Last Month I Helped Someone Die

I’m not a nurse or a doctor or a chaplain. I’m a writer, when I can find the time, and my day job is working in the business management division of an accounting firm.

Turned out, my skills, my own experience with and knowledge about breast cancer, and my friendship, helped her go out on her own terms.

Most of us are uncomfortable thinking or talking about death. We know we’ve got to die, someday, we know that people we love are going to die, someday, but talking about death, planning for death, is taboo for the most part. It’s like Death is a bill collector; we think if we pull the shades and don’t answer the door, we can postpone dealing with it forever.

Except, of course, we can’t.

When my friend, who’d been diagnosed and treated for “triple negative” breast cancer in August 2017, reported to me in March 2019 that she was going to see a doctor because of serious pain in her elbow joint, and also, mysterious bumps on her head, plus other ailments, she was worried that her cancer had returned, and metastasized.

It had. In a matter of weeks, she went from being able to walk five miles a day, feeling strong and well, to being disabled and requiring 24/7 care to eat, bathe, and dress.

She wanted to use California’s Death With Dignity Act. Would I help her?