BRITANNY MAYNARD LATEST STATUS:
Brittany Maynard carries a prescription in her wallet. It was written by a doctor in Oregon, one of five states with legal protections for terminally ill patients who want to end their suffering. And in three weeks, she plans to use it to die.
Maynard has chosen to die Nov. 1 in her bedroom in Portland, Ore., surrounded by family — her mother and stepfather, her husband and her best friend, who is a physician. She said she wanted to wait until after her husband’s birthday, which is Oct. 26. But she is getting sicker, experiencing more pain and seizures, she told People in an exclusive interview.
“I’ve had the medication for weeks,” she wrote in an op-ed for CNN. “I am not suicidal. If I were, I would have consumed that medication long ago. I do not want to die. But I am dying. And I want to die on my own terms.”
On New Year’s Day, Maynard, 29, was diagnosed with brain cancer. Nine days later, doctors performed a partial craniotomy and a partial resection of her temporal lobe to keep her tumor from growing. She was given up to 10 years to live. Then in April, doctors learned that the tumor had returned. Her initial diagnosis was elevated to a stage 4 glioblastoma, a malignant brain tumor. And the prognosis was grave — only six more months.
Maynard qualified for physician-assisted suicide in Oregon, one of ahandful of states that permits it under its Death with Dignity Act. Since it was enacted in 1997, 1,173 people in the state have had prescriptions written for lethal medications. Only 752 of them have used the drugs to die as of 2013.
Four other states — Montana, New Mexico, Vermont and Washington — have similar laws. Bills have been introduced in seven other states.
