Terminally Ill Brittany Maynard, Who Chose to Die on Her Own Terms, Passes Away [VIDEOS]
Terminally ill Brittany Maynard has ended her life, according to a report. The 29-year-old American woman gained prominent media exposure after deciding to end her life on her own terms before her disease took over.
Maynard was diagnosed with brain cancer on Jan 1, 2014. She had partial craniotomy and partial resection of temporal lobe to prevent her tumour from growing. She was given 10 years to live after her operation. However, in April, the tumour had returned, and had been elevated to stage 4 glioblastoma, the most aggressive type of malignant brain tumour. She was told she only had six months to live.
Instead of waiting for death to knock on her door, Maynard chose to come to it. She moved from California to Oregon to take advantage of the state’s death-with-dignity law. She explained her decision to end her life on November 1 in a video for Compassion & Choices, a non-profit organisation that advocates terminally ill patients’ right to end their own life. Her story quickly became viral, and she earned her share of supporters and critics who don’t approve her decision.
She also explained further why she opted to end her life on her terms in an opinion column for CNN, saying she would rather be home and accept her fate surrounded by her loved ones than suffer in hospice care for months. She planned to celebrate her husband Dan Diaz’s birthday on October 26 and do her last adventures with her beloved before her scheduled death.
On October 29, she posted another video on YouTube through Compassion & Choices, saying that it didn’t feel “the right time” to die. Her stance on assisted death did not change, clarifying that November 1 wasn’t her deadline as she pointed out in her first video.
On November 1, though, she went through her plan of ending her life by ingesting drugs prescribed by her doctor. People magazine quoted a goodbye message she apparently posted on her Facebook page.
“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 reportedly wrote on Facebook.
“This 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!”
Compassion & Choices spokesman Sean Crowley, however, could not confirm the young woman’s death out of respect for her family’s privacy, he told KGW.