc-reverses-course-on-doctor-assisted-death-1.2223493
= new reply since forum marked as read
How awful that must have been.
My Dad had never been sick a day in his life, he was so looking forward, after working so hard to provide for all 9 of us and my mom, to retiring, playing cards with the boys, tinkering in his shop. He got ill suddenly, a pre-leukemia and we'd only just begun to see the specialists, see what could be done. Two of his sisters had died from cancer, he told me he never wanted to go through that. All his life he said, if I ever get sick and have to live on a ventilator, or get some form of dementia, etc. - shoot me. He said it with a smile, but after about three months of transfusions, IV's - he hated them, a few ambulance trips as he was so anemic, he said goodnight to me, he'd see me in the morning. I found him about an hour later outside by his shop. It was in 2010 but my heart still feels like an elephant is sitting on it every second of the day and night, he was my hero and best friend. I was always a 'daddy's girl', he could just look at you and know if things were ok or not, he didn't talk about things like feelings and that sort of thing much, but would never fail to make you feel better with his silly jokes or whatever he could do. Sorry .... I'm rambling. But I don't want anyone else to ever go through this. I'm very happy to see this SCC decision.
What a horrible thing, to find your dad that way. I completely understand how it haunts you, and I am so very, very sorry about your pain.
My dad was rarely sick in his life, and never anything serious. But then he started having pains in his back and ribs. He mentioned them to his doctor, who dismissed them as "old age." My dad was 76 at the time. My dad endured the pain for a few months, until is was unbearable. At that point, my mom took him to urgent care, where they diagnosed him with a broken rib, taped him up, gave him some pain pills, and sent him home. My mom wasn't convinced -- he was in so much pain -- so she drove to the ER, where they eventually diagnosed him with advanced bone cancer. The doctor there was livid. Turned out it was metastasized colon cancer, but why quibble. 
He was bedridden from that point forward, on a steady morphine drip. I was living in Canada, and my family took two weeks to tell me because they didn't want to upset me. I flew back to LA the next day. My dad was surprisingly lucid for a couple of days, which allowed us all to visit with him and say what we needed to say. By the third day, though, he was in and out, mostly out. On the fourth day, he called me over and asked if I could get his gun. We talked a little about his plan, and I told him I couldn't do it, but that I'd ask if they could increase his morphine. He was crying. I can tell you: You should never have to see your dad cry.
He died less than 3 weeks from the time he went to urgent care. I don't know how much longer he might have lasted had they caught it earlier; but to this day I have no patience for doctors who dismiss out of hand people's complaints as "old age." Such "diagnoses" are lazy and incompetent, as far as I'm concerned.
Being mis-diagnosed and in pain, not knowing if the doctor's know what they're treating you for is correct - such a horrible thing to live with. I can understand why the ER doctor was livid, and am so sorry, just terrible. Seeing your Dad cry just breaks my heart. I've worked in health-care much of my life and like you, I've lost all faith in doctors who don't seem to push very hard for the elderly. I've seen too much of it and what it does to not only the pt, but the families, like yours. Now I phone straight to the specialists for anything concerning my mom, and keep it up until I do get an appointment. I haven't been to my family doctor since my Dad died. He was his doctor also, and treated Dad more like a friend with the flu or something than anything else. I was the one who had to push to see his specialists - my Dad got so weak between transfusions and absolutely hated the long trips to the city but at that early point still wanted to live, so badly. I think he just finally decided he didn't want to put us all through a prolonged terminal illness .......... but we had only just begun.
I'm so, so sorry for what you all went through.
everyone should have the right to die with dignity with their family around them. If we, as a country, had done the right thing years ago many would have chosen physician assisted death I have no doubt instead of the desperate and devastating choices they made instead.
My health is good now but I want the right to choose were it to change in a devastating way.
