10/9/2014 CNN Brooke Baldwin Interviews Stan Curtis, husband of Cancer patient Cody Curtis who ended her life and she's trying not to break down crying as he tearfully recalls his wife's final moment. Thank you': The last words of a terminally ill cancer patient who took lethal dose of drugs (Mirror.co.uk) Terminally ill cancer patient Cody Curtis gazed at her family around her bedside one last time after downing a lethal dose of drugs. But when she spoke her final words before slipping into a coma, it was not to say goodbye. All mum-of-two Cody, 54, said was “thank you”. Her gratitude may not only have been for the family who supported her decision to die – but also for the US state that allowed her to end her life in her own home. Oregon caused uproar across America when it became the first state to pass a Death with Dignity Act in 1997. Since then 673 people have taken lethal medication prescribed under state law. In Britain, the controversy over assisted suicide is back in the ­headlines. Cody’s death echoes the plight of Coronation Street ­character Hayley Cropper who decides to end her own life after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Tomorrow night viewers will see the transsexual take a cocktail of drugs before dying in the arms of her weeping husband Roy. The dramatic storyline has ­catapulted the debate back into the spotlight – and a new Assisted Dying Bill, likely to be before the Lords in May, could put an end to dying British patients having to travel to Switzerland’s Dignitas centre to take their own lives. At the moment anyone caught aiding them to commit suicide faces prison. But in Oregon, relatives, friends and doctors can help people in pain end their lives prematurely without fear of prosecution. DEATH WITH DIGNITY: 29 Year Old San Francisco Woman With Brain Cancer Plans To End Her Life On Nov. 1st SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) — Brittany Maynard, a 29-year-old woman battling stage 4 brain cancer from San Francisco, plans to die two days after her husband’s birthday on Nov. 1 by assisted suicide. As part of her legacy, she’s launched a nationwide campaign she’s launched calling for death with dignity laws. On Monday, Maynard released a YouTube video on her decision to move from her home state of California in order to access death with dignity laws in Oregon. The nonprofit Compassion & Choices is helping her go public with her choice through a campaign to expand assisted suicide laws around the nation. “I can’t even tell you the amount of relief it provides me to know that I don’t have to die the way it’s been described to me, that my brain tumor will take me on its own,” Maynard said in the six-minute video, which also includes interviews with her mother, Debbie Ziegler, and her husband, Dan Diaz. The newlywed, who was living in San Francisco at the time, learned she had terminal brain cancer last January after months of suffering from debilitating headaches. In April, UC San Francisco told her she had six months to live. “My husband and I were actively trying for a family, which is heartbreaking for us,” she says in the video. Maynard has glioblastoma multiforme, the most aggressive and lethal form of brain cancer. With few options in California, Maynard and her family moved to Portland where she met the criteria for Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act. Since the law went into effect in 1997, 1,173 people have had prescriptions written under the act, and 752 have used them to die. Maynard says she’s received a prescription for medication that will end her life painlessly if she chooses to ingest it. “I plan to be surrounded by my immediate family,” Maynard says in the video. “And I’ll die upstairs in my bedroom that I share with my husband and pass peacefully with some music I like in the background.” Currently, only four other states — Washington, Montana, Vermont and New Mexico — have laws to help terminally ill patients die. “Between suffering and being alive to decide enough is enough, which to me provides a lot of relief and comfort that OK that option is there,” says Diaz, Maynard’s husband. Maynard’s mom describes her daughter as a wanderlust who loves to travel. Since her diagnosis, she and her husband took a trip to Yellowstone. She’s also been to Alaska with her best friend and hopes to make it to the Grand Canyon, if her increasing pain and recurring seizures affords her the opportunity. cry tear powerful breakdown choke

• published: 09 Oct 2014
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