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"Hope I die before I get old."
Topic Started: Aug 5 2015, 06:28 PM (195 Views)
George K
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Finally
Living Pete Townshend's Dream

Quote:
 
leading palliative care nurse with no serious health problems has ended her life at a Swiss suicide clinic because she did not want to end up as a “hobbling old lady”.

Gill Pharaoh, 75, who wrote two books giving advice on how to care for the elderly, was not suffering from a terminal disease.

She said she had seen enough of old age to know that she was “going over the hill” and wanted to take action to end her life while she was able to do so.

Speaking before her death in Basel, the mother of two said her experience as a nurse, including working in nursing homes, had shown her that the reality of old age was “awful”.

She told The Sunday Times: “I have looked after people who are old, on and off, all my life. I have always said, ‘I am not getting old. I do not think old age is fun.’ I know that I have gone just over the hill now. It is not going to start getting better. I do not want people to remember me as a sort of old lady hobbling up the road with a trolley.
...
Dr Michael Irwin, the co-ordinator of the Society for Old Age Rational Suicide (Soars), who helped the retired nurse with her plans to go to Switzerland, said: “Some will say that Gill was wrong to avoid the expected decrepitude of ‘old age’ but, having seen much suffering as a palliative care nurse, she took the rational decision that . . . she preferred to have a pre-emptive, doctor-assisted suicide.”

The former nurse had no major health problems, and was on no medication. She said she suffered from intermittent back pain following a bout of shingles, and had tinnitus.


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Piano*Dad
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Bull-Carp
Let's see. I have periodic back pain and tinnitus. Not to mention eye issues. I think I'm still productive, and I still enjoy living. Granted, I'm not 75.
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Mikhailoh
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If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
How long until it is your civic duty?
Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball
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Piano*Dad
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Bull-Carp
A Star Trek take on the timeless issue:


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Copper
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Shortstop
Mikhailoh
Aug 5 2015, 07:06 PM
How long until it is your civic duty?
How long until you can get a reverse mortgage on the parts?
The Confederate soldier was peculiar in that he was ever ready to fight, but never ready to submit to the routine duty and discipline of the camp or the march. The soldiers were determined to be soldiers after their own notions, and do their duty, for the love of it, as they thought best. Carlton McCarthy
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brenda
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..............
Her story seems rather sad. People can be very content and enjoy themselves for many years beyond 75.
“Weeds are flowers, too, once you get to know them.”
~A.A. Milne
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sue
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HOLY CARP!!!
bravo. making a choice, a personal choice. bravo.
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AndyD
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Senior Carp
The article is not quite accurate. As I remember her long time partner speaking on BBC radio 4 two days ago: At the age of thirty she said she was going to go at 50; at 50 it was 60. At 60 she said 70. She had a nasty bout of shingles from which she never completely got over, and had back pain that meant after simply walking down the garden and back she was exhausted. She slept in the afternoon. She felt she had lost a great deal of her quality of life. Her partner supported her decision to go at 75.
Also interviewed at the same time was a man who's wife changed her mind.
Every morning the soul is once again as good as new, and again one offers it to one's brothers & sisters in life.

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Friday
Senior Carp
The article said that she wasn't on any meds. How bad could the pain have been if she wasn't even taking anything for it?

She looks beautiful and vibrant in those pictures. It seemed she still had more to give the world.
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AndyD
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Senior Carp
The Radio 4 programme,interview starts shortly after 07.30 for about 10 minutes:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0640j57

Incidentally when my father was about 88 and in hospital after a 24-hour-stroke, the son of our long time family doctor & friend, and who happened to be a consultant and in charge of the geriatric unit at that time, talked to me briefly about caring for the very elderly and infirm.
He didn't admit out loud nor enter into any conditions he might put in place himself, but it was pretty obvious he was in favour of assisted suicide at some point.
I would find it hard to argue (morally or spiritually) with someone who has made it his life to care and yet has seen the suffering first hand, day after day.
Every morning the soul is once again as good as new, and again one offers it to one's brothers & sisters in life.

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TomK
HOLY CARP!!!
She would make an ideal liberal on Obamacare.
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