The husband of Brittany Maynard, who passed away last year after utilising Oregon’s “die with dignity” laws, has given an interview with People magazine speaking of his plans to honour his late wife’s memory.
Dan Diaz, Brittany’s widower, told the magazine and Meredith Vieira his wife had decided beforehand that if she was feeling well on November 1, that she would delay her death.
But a seizure in the morning led to her decision to follow through on dying with dignity that day, 43-year-old Diaz said.
“It was a reminder of what she was risking because what was coming next was losing her eyesight, becoming paralyzed, inability to speak and she’d be essentially trapped in her own body,” Diaz told Vieira.
Diaz described how after breakfast, he and Maynard took a walk with friends and family and their dogs near home.
After the hike, she knew it was time to take the lethal mix of drugs. She mised her prescribed sedative with a glass of water, drank the concoction surrounded by loved ones, and was talking and joking until she fell asleep.
“She was tired of the pain, the discomfort, the suffering, the seizures,” Diaz said.
“Within five minutes she was asleep. And within 30 minutes, her breathing slowed to the point where she passed away. She was surrounded by the people she loved and her passing was peaceful,” he said.
“‘It truly was the most peaceful experience that you could ever hope for when you talk about a person’s passing,” he said.
Previously, Mamamia wrote:
Brittany Maynard did so much, in her short life, for the cause of dying with dignity.
She passed away peacefully at home on 1 November after taking a lethal dose of prescribed drugs — but her beautiful work here is not done.
On Wednesday, which would have been her 30th birthday, Maynard — who moved to Oregon, USA, to make use of the “dying with dignity laws” after a battle with terminal brain cancer — has appeared in a new video.
In the video, entitled Take Action for Brittany and released by end-of-life choice advocacy organisation Compassion & Choices, Maynard urges all US states to pass laws allowing terminally ill people to die with dignity.
“I hope that other American citizens, all these people that I’m speaking to that I’ve never met.. that this choice will be extended to you that this right,” Maynard says in the video.
“I decided to share my story because I felt that this issue of death with dignity is misunderstood,” she said.
“I really wanted people to understand that as I went though the process of being approved for death with dignity that I felt very values by my physicians here, and very protected. There’s no way that i could possibly have been coerced into this,” she said.
“It’s not a fear-based choice, it’s a logic-based choice.”
Five states in the US currently allow terminally ill people to end their lives. According to Compassion & Choices, legislators in about a dozen states plan to introduce right-to-die laws next year.
Maynard, who made international headlines when she launched an online video campaign with Compassion & Choices, wrote a moving post to Facebook the day before her death.
“Goodbye to all my dear friends and family that I love. Today is the day I have chosen to pass away with dignity in the face of my terminal illness, this terrible brain cancer that has taken so much from me … but would have taken so much more,” she wrote in the post.
“The world is a beautiful place, travel has been my greatest teacher, my close friends and folks are the greatest givers. I even have a ring of support around my bed as I type …
“Goodbye world. Spread good energy. Pay it forward!
Ms Maynard is survived by her husband Dan Diaz, 43.
An earlier video released by Maynard:
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We discussed Brittany Maynard’s legacy in the Mamamia OutLoud podcast. And dedicated this episode to Brittany. Have a listen.
Top Comments
If you agree with what this brave young woman has done and you think we should be able to access a similar thing in Australia please go to http://petershort.com.au and sign Peter's petition.
Peter has a terminal illness and this brave man is fighting in the last months of his life to get our laws changed in Australia to give people with a terminal illness the right to die with dignity. He is so brave and so strong, just like Brittany was and I am in awe of their strength, courage and determination. Please get behind Peter and his fight, he needs all the help he can get......
To die with dignity should be the right of everybody and I applaud Brittany attempting to bring this right to others. If I was suffering from a terminal illness I would like to be able to choose when to die, not only to save myself more pain and suffering, but to spare my family and friends that pain. It's not somebody elses right to choose that for me.