Almost everyone knows someone who has fought cancer. Many people even know someone who has lost the battle to cancer, but not many know someone who gave up to cancer.
I certainly don’t, but Brittany Maynard’s family does. Last week at the age of 29, Brittany, a terminal brain cancer patient from California, chose to commit suicide rather than die of her cancer.
On Nov. 1, she drank a lethal mixture of water, a sedative, and a respiratory system depressant. In doing so she joined approximately 750 people from Oregon who chose the same end since the Death with Dignity Act became law in October 1997.
In a glorifying interview with People magazine, Maynard called her choice to commit suicide “brave and dignified,” just like the cancer victims who fight their illness. This comparison is outlandish. Committing suicide is giving up. Fighting cancer is brave. My friend Jess fought, and I know she didn’t regret it.
Almost exactly one year ago, on Oct. 26, my friend Jess passed away from bone cancer at the age of 26. She had been diagnosed the previous May and the prognosis was not good. We were told that we had only a few months left with her and that chemotherapy would extend her time, but that she would be very sick.
Although Jess’s health progressed after extensive chemotherapy, within a few months the shrinking tumor in her pelvis eroded the bone and her fight with cancer continued.
As a runner, the day Jess found out she would never walk again was heartbreaking. But she did not give up. Not for one second. She was in a wheelchair that whole summer but somehow she managed to get a better tan than I did.
In the fall when I went off to college, Jess and I stayed in touch through letters. She never complained or even expressed her fears, so when the call came that she had taken a turn for the worse, I couldn’t have been more surprised.
When I got home I went to the hospital to say goodbye. Jess’s pain was so severe that doctors had to keep her in the ICU in order to deliver the strong pain medication she needed. The doctors said that if her pain worsened, they would induce a coma to alleviate the pain. I spent five hours with Jess that day and she was only awake for five minutes — but that was all that I needed to see that my friend was still there.
The next night she passed away in her sleep surrounded by her loved ones. She never gave up. She was dignified and brave.
Fighting is brave. Leaving a legacy of strength and determination is dignified. Brittany Maynard did neither of those things. She would not let herself suffer, not even to give her family more time with her. She left a legacy of selfishness and fear.
In lieu of all of the coverage surrounding Brittany’s choice, many fighters are forgotten. Lauren Hill, a 19-year old who is not expected to live to next year, just scored the first basket of her college career at her season opener this past weekend. Journalist Joan Lunden has documented her fight against breast cancer so people can see the details of her struggle to show other women that cancer is not the end.
By comparing something as weak as assisted suicide to the bravery required in fighting off death, Maynard takes something away from everyone who survived and succumbed to cancer. She cheapens the struggle of those who were brave enough to fight.
