We all have read or experienced the suffering involved with advanced prostate cancer.
There are possible alternatives to letting the doctors decide our fate. Hopefully, most will perservere with medical care.
I have heard of several alternatives. One was using medication, plastic bags and sleeping pills, the second involved using Nitrogen. Have you heard of people using these or other options?
Please be advised I am not suicidal. I just want to have an option available - as reassurance.
Sincerely
19 Replies
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a significant fraction of prostate cancer deaths are due to not waking up, on opioids.
Sounds easier than moving to a death with dignity state; or lingering in hospice.
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I dont know the details.
I heard a talk by Dr Pienta who said the mechanism of death for most of those who "died of prostate cancer" was the wasting syndome (cachexia - caused by friendly fire), or not waking up, or embolism. Not lung mets or liver mets.
Sometimes of course other things. Like brain mets. Or penumonia.
This was from a smaller study of people in his hospital, and I dont know if many people have a better idea, or not.
That, or move to an assisted suicide state (already did that). I have no intention of burdening my devoted wife OR the end of my life with all that terminal cancer horror. If a state or our new federal AG succeeds in prohibiting that, I plan to use something much louder, messier, and more sudden, in view of the media to make my point that it's MY damned life, not theirs and not God's, we're talking about. I keep discussing this openly in the hopes it will build up my confidence to carry out that promise. This will also include finding some way to stop my doctors from prolonging my life at any expense in refusal of my legally binding codicil to let me die without heroic measures, as many doctors and hospitals do simply because they HAVE so many such measures now and care more about their own egos* than they do about their patients.
* I almost added "and oath", but on what planet does "Do no harm" mean "Make the poor SOB and his wife suffer intractable, bedridden, incommunicable pain for a year or two just because they can"? How does subtracting years from our caregivers' lives to prolong our terminal agony by a year meet that oath?
Maybe the worst part of forcing terminal pts to shoot themselves in the head (or use the bag) is that it forces them to do it much sooner than doctor-assisted suicide would be done, because the former requires doing it much sooner, while self-sufficient and mobile and fully cognizant, lest the wife be convicted of involvement in the pt's death. I'll have to get my hands on a gun, notify the media that there will be a public announcement they do not want to miss, transport myself to the event, prepare a speech, all at arm's length of my family, just because the GD government considers me ITS property. That's just WRONG.
Some persons advocate to take meds to get in a deep sleep, just prior to sleeping you put your head in a plastic bag sealed at the neck. Because you body will struggle to beathe the meds will keep you from waking up and you will become deceased due to lack of oxygen.
I have two books- "The Peaceful Pill Handbook" by Dr Philip Nitschke and Dr. Fiona Stewart; and, "Peaceful Dying" by Daniel Tobin, MD. I haven't read them...yet.
Also, the doctor that took care of my previous wife near the end of her 15 year illness told me that, "If you want to die, don't drink water for 3 days (have those hospital mouth moisture "suckers" on hand), or don't eat for a week."
I've lost 3 loved ones to bone cancer (2 prostate, 1 breast cancers). Not how I want to go.
Search Google for "suicide bag" or "exit" bag for explanations.
Personally, if I could get drugs that controlled my pain to a tolerable level, I think I'd much prefer that to suicide.
He's talking about Kevorkian and the whole Death With Dignity movement our new federal AG want to ban.
I am far from being in a state of pain and suffering yet this subject remains in the forefront of my mind. I agree totally with the death with dignity movement. I resent the religious types (AG?) who want to impose their morality on the rest of us, just prolonging the suffering of those afflicted as well as their caregivers. Like a prior poster mentioned there is a loud and messy solution and I do have that access to that. I recall reading about a street drug that was so powerful that one pill was often fatal. I recall thinking to myself that it might be nice to have one of those should things really get bleak. No, I'm not suicidal but I guess I want to reserve the right to check out on my terms.
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Same here. But if some zealous cop or AG wants to prosecute anyone who could have conceivably helped us ... brought us our own gun or a pill, for example ... we must make certain they cannot be implicated. That will require doing it much earlier, more overtly, and very transparently. That very fact will be one of the points I make when it's time. e.g., "If assisted suicide were legal, I could have enjoyed another year of adequate QOL and done this on my deathbed rather than at this public forum, but you left me no choice." Some spouses have been convicted for some awfully silly excuses of assisting loved ones' demises, while others have been forced to just commit mercy killings and suffer the consequences. .
Perhaps, a pill packet pre-prepared by you and kept by your bed side, with an iphone video of you preparing it and your intent in preparing it and another iPhone video of you should you ever decide to use it would go a long way in addressing any concerns in this regard?
Yeah, I recall a fellow student downing a similar quantity of booze. He lived to tell the tale but only after spending hours heaving his guts out.
Thanks for your replies. I thought I would share some of my findings:
a) Some persons advocate taking an overdose of heavy duty meds , place head in plastic bag secured at the neck. The sleeping pills will keep you sleeping when you body struggles to breathe.
b) An Australian site suggests buy a tank (see link at end of paragraph) get it filled with Nitrogen and buy a regulator that you can set for 15 liters per minute, tape tube from regulator to inside of bag, let bag inflate with nitrogen, then exhale and place head in plastic bag.
I read that the company was originally selling nitrogen for the purposes of inducing death. When the company realized the government was going to stop them selling nitrogen they changed their business to brewing accessories. See this link with USA sites to order nitrogen, or search online.
The Australian site advocates nitrogen as the human body is not aware it is not breathing oxygen (so no struggle) and in time you body will experience oxygen deprivation and die.
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