My husband Marc passed away on April 3, 2021 through medical assistance in dying for a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s.
Posted yesterday at 1:00 p.m.
Marc knew very well the evolution of the disease for having worked as a volunteer with people who were affected. Already, in 1999, he informed us that he would never die of this disease. He wanted to “die with dignity” and this had a great importance in his life values.
He was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in November 2019. He signed his request to receive medical assistance in dying in the weeks that followed. His decision had always been made.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR
Nicole accompanies her husband Marc to the hospital on a certain Saturday morning in April 2021. Marc was the first patient affected by Alzheimer’s disease to benefit from medical assistance in dying after the adoption of the law.
During discussions in Parliament on extending medical assistance in dying to people affected by Alzheimer’s disease, he asked me for summaries of all the exchanges. He waited day after day for our governments to open the door to medical assistance in dying.
The more time went by, the more he wondered what his cognitive losses would be when he woke up the next day… Losses that could jeopardize his ability to benefit from medical assistance in dying, lucidity being a mandatory criterion.
The rest of our lives hung on the debates on medical assistance in dying, but even more so on anticipated requests: “If they are accepted at the same time as medical assistance in dying, we will have a little more time together… he told me. Bill C-7 was passed on March 17, 2021, but advance requests have been postponed for later. Marc could not wait until later: at stage 5, Marc met all the eligibility criteria to receive medical assistance in dying, but he did not know if he would still have all the lucidity required to receive assistance medicine to die for if he waited. “I don’t want to miss the train!” he repeated.
He received medical assistance in dying on April 3, 2021, two weeks after C-7 was passed.
Die lucidly
If the advance requests had been accepted at the same time as C-7, we would have had a few more months together, maybe even another year, to experience moments of joy with our family, to enjoy his loving presence even with a memory failing, and be with him as far as he wanted to go. Because he had no access to “advance requests”, we left, hand in hand, for the hospital, one Saturday morning in April, to go and die “in all lucidity”, as the law requires. Again.
It is a major step that medical assistance in dying has been passed for cognitive neurodegenerative diseases, but this law will only take on its full meaning when the people concerned can also choose when they want to receive it!
In the name of Marc who is no longer, and of all the people whose end-of-life quality is suspended by a law which risks being postponed once again… I ask for a little more compassion. Because the “advance requests” were still being studied, Marc, my husband, my life companion, was forced to make an irreversible decision, to receive medical assistance to die quickly, before “missing the train”! That was a year ago, and nothing has changed. Voting for “advance requests” means removing the obligation to “die immediately because you have to be lucid”. Because the holidays have arrived and the works have been adjourned, there shouldn’t be any other “Marcs”!